1SE or 1 Second Everyday is a video journaling app available on Apple and Android, which has one very simple premise: Record one second of video every day.
The concept is well-executed and the result is slick. Short videos are a must on social media now. 1SE makes it easy to create videos because of the one-second limit on each snippet. It’s quick to cut each snippet down to just the key moments for a snappy Instagram story or Reel.
Using Journal on 1SE to record a snippet of daily life
The main drawcard of 1SE is as a video journal: It’s intended to allow you to record one second of video every day and then Mash those into a video. You can Mash a video from the last month, last year, or a specific date range.
The Journal project type is where you store these memories. Open My Timeline and you’ll be prompted to add a snippet for the current day, or (and this is super cool), Auto-Fill backward in time from your media library.
When you click Auto-Fill, 1SE will look through your media for videos taken on each day, and ask for approval before it adds the found videos to My Timeline. This makes it super easy to Mash a video from the very first day you start using 1SE.
If you don’t have a video for a given day, then you can use a photo instead. These days show up in 1SE with a photo icon, and tapping the day lets you choose the media to add. 1SE will put a zoom effect on the photo when you Mash it into a video, so the difference is not too noticeable.
Using 1SE to create Freestyle videos for social media
As well as the coolness of the original Journal concept, you can create Freestyle videos. In these, you can add whatever clips you like to a mashed video. I created this one while doing a Lego build over Christmas. Here’s another one of my boys building a bird hide in our yard.
Just like in Journal mode, hit the Mash button at the bottom of the screen to create your video. Change the date range, speed, orientation and more, then click Save & Share to create the video.
Is it worth getting the paid version of 1SE for social media videos?
1SE is one of those rare apps that are free to use — without ads. If you do have the cash to spare, there are some tasty features that the pro version adds: Music, unlimited backups, unlimited projects, multiple snippets in a day and longer snippets of up to 10 seconds. You can also control over brightness and shadows in the snippet editor and turn off the date and/or 1SE branding to control the look of your video.
Perhaps the best feature of the pro version is Freestyle Collabs. With this kind of project, you can invite friends to collaborate on videos. Everyone can contribute their own memories to the project.
