Why Timefully publishes its data format

With Timefully 5.11, we’re releasing Open Sit 1.0 because your meditation history belongs to you. It’s an open file format for the sessions you’ve recorded: something you can read, keep, and move between compatible apps. This is why we’re publishing it, and why it matters to the kind of timer we want Timefully to be.

Your history is part of your practice

A practice log can hold years of small beginnings. The first week you sat every morning. Ten minutes in a hotel room. A note you wrote after a difficult day. The stretches when you returned, again and again.

Those entries can help you see a practice taking shape. They can also make a new app feel like a fresh start in the wrong way: an empty calendar where your history used to be.

We think you should be able to choose a timer without making that trade. Keep the history that matters to you. Use it in the place that suits your practice today.

Bring it with you. Take it with you.

Open Sit is a file you can understand

Open Sit puts meditation sessions in a documented JSON file. JSON is ordinary text with a structure that software understands. You can open it in a text editor and see when a session started, how long it lasted, and where it came from.

The format also has room for notes, the parts of a session, mood and intensity, and session-average health readings where available. Simple sits can stay simple. More detailed records have somewhere to keep their context.

The format itself needs no account or server. You can save the file with your other personal documents, make a backup, or give it to a compatible tool of your choosing. The Open Sit page includes examples you can read before using any of your own data.

A shared format opens up more choices

A change of app can carry a sense of continuity. The new Import Sessions hub brings Open Sit, Timefully CSV, and Insight Timer session-log CSV files into Timefully. Your practice log can begin with the sessions you already recorded.

A change of phone can become simpler. A common format gives iOS and Android the same language for session history. With Timefully 5.11, you can export on iOS and import on Android, or go the other way. It’s a file you move when you choose.

Your history can be useful in ways we haven’t built. Someone might make a personal practice journal, a different view of their patterns, or an independent meditation timer that reads Open Sit. A small, documented format gives those projects a starting point. You decide which tools receive your file.

These possibilities grow as compatible tools appear. Timefully 5.11 on iOS and Android are the first app implementations. You can also try the format in the browser, without installing anything.

The door should open in both directions

Welcoming history from elsewhere is one part of portability. Giving you a useful way to take your Timefully history with you is just as important.

With Timefully 5.11, every import and export is free, including profile-settings backups. The optional Pro features still have their place: statistics and the full archive beyond 60 days remain part of Timefully Pro. Bringing your history in and taking it with you are included for everyone.

The hub also offers imports from Apple Health on iOS and Health Connect on Android. That means mindful sessions other apps have already saved to the health platform on your phone, with your permission. What is available depends on what those apps recorded and what the platform permits.

Every import starts with a preview. You can review the sessions, see duplicates, and choose which recording apps to include when importing from Health. If you change your mind, you can remove an import afterwards. Imported history counts toward streaks and statistics. Your tree grows from the practice you do next.

Timefully exists to support a practice. Having the freedom to move your history is part of feeling at home here.

The details are part of the promise

Portability works when the meaning survives the move. Twenty minutes should still mean twenty minutes. A note should still be your note. A time zone should be explicit whenever the source has one.

That also means being clear about what a file cannot carry. Insight Timer’s session-log CSV gives us start times, durations, presets, and activities. It does not give us original time zones, notes, moods, or health readings. Our converter preserves what is there and asks which time zone to use. It cannot reconstruct missing information. Insight Timer offers a separate journal export; this converter reads the session log.

The browser tool reads and converts files locally, in memory. It does not upload file contents or filenames, save them to the website, or send them to analytics. This describes the file tool; our privacy policy covers the website and apps more broadly.

The specification, schema, and test fixtures are published under CC0 1.0 Universal, so other developers can reuse them without asking. Versioning is simple: additions stay within 1.x, and only a breaking change would mean 2.0. Timefully commits to reading every 1.x file for as long as the apps exist.

You can explore the format today

You don’t need an export to see how it works. The browser tool includes synthetic examples, a readable session preview, and downloadable files. If you have an Insight Timer session-log CSV, you can convert it into Open Sit locally and import it into Timefully 5.11. The app also reads the original CSV directly. Keep your original export as a backup.

If you build tools for meditators, Open Sit is ready to adopt. The specification, schema, and shared test fixtures give you a starting point for a compatible reader or exporter. We’d like to hear what you build and what your users need to preserve.

For us, the starting point is simple: a practice can last much longer than any particular phone, tool, or preference. Its history deserves to travel with it.