§ help & troubleshooting

How can we help?

Most questions are answered below. If yours isn't, write directly — a real person reads every message, and you'll usually hear back the same week.

↳ The fast lane

Write to a person, not a ticketing system.

Stabilize is a one-developer indie app. Emails come directly to Dennis in Berlin, get read the same day, and almost always get a reply within a couple of business days.

hi@dmrschmidt.de Report a bug with template ↗
Response usually 1–3 days · CET
§ 01

Quick fixes for common issues

// 01 — Export

Export fails or stalls

Make sure Stabilize has Photos write access in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos. For very long clips, free a few GB of storage and keep the app foregrounded during render.

// 02 — Purchase

Pro upgrade didn't unlock

Open the paywall sheet again and tap Restore Purchases. If you bought on a different Apple ID, sign in with that account first — purchases are tied to the ID that paid.

// 03 — Render quality

Still feels shaky

Open settings and increase the Smoothing radius. Long, slow shake responds to bigger windows. If the frame edges show borders, nudge Edge crop up by a few percent.

// 04 — Crop too tight

Result feels over-cropped

Reduce Strength first, not Edge crop. Lower strength keeps some natural motion in the shot and exposes fewer borders to crop in the first place.

// 05 — Rotation

Tilt / roll remains

Stabilize v1 corrects translation only — small left/right and up/down jitter. Rotational shake stays in the shot. A homographic upgrade is on the roadmap below.

// 06 — Audio

Audio missing in result

The pipeline passthrough-copies the source's audio track unchanged. If the original clip has no audio (silent or muted at capture), the stabilized output won't have any either.

§ 02

Restoring Stabilize Pro

New phone, reinstalled the app, or upgraded iOS?

Stabilize Pro is a one-time purchase tied to your Apple ID. We don't store entitlements on a server — restoring goes through Apple's StoreKit, which already has your purchase on file.

  1. Sign in to the App Store with the Apple ID that bought Pro.
  2. Open Stabilize and tap the upsell tile on the home screen.
  3. On the paywall, tap Restore Purchases.
  4. The PRO badge appears in the top bar within a second. Done.
  5. If it doesn't, email hi@dmrschmidt.de with your order number — we'll dig in with you.
§ 03

Frequently asked, briefly answered

Why is processing taking a long time on a long clip?
Stabilize runs a full two-pass pipeline: the first pass measures motion across every frame, the second pass renders the corrected video. Time scales roughly linearly with clip length. A one-minute clip typically processes in ten to twenty seconds on a recent iPhone; a ten-minute clip will take proportionally longer. Keep the app foregrounded so iOS doesn't throttle it.
Can I refund the Pro purchase?
Refunds are handled by Apple, not by us. Visit reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in with your Apple ID, find the Stabilize purchase, and request a refund. Apple decides on a case-by-case basis. We don't have access to your purchase or billing record.
I'm on the free tier and can stabilize but not save. Is that intentional?
Yes. The free version lets you stabilize and preview as many clips as you want so you can confirm the result looks good. Saving the result in full quality requires the one-time Pro purchase. No subscription, no time limit, no other restrictions.
Will Stabilize work on iPad?
The app is iPhone-only for now — it's tuned for handheld phone footage and the layout assumes a phone-sized screen. An iPad version isn't on the immediate roadmap, but if you'd find one useful, let us know.
Does it work in airplane mode?
Yes. The stabilization pipeline never needs an internet connection. The only network activity in the app is when Apple's StoreKit fetches the Pro product listing or validates a purchase — both go between your device and Apple. Nothing is sent to us.
What file format does Stabilize output?
H.264 inside a .mov container, written by Apple's AVAssetWriter. The original audio track is passthrough-copied without re-encoding. Color and orientation are preserved from the source's preferredTransform.
Can I batch-process several clips?
Not currently. Stabilize handles one clip at a time, end-to-end, before the home screen accepts the next one. Batch is on the wish list, particularly for users with lots of short clips from the same outing.
§ 04

Compatibility & specs

iOS version iOS 17 or later. The app uses @Observable, PhotosPicker, and async AVAsset APIs introduced in iOS 17.
Device iPhone only for v1. Optimised for iPhone 12 and newer, but runs back to whatever iOS 17 supports.
Input formats .mov, .mp4 — any video clip Apple's Photos can hand the system picker. HDR and Dolby Vision are read, but the output is currently SDR H.264.
Output H.264 in .mov, audio passthrough-copied, saved straight to your Photos library.
Motion model Translation only — Vision's VNTranslationalImageRegistrationRequest. Roll, pitch, and lens distortion are not corrected yet.
Network None. Stabilize makes zero outbound requests for the core feature. See the privacy policy.
Languages English. German and additional translations on the wish list.
§ 05

What's next

Shipped

Two-pass translation stabilization

Vision-based motion estimation, centered moving-average trajectory smoothing, edge crop, audio passthrough, on-device end-to-end.

In progress

Homographic motion model

Upgrade from translation-only to a full homography. Adds correction for roll, pitch, and small perspective shake.

Wish list

One-Euro filter & streaming render

Smoother response on intentional pans, plus a bounded-window streaming pipeline so multi-minute clips don't analyze in full before rendering.

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