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How to do the portal between fingers effect

To do the portal between fingers effect on your phone, open Mote, pick Portal and hold both hands up to the camera with your fingers facing each other: a new look opens live in the gaps between your fingers, with no editing afterwards.

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Illustration of the Portal effect: Frame a gap with your fingers and a new look opens inside it.
Portal card art from the Mote app

The gesture, step by step

  1. Open Mote and pick Portal.
  2. Raise both hands in front of the camera and face your fingers toward each other, as if you were framing a photo with your thumbs and index fingers.
  3. A new look opens in the gaps between your fingers and follows your hands as they move.

Press your palms together to switch to the next look, or tap the effect name.

  • Spectrum
  • Crystal
  • Scanner
  • Arcade

What makes it work

Live hand tracking
Mote tracks your fingers in every camera frame and draws the new look only inside the gaps between them, so the portal moves with your hands while you film.
No editing
The effect is drawn on the live camera, so the clip you record already has it.
Phones
iPhone (iOS 16.0 or later) and Android (Android 7.0 or later).
Price
Mote Pro (free download; Bubble, Light Trails and Web are free).
Recording
Up to 15 seconds free, 60 seconds with Pro. Save to Photos, or from Mote 1.3.0 share straight to Instagram Stories.
Mote App Store screenshot showing the Portal effect

Questions

Is the Portal effect free?

Portal is part of Mote Pro. Mote itself is free to download, and Bubble (iPhone), Light Trails and Web are free to use. Mote Pro is a weekly subscription with a 3-day free trial for eligible new subscribers, an annual plan or a one-time lifetime purchase; prices are shown in the app before you buy.

Do I need to edit the video to get the portal effect?

No. Mote draws Portal on the live camera while you film, using real-time hand tracking. What you see on screen is what gets recorded, so there is no timeline, keyframing or green screen.

Which phones can do the portal effect?

Portal works in Mote on iPhone (iOS 16 or later) and Android (Android 7.0 or later). On a phone where live hand tracking cannot start, Mote falls back to the Web effect.

Can I share it to Instagram or TikTok?

Yes. Record the clip in Mote, save it to Photos, and post it anywhere. From Mote 1.3.0 there is also a Share to Story button that sends the clip straight to Instagram Stories.

Do I need an account?

No. Mote works without an account, and hand tracking runs on your phone; camera frames are not uploaded.

More hand effects

All Mote effects