Estimate a tree's weight, cuts, saw time and truck loads before the job. Demo — numbers are estimates.
The tree
1) Stand where you can see the top and the base. 2) Put your distance to the trunk below (tape it, or pace it: one normal step ≈ 2.5 ft). 3) Hold the phone upright, aim the cross at the very top and tap Top, then at the base and tap Base.
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Tap Find me, then tap the trunk to drop a pin, then tap the edge of the crown. You get the crown width and your distance to the trunk. Aerial photos: USGS National Map and USDA NAIP (public domain); a phone's location is usually good to 5–15 ft.
Have someone stand against the trunk (or lean a hard hat, yardstick or level on it). Step back until the whole tree fits and take the photo. Then mark your tree: draw around it with a finger (it pops out from the trees around it), or tap its top and base. Last, tap the top and bottom of the person or stick.
Branches coming off
Set the person or stick first (it gives the scale). Then choose a tool and drag on the photo: along a branch from the trunk to its tip, or around a group.
No phone handy? Four old ways to judge height
Stick (the forester's trick): hold a stick straight up at arm's length, with as much stick showing above your fist as your arm is long (eye to fist). Walk until the stick just covers the tree from base to top. Your distance to the trunk ≈ the height. Pencil "felling": at arm's length, line a pencil up with the tree, base to top. Turn the pencil sideways, keeping its bottom on the base. Have a friend walk out to where the pencil's tip lands; their distance from the trunk ≈ the height. Shadow: measure your own shadow and the tree's shadow at the same moment. Tree height = your height × tree shadow ÷ your shadow. Known height: have someone of known height stand at the trunk; count how many of them stack up to the top.
No tape for diameter? Measure around the trunk at chest height and divide by 3.14.
⚡ Within 10 ft of a power line: call the utility. Do not cut. Only trained line-clearance crews work this close (OSHA 1910.333 / 1910.269). The weights below are for planning with the utility only.
The job
Open 📷 Measure the height from a photo above, set the person or stick, then trace each branch or circle a group. The total shows below.
lb a person, up to people on one piece
up to lb
up to lb
up to lb
Heaviest piece the plan will cut: 1,000 lb (the most your checked ways can move). Each piece is labeled with the easiest way that can move it.
Pieces above the bottom log are shortened to your lift limit, but never below the shortest piece; if one is still too heavy, it stays long and is marked roll or machine.
Hauling with a side-by-side (UTV), a quad, a small trailer or a wheelbarrow? Measure its bed and set it here; pieces can be as short as 1 ft.
Measure the branches (best, if you can reach them)
Wrap the tape around the branch 1 ft out from the trunk (past the swollen branch collar), then measure its length from the trunk to the tip and how wide it spreads. Do it for the biggest branch coming off and a small one, and count about how many are like each.
Evergreen? Count the whorls (circle of branches around the trunk)
Spruce, fir and pine put out one whorl (circle of branches around the trunk) each year. Not the growth rings inside the wood. Count the whorls from the ground up to your cut height, or give the gap between two whorls, and count the branches in one whorl. This replaces "how many" above: half the branches are counted as big ones, half as small.
A yard evergreen often has branches to the ground (0). Yard trees keep low branches a forest tree loses, so branch numbers from the formula can run low; measure the branches below, and check against your real loads.
Your saw
Any wood works: pine, maple, whatever is in your yard. The app scales your time to the tree you're estimating by how hard each wood is.
Your truck or trailer
Holds 4.1 cubic yards (long × wide × deep ÷ 27).
How much of the space is actual wood. Stacked wood is about 0.6–0.7 wood and loose, dumped wood about 0.5 (German forestry units: Raummeter vs Festmeter). The app also checks how your piece length fits your bed length (set the bed size above): the gap left at the end of each row is wasted. Round, unsplit logs that are long and straight stack best.
Your crew and the job (for total time)
Starting guesses: change them to how your crew works. They only affect the total time.
Stump
Fine, shallow, spreading (willow, poplar)Few large roots (oak, hickory)
Set from the species; move it if you know better. Mature trees rarely keep a deep tap root: most roots are in the top 2–3 feet and spread well past the branches.
Recycling or dump yard
What's coming in or sitting in the pile: how much it weighs, how much room it takes, and roughly how long it takes to rot.
Make it yours
This is designed to help you improve the accuracy of the tool for yourself. After a job, put in what it really was (the scale ticket, or how full the truck was). The app learns your own correction and uses it next time. Your numbers stay on this phone.
Hauled by volume? Truck loads × payload, or cubic yards × your material's weight, gives the pounds.