Measuring forces within living cells remains a technical challenge. We developped hydrophobic mechanosensing fluorescent probes called Flippers, which fluorescent lifetime depends on lipid packing and can report membrane tension. We report here technical optimization of the probe imaging, and diverses characterizations in various biological and in vitro systems. We propose to the cell biology community a guideline to measure biophysical parameters of cellular membranes by FLIM microscopy with Flipper probes.