The 7 Best Apps to See Where Your Time Goes on a Mac in 2026

Start with Apple Screen Time: it is free, built in, and shows app and website totals. Move past it when you need to know what you actually did. Dayflow ($0, open source) writes your day into a timeline from screenshots. Timing suits billable Mac hours, ActivityWatch suits free local tracking, and RescueTime or Rize suit cross-platform use and focus tools.

This ranking is for people on a Mac who have opened Apple Screen Time (Screen Time vs Dayflow), seen a chart showing that most of the day went to a browser, and still could not say what they did all afternoon. The job here is not billing or limiting yourself. It is answering “where did my time actually go?” without starting a timer, so you can plan better, write an honest weekly note, or stop losing afternoons. Most lists of Mac time trackers assume you invoice clients. This one starts from the tool already on your Mac and asks when it is worth moving past it.

Disclosure: Dayflow is our product. It ranks first because the heaviest-weighted criterion below is how much a tool tells you about what you actually did. Dayflow is the only app here whose documentation describes analyzing screenshots and writing the day out as a timeline. It does not win two of the criteria. On device coverage, Screen Time and ActivityWatch (ActivityWatch vs Dayflow) reach well beyond the Mac. On project and billing reports, Timing (Timing vs Dayflow) and Qbserve are built for invoicing and Dayflow has nothing.

Quick comparison

Tool	Best for	How it tracks	Price
Dayflow	A written timeline of what you did	Records the screen, AI turns screenshots into a timeline	$0 (MIT), optional Pro $20/month
Timing	Detailed Mac tracking with billing	Apps, websites, documents, URLs and Mail threads	From $9/month billed annually or $11/month billed monthly
Apple Screen Time	A free first look across Apple devices	OS-level app and website totals	Free, built in
ActivityWatch	Free, local, open-source logging	Active app, window title, away-from-keyboard; extensions add URLs	Free

Quick picks by use case

Best free: Dayflow, at $0, if you want to read what you did rather than read a chart. If you want nothing to install, use Apple Screen Time. It is free and already on your Mac.

Best free without AI: ActivityWatch is free, open source under MPL-2.0, and keeps everything on your device.

Best for billing: Timing, from $9 per month billed annually or $11 billed monthly, with a 30-day trial.

Best for focus and blocking: RescueTime (RescueTime alternative). Its Focus plan is $7 a month billed annually or $9 billed monthly.

Best one-time purchase: Qbserve, at $29.00 once, with no subscription.

Best for teams on Mac and Windows: Rize (Rize alternative). Its Team plan is $29.99 per seat per month with annual billing, or $39.99 billed monthly.

How we compared them

The weights reflect someone who wants to understand their own time on a Mac, not a manager or an accountant.

Criterion	Weight	What scores high and low
Detail of what you did	30%	High: the tool names tasks, documents or pages. Low: it only totals time per app.
Effort to get an answer	20%	High: the answer is readable without building rules or categories. Low: raw logs you have to sort yourself.
Privacy and data location	20%	High: data stays on your Mac by default. Low: activity is processed in the vendor’s cloud with no local option.
Cost	15%	High: free or a one-time price. Low: subscription only, with no free tier.
Device coverage	10%	High: covers iPhone or other operating systems too. Low: one Mac only.
Projects and reports	5%	High: projects, exports and client reports. Low: none described.

We compared each tool from its vendor’s own pricing and product pages on 2026-10-04 (Dayflow’s facts were reviewed against version 2.2.0). No benchmark was run, and the scores behind the ranking are judgments, not measurements.

The 7 best apps to see where your time goes on a Mac, ranked

1. Dayflow

Dayflow is a free, open-source Mac app that records your screen and has AI write the day into a timeline you can read. Full screen recordings and the timeline are stored on your Mac.

The AI step is where you choose how it runs. Local AI runs a supported model through Ollama or LM Studio, and screenshot analysis stays on-device. Your own cloud provider receives selected screenshots under its own terms. Dayflow Pro manages cloud analysis, and under the privacy policy it deletes screenshots after processing.

What you get is the piece Screen Time leaves out: the task, not only the app. You can export a date range as Markdown from Settings → Export for a work log or weekly note.

Price: $0 under the MIT license, with an optional Pro plan at $20 a month. It requires macOS 14 or later.

The limit: Dayflow has no invoices, payroll approvals, team reports or website blocking. AI summaries can miss or misinterpret work, so check them before sharing. Local AI also needs your own hardware resources.

Pick it if you want to read what you did, not a chart of which apps were open.

2. Timing

Timing is a Mac-only app that records time automatically across apps, websites and documents. It captures detail down to specific URLs and Mail threads. It also handles manual entries, imports iOS activity and tracks calls.

That document-level detail is the big step up from Screen Time. You see which file or email thread took the hour, not just that Mail was open. AI activity summaries, AI suggestions for time entries and AI integration via MCP are listed on all plans. Tracked times are stored locally and never leave the Mac unless you opt into sync. All plans list Sync & Cloud Backup.

Price: Professional is $9 per month billed annually or $11 billed monthly. Expert is $11 annually or $14 monthly. Connect is $16 per user per month annually or $20 monthly. There is a 30-day trial with no credit card required.

The limit: Timing is subscription only, with no free tier, and runs only on the Mac. Professional covers one Mac and has limited web app access. Much of the plan value is aimed at billable work: billing status, report rounding, ClickUp, Linear and Clio sync, and GrandTotal invoicing. You pay for those features even if you only want to look at your time.

Pick it if you want detailed, local tracking and you bill clients, or expect to.

3. Apple Screen Time

Screen Time is the usage report built into macOS and every other Apple device. Once you turn on App & Website Activity, it reports which apps and websites you use and for how long, how many notifications you receive, and how often you use your devices. You can view this daily or weekly.

For this audience, its biggest strength is zero effort. There is nothing to install, and with Share across devices on, it includes time from other devices signed in to the same Apple Account. It also does things the trackers here mostly do not: downtime schedules, time allowances for app categories, content blocking, and parental controls through Family Sharing.

Price: Free, built into macOS.

The limit: Reports stop at the app and website level. Apple’s docs describe no projects, billing or exports. It only covers Apple devices, and it records nothing until you switch it on. If you have never enabled it, do that today, so you at least have a baseline when you decide whether you need more.

Pick it if you want a free rough picture, especially across your Mac and iPhone together.

4. ActivityWatch

ActivityWatch is a free, open-source tracker that logs your activity on your own machine. It automatically records the active application, the window title, and whether you are away from the keyboard. Browser extensions add the active tab title and URL, and editor plugins add coding activity.

Window titles get you closer to “what” than Screen Time does, because a title often names the document or page. The vendor says all data is stored on your device and never sent to any server. It is extensible with custom watchers and a local API, which suits people who like to build their own dashboards.

Price: Free, under the MPL-2.0 license. The vendor describes it as having no feature gates, no usage limits and no ads.

The limit: No AI summaries are listed, so you read and interpret the logs yourself. Sync between devices is still a work in progress, and there is no iOS support. URL detail depends on installing the browser extensions.

Pick it if you want free, private, open-source logging, you are fine reading raw data, or you also use Windows, Linux or Android.

5. RescueTime

RescueTime is a cloud-based tracker that runs in the background and records time spent on apps and websites. The vendor states it does not collect keystrokes, form input, screenshots or webpage content.

Its strength is turning awareness into action. It offers distraction blocking, focus sessions, goals and alerts. “The Assistant” is listed as a Focus feature. The higher plans add Timesheets with projects, clients and billable rates, plus autocompletion hints that learn from your history. It lists desktop apps, iOS, Android and the web. The pages we read do not name each desktop operating system, so confirm current Mac support with the vendor.

Price: Focus (Solo) is $7 a month billed annually ($84) or $9 billed monthly. Solo+ is $12 a month billed annually ($144) or $15 monthly. Team Focus is $10 per user per month billed annually or $12 monthly. Team+ is $16 per user per month billed annually or $18 monthly. All paid plans have a 14-day trial. A free Lite plan exists, but its limits are not described on the pricing page, so see the vendor’s pricing page.

The limit: Activity data is processed in the cloud, and Timesheets require the higher-priced plans.

Pick it if you want blocking and focus goals along with the report, and cloud processing is fine with you.

6. Qbserve

Qbserve is a Mac app that tracks applications, websites and window titles and scores your productivity as you go. It shows a real-time productivity score in the menu bar. It also rates over 8,100 sites, apps and games automatically, and lets you write rules that assign time to projects.

For someone moving past Screen Time, it is a one-time purchase with window-title detail, local storage and a running score that keeps the question in front of you all day. The vendor states all tracked data is stored on your Mac and never sent anywhere. It exports to JSON and CSV and can generate invoices in 18 languages.

Price: $29.00 as a one-time purchase, with no subscription and a 15-day trial. The price was read from the vendor’s US checkout, so it may differ by country.

The limit: Qbserve runs only on the Mac, and no AI features, team features or sync are listed. A productivity score is also a judgment about your time rather than a description of it, and the built-in ratings may not match how you work until you adjust them.

Pick it if you want to pay once, keep data local, and get a live nudge instead of an end-of-day summary.

7. Rize

Rize is a cloud-based tracker for Mac and Windows that records apps and websites automatically and uses AI to categorize and tag the time. Connecting Google Calendar captures meeting time as well.

Its AI goes further than most here. It offers AI chat about your time, AI productivity and focus insights, and MCP server access on Pro and above. Pro and above also add client and scheduled reports in PDF and CSV, an API, webhooks and Zapier. It requires macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or later, or Windows 10 or later.

Price: Basic is $9.99 a month billed annually or $12.99 billed monthly, with 500 AI credits a month. Pro is $23.99 a month billed annually, with 1,000 credits. Max is $39.99 a month billed annually, with 3,000 credits. For monthly billing on Pro and Max, see the vendor’s pricing page. Team is $29.99 per seat per month with annual billing, or $39.99 billed monthly. Enterprise is custom. There is a 7-day trial with full access and no credit card required.

The limit: There is no permanently free tier, data is hosted on Amazon Web Services, AI use is metered in credits, and Linux is not yet available.

Pick it if you work across Mac and Windows, or on a team, and want AI insights with cloud reports.

Full comparison table

Tool	Price	Automatic capture	AI summaries	Where data lives	Open source	Platforms
Dayflow	$0; Pro $20/month	Yes, screen recording	Yes, AI-written timeline	Recordings and timeline on your Mac; analysis local, your provider, or Pro cloud	Yes, MIT	Mac (macOS 14+)
Timing	From $9/month billed annually	Yes	Yes, AI activity summaries	Local, optional sync	No	Mac
Apple Screen Time	Free, built in	Yes, once turned on	None listed	Local, optional sync across your Apple Account	No	Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro
ActivityWatch	Free	Yes	None listed	Local; sync is a work in progress	Yes, MPL-2.0	Windows, Mac, Linux, Android
RescueTime	From $7/month billed annually; free Lite plan	Yes	”The Assistant” on Focus	Cloud	No	Desktop apps, iOS, Android, Web
Qbserve	$29.00 one-time	Yes	None listed	Local	No	Mac
Rize	From $9.99/month billed annually	Yes	Yes: insights, chat, categorization	Cloud (AWS)	No	Mac, Windows

When is Screen Time enough on a Mac?

Screen Time is enough when your question is about habits, not work. “Am I on my phone too much?”, “How much of my evening goes to video sites?” and “Did I open Slack forty times?” are all questions it answers well. Its downtime and app limits also let you act on the answer without installing anything.

It stops being enough when the answer you get is “browser” or “Xcode” and you needed “the pricing page rewrite” or “the auth bug.” One app can hold five different projects, and one project can span five apps. Screen Time has no way to tell you which hours belonged to what, and Apple’s docs describe no export to take the data elsewhere.

A practical test is to look at yesterday in Screen Time and try to write three sentences about what you got done. If you can, stay put. If you cannot, you need something that sees inside the apps.

Before you install anything, try the where does my week go calculator. It is a quick way to see how much of the week is unaccounted for. For a longer walkthrough of the built-in options, see how to see where your time goes on a Mac.

Do you need screenshots to see what you actually worked on?

There are three levels of detail on this list.

The first level is app and website totals. Apple Screen Time and RescueTime work here, and RescueTime explicitly does not collect screenshots or page content. This level is the lightest on privacy and the vaguest about work.

The second level is window titles, URLs and documents. ActivityWatch, Qbserve, Timing and Rize work here. A window title often names the file or page, which is a real step up. But titles can be generic (“Untitled”, “Inbox”), and you still have to read the log and work out the story yourself, unless the tool adds AI on top, as Timing and Rize do.

The third level is what was on the screen. Dayflow works here. Because the AI looks at screen content, it can describe what you were doing in a document whose title says nothing. The trade is that screen content is more sensitive than a window title. That is why it matters where the analysis happens. Dayflow’s Local AI keeps screenshot analysis on your Mac. The other two modes send selected screenshots off-device. The details are in local and cloud processing.

If the idea of recording your screen at all bothers you, a title-level tool like ActivityWatch or Timing is the reasonable stopping point. Time tracking without surveillance covers that trade-off in more depth. If your goal is to remember what you worked on in enough detail to write it up, screen-level capture is what closes the gap.

Where Dayflow is the wrong pick

• You want Mac and iPhone in one report. Use Apple Screen Time. Dayflow is Mac only.
• You bill by the hour. Use Timing. It has billing status, report rounding and GrandTotal invoicing. Use Qbserve if you want invoices for a one-time $29.00. Dayflow has no invoicing. If you need a timesheet from Dayflow-style capture, see a Mac timesheet without manual entry, but expect to do the billing elsewhere.
• You want distractions blocked, not just reported. Use RescueTime, or Screen Time’s downtime and limits. Dayflow does not block websites.
• You also work on Windows or Linux. Use ActivityWatch, which is free and runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android, or Rize for Mac and Windows with AI.
• You manage a team and need team reports. Use Rize Team, Timing Connect or RescueTime’s team plans. Dayflow has no team reports.
• You are on macOS older than 14. Dayflow will not run. Rize lists macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or later.
• You do not want your screen recorded at all. Use ActivityWatch for free, local, title-level logging.

How much do they cost?

Tool	Plan	Price
Dayflow	Free	$0, MIT licensed
Dayflow	Pro	$20 a month
Apple Screen Time	Included with macOS	Free, built in
ActivityWatch	ActivityWatch	Free
Qbserve	Qbserve license	$29.00 one-time
Timing	Professional	$9/month billed annually, or $11/month billed monthly
Timing	Expert	$11/month billed annually, or $14/month billed monthly
Timing	Connect	$16/user/month billed annually, or $20/user/month billed monthly
RescueTime	Lite	Free; limits not listed, see the vendor’s pricing page
RescueTime	Focus (Solo)	$7/month billed annually ($84), or $9/month billed monthly
RescueTime	Solo+	$12/month billed annually ($144), or $15/month billed monthly
RescueTime	Team Focus	$10/month/user billed annually ($120), or $12/month/user billed monthly
RescueTime	Team+	$16/month/user billed annually ($192), or $18/month/user billed monthly
Rize	Basic	$9.99/mo billed annually, or $12.99/month billed monthly
Rize	Pro	$23.99/mo billed annually; monthly: see the vendor’s pricing page
Rize	Max	$39.99/mo billed annually; monthly: see the vendor’s pricing page
Rize	Team	$29.99/seat/month billed annually, or $39.99/seat/month billed monthly
Rize	Enterprise	Custom, contact vendor

The cheapest sensible setup costs nothing: turn on Screen Time for device-wide habits, and add Dayflow with Local AI, or ActivityWatch if you want no AI at all, for the detail of your workday. Pay only when you need a specific feature. That means invoicing (Timing or Qbserve), blocking (RescueTime), cross-platform AI (Rize), or managed cloud analysis (Dayflow Pro, $20 a month). Full plan details for Dayflow are on the pricing page.

The bottom line

If you only want a rough picture of your habits, turn on Apple Screen Time and leave it at that. If you want to read what you actually did each day for free, use Dayflow. If you bill clients from a Mac, pay for Timing, or buy Qbserve once for $29.00. If you want free, private, open-source logs, or you work across Windows and Linux too, ActivityWatch is the pick.

Frequently asked questions

Is Apple Screen Time good enough to track work on a Mac?

For a rough picture, yes. Once App & Website Activity is on, Screen Time shows which apps and websites you used and for how long, in daily or weekly views, at no cost. It stops at the app and website level, and Apple's docs describe no projects, billing or exports. If you need to know which task or document took the time, move to Dayflow, Timing or ActivityWatch.

What is the best free app to see where my time goes on a Mac?

Three options cost nothing. Apple Screen Time is built in and only needs to be switched on. ActivityWatch is free, open source under MPL-2.0, and keeps data on your device while logging apps, window titles and, with browser extensions, URLs. Dayflow is free and MIT licensed. It records your screen and uses AI to write a timeline, and with Local AI the screenshot analysis stays on your Mac.

What app tracks screen time across my Mac and iPhone together?

Apple Screen Time beats Dayflow here. Dayflow runs only on macOS 14 or later and has no iPhone app. Screen Time is built into Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro. With Share across devices turned on, it includes time from other devices signed in to the same Apple Account. RescueTime also lists iOS and Android apps, but it processes activity data in the cloud.

What is the best app to track billable hours automatically on a Mac?

Timing is the stronger pick, and Dayflow is not built for this job. Timing records apps, websites, documents, URLs and Mail threads. It tracks billing status, rounds reports and connects to GrandTotal invoicing on supported plans. It starts at $9 per month billed annually and has a 30-day trial. Qbserve is the budget route at $29.00 one-time and can generate invoices in 18 languages. Dayflow has no invoicing.

Does Dayflow send my screenshots to the cloud?

Only if you choose a cloud mode. Full screen recordings and the timeline are stored on your Mac. With Local AI, a model runs through Ollama or LM Studio and screenshot analysis stays on-device. With your own provider, selected screenshots go to that provider under its own terms. With Dayflow Pro, the privacy policy says screenshots are deleted after processing, while Activity Data may be retained for sync.

Which Mac tracking apps keep my data local?

ActivityWatch says all data stays on your device and is never sent to a server. Qbserve says tracked data is stored on your Mac and never sent anywhere. Timing stores tracked times locally unless you opt into sync. Dayflow stores recordings and the timeline on your Mac, and analysis stays local when you use Local AI. RescueTime and Rize both process data in the cloud.

Can you export Apple Screen Time data on a Mac?

Apple's Screen Time guide describes daily and weekly views of app, website, notification and device usage. It does not describe exports, projects or billing. If you need your history as a file, Dayflow exports a date range as Markdown, Qbserve exports JSON and CSV, ActivityWatch offers a local API, and Rize offers PDF and CSV reports on its Pro plan and above.

Is RescueTime free?

There is a free Lite plan. The pricing FAQ says accounts revert to it after cancelling, but the pricing page does not describe its limits, so check the vendor's pricing page. Paid plans start with Focus at $7 a month billed annually ($84) or $9 billed monthly. Every paid plan has a 14-day trial. RescueTime processes activity data in the cloud.

Does Dayflow block distracting websites?

No. Dayflow does not provide website blocking, invoices or payroll approvals. It shows you where the day went after the fact. For blocking, Apple Screen Time has downtime schedules, time allowances and content blocking at no cost. RescueTime lists distraction blocking and focus sessions on its Focus plan, from $7 a month billed annually. You can use Screen Time for limits and Dayflow for the record.

Is there a Mac activity tracker without a subscription?

Qbserve is a $29.00 one-time purchase with a 15-day trial. It tracks apps, websites and window titles, keeps data on your Mac and can generate invoices. ActivityWatch and Apple Screen Time are free outright. Dayflow is $0, with an optional Pro plan at $20 a month. Timing and Rize have no free tier and are sold as monthly or annual plans.