The 7 Best Time Tracking Apps for People with ADHD Who Work on a Mac in 2026

If you forget to start timers, pick a tracker that records on its own. Dayflow (free, open source) writes your Mac day into a readable timeline from screen captures. Timing ($9/month billed annually) wins if you bill clients. RescueTime ($7/month billed annually) wins if you want distraction blocking. Apple Screen Time is the free, zero-setup baseline already on your Mac.

This ranking is for people with ADHD who work on a Mac and have tried time tracking before, usually with a timer they forgot to start by 10 am. The job here is narrow: get an honest record of where the day went without depending on memory, then look at it later in a way that is useful, not punishing. Anything that needs you to remember a step at the moment you are most absorbed or most scattered is ranked down. None of this is medical advice, and no app on this list treats anything. These are tools for keeping a record.

Disclosure: Dayflow is our product. It ranks first because it scores highest on the two criteria we weighted most for this reader, capture that needs no remembering and a review you can read like a diary. It does not win two criteria. It has no blocking or focus tools, where RescueTime and Apple Screen Time are stronger, and it takes more setup than a built-in feature, because you choose where the AI analysis runs. If either of those is your main need, read the ranked list past our entry.

Quick comparison

Tool	Best for	How it tracks	Price
Dayflow	A readable diary of your day with no timer	One screen frame every 10 seconds, AI writes a timeline	$0, optional Pro at $20 a month
Timing	Mac users who also bill clients	Automatic app, website and document tracking	From $9/month billed annually
Rize	AI focus insights on Mac and Windows	Automatic app and website tracking with AI categories	From $9.99/mo billed annually
ActivityWatch	Free, local, tinker-friendly tracking	Active app, window title and away-from-keyboard time	Free

Head-to-head pages for these: Timing vs Dayflow, Rize vs Dayflow and ActivityWatch vs Dayflow.

Quick picks by use case

Best free with a readable record: Dayflow. $0 and MIT licensed. It writes your day up as a timeline instead of a chart of app totals. The optional Pro plan is $20 a month if you want Dayflow to handle the cloud analysis.

Best for billing: Timing. $9 a month billed annually or $11 billed monthly for Professional. It is Mac only and adds billing status and report rounding on top of automatic tracking.

Best for blocking distractions: RescueTime. The Focus plan is $7 a month billed annually ($84) or $9 billed monthly, with distraction blocking, focus sessions, goals and alerts. See our RescueTime vs Dayflow comparison.

Best zero-setup option: Apple Screen Time. Free and already in macOS. Turn on App & Website Activity and you get daily and weekly usage, plus downtime and app limits. Our Screen Time vs Dayflow page covers the gap between usage totals and a work record.

Best for teams: Toggl (formerly Toggl Track). Free for up to 3 users, then Starter at $9 per user per month billed annually or $12 billed monthly. It is timer-first, so it ranks low here. Our Toggl for Mac page explains the tradeoff.

Best free and fully local without AI: ActivityWatch. Free, open source and stores everything on your device.

If tracking is not your main problem, our guide to the best ADHD apps for adults, sorted by problem covers apps for starting tasks, planning, focus and blocking distractions.

How we compared them

Most rankings of Mac time trackers weight billing and team reports heavily. This one weights what matters when starting and stopping a timer is the unreliable step. For the general field, see our guide to the best time tracker for Mac.

Criterion	Weight	Scores high	Scores low
Works without remembering to start	30%	Records in the background from the moment the app is running	Needs a timer press or a manual entry
Review you can actually read	25%	Describes what you did in plain words, by time block	Shows only app totals or category bars
Setup and upkeep	15%	Useful on day one with no rules or categories to maintain	Needs categories, rules or model setup before it helps
Focus support	10%	Blocking, limits, focus sessions or alerts built in	Records only
Privacy and data location	10%	Data stays on your Mac by default	Activity goes to a vendor’s cloud
Cost to start	10%	Free, or a free plan that does the core job	Paid only, trial then subscription

We compared each tool from the vendor’s own pricing and product pages as of October 4, 2026, and Dayflow from its version 2.2.0 facts; no benchmark was run, and the scores are judgments.

The 7 best time tracking apps for people with ADHD on a Mac, ranked

1. Dayflow

Dayflow is a free, MIT-licensed Mac app for macOS 14 or later that turns your screen activity into a written timeline. It captures one frame every 10 seconds while it runs, so there is no timer to start and no category list to build first. An AI model then writes those frames up as blocks of activity you can read later. You open it at 5 pm, or the next morning, and see what happened instead of reconstructing it.

Recordings and the timeline are stored on your Mac. Analysis runs one of three ways: Local AI through Ollama or LM Studio, where screenshot analysis stays on-device but uses your own hardware; your own cloud provider, whose charges and terms apply; or Dayflow Pro at $20 a month, which manages cloud analysis. You can export any date range as Markdown, which pairs well with a daily work log template.

The honest limit: no website blocking, no focus timers, no invoices or team reports, and the AI summaries can miss or misread work, so check them before sharing. Setup also means deciding where analysis runs.

Pick it if you want a readable record of your day without having to remember anything.

2. Timing

Timing is a Mac-only automatic tracker built for people who need hour-accurate records. It records time across apps, websites and documents in the background, down to specific URLs and Mail threads, and it can import iOS activity and track calls. You can still add manual entries, but you never have to.

For this reader, the useful parts are that capture is automatic and that Timing now lists AI activity summaries and AI-powered suggestions for time entries on all plans, so turning raw tracking into a timesheet is less of a chore. It also stores tracked time locally, and the vendor says it never leaves your Mac unless you opt into sync. If you bill clients, it adds billing status, customizable reports with rounding, and integrations such as GrandTotal invoicing and two-way ClickUp, Linear and Clio sync, depending on the plan.

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

The honest limit: there is no free tier, it is subscription only, and the Professional plan covers one Mac with limited web app access. It has no blocking listed.

Pick it if you bill hours and want automatic capture with a local-first setup.

3. Rize

Rize is an automatic tracker for Mac and Windows that leans on AI to categorize and coach. It tracks apps and websites in the background, auto-categorizes and tags them with AI, and can pull in meeting time from a connected Google Calendar. It supports macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or later, which helps if your Mac is too old for Dayflow.

What this reader gets is a lot of interpretation done for you: AI focus and productivity insights plus an AI chat for asking about your time. Plans are metered in monthly AI credits. Pro and above add PDF and CSV client reports, scheduled reports, an API, webhooks, Zapier and MCP server access.

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

The honest limit: no permanent free tier, and data is hosted in the cloud on AWS.

Pick it if you want AI insights on top of tracking and use Windows too.

4. ActivityWatch

ActivityWatch is a free, open-source tracker under the MPL-2.0 license for Mac, Windows, Linux and Android. It records the active application, the window title and whether you are away from the keyboard. Browser extensions add the tab title and URL, and editor plugins add coding activity.

For this reader, it does the most important thing well: it runs without you, and it costs nothing. Its developers describe it as completely free, with no feature gates, no usage limits and no ads, and they state that all data stays on your own device and is never sent to a server. If you like building your own setup, the local API and custom watchers let you shape it.

Price: free. The site mentions optional “AW Pro” patronage, but no price for it was confirmed.

The honest limit: the review side is raw. You get app and window data, not a written account of your day, and no AI summaries are listed. Sync between devices is still a work in progress, and there is no iOS app. Turning window titles into “what did I do on Tuesday” is on you.

Pick it if you want free, private, automatic tracking and don’t mind reading data instead of sentences.

5. RescueTime

RescueTime is a long-running automatic tracker with apps for desktop, iOS, Android and the web. It runs in the background and tracks time on apps and websites. The vendor states it does not collect keystrokes, form input, screenshots or webpage content, which makes it a lighter-touch option than screen capture.

Its strength for this reader is the focus side. The Focus plan includes distraction blocking, focus sessions, goals and alerts, plus a feature it calls The Assistant. If you want a nudge when the afternoon drifts, not just a report afterward, this is the one on the list built around that. Solo+ adds timesheets with projects, clients and billable rates, with autocompletion hints that learn from your history.

Price: Focus (Solo) is $7 a month billed annually ($84) or $9 billed monthly. Solo+ is $12 a month billed annually ($144) or $15 billed monthly. Team Focus is $10 per user per month billed annually or $12 billed monthly, and Team+ is $16 billed annually or $18 billed 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 honest limit: data is processed in the cloud, and its reports show categories and totals rather than a narrative of your day.

Pick it if blocking and focus sessions matter as much as the record.

6. Apple Screen Time

Apple Screen Time is built into macOS and other Apple devices. 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, in daily or weekly views. With “Share across devices,” it combines time from other devices signed in to the same Apple Account.

For this reader, two things stand out. It costs nothing and needs almost no setup. It also has real limiting tools: downtime schedules, time allowances for app categories and blocking of content and features. If the main goal is to stop a specific app from eating the evening, it does that.

Price: free, included with macOS.

The honest limit: it must be turned on before it records anything, and the reports stay at the app and website level. Apple’s documentation does not describe projects, billing or exports. It tells you that you spent three hours in a browser, not that two of them were the budget spreadsheet. It also works only on Apple devices, and no AI features are listed.

Pick it if you want a free baseline and app limits, ideally next to a tracker that keeps a work record.

7. Toggl (formerly Toggl Track)

Toggl, now presented as one product combining time tracking with planning, is a timer-first tracker for web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and browser extensions. You start and stop timers, fill in timesheets or connect calendars. The vendor also lists automated background tracking and a timeline in the desktop app, and states it does not take screenshots or record keystrokes.

It ranks last here because its core workflow assumes you press start, and that is the step this article is built around. The background timeline helps, but the product is still primarily timer and manual entry rather than a full automatic record. Where it shines is the free plan and team features: free forever for up to 3 users with timers, focus mode, calendar integrations, tasks and boards, then billable rates, team reports, timesheet approvals and project planning on paid plans. Toggl AI answers natural-language questions about workspace data.

Price: Free at $0 for up to 3 users. Starter is $9 per user per month billed annually or $12 billed monthly. Premium is $16 per user per month billed annually or $24 billed monthly. Enterprise is contact the vendor. Paid plans have a 30-day trial.

The honest limit: data lives in Toggl’s cloud, and billable rates need a paid plan.

Pick it if your team already runs on Toggl and you can lean on the desktop timeline.

Full comparison table

Tool	Price	Automatic capture	AI summaries	Where data lives	Open source	Platforms
Dayflow	$0; Pro $20 a month	Yes, one screen frame every 10 seconds	Yes, via Local AI, your provider or Pro	Your Mac; selected screenshots go off-device only with your provider or Pro	Yes, MIT	Mac (macOS 14+)
Timing	From $9/month billed annually	Yes, apps, websites and documents	AI activity summaries on all plans	Local, optional sync	No	Mac
Rize	From $9.99/mo billed annually	Yes, apps and websites	AI insights and chat, metered credits	Cloud (AWS)	No	Mac, Windows
ActivityWatch	Free	Yes, active app, window title, AFK	None listed	Local	Yes, MPL-2.0	Windows, Mac, Linux, Android
RescueTime	From $7/month billed annually; free Lite plan	Yes, apps and websites	The Assistant on Focus	Cloud	No	Desktop apps, iOS, Android, Web
Apple Screen Time	Free, built in	Yes, once turned on	None listed	Local, optional sharing across devices	No	Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro
Toggl	Free for up to 3 users; from $9 per user/month billed annually	Mainly timers; background timeline in desktop app	Toggl AI for workspace questions	Cloud	No	Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, browser extensions

Why do timer apps keep failing when you have ADHD?

A timer asks you to do two things at exactly the wrong moments: remember to start when you dive into something, and remember to stop when you get pulled away. If you notice the timer at 3 pm still running on a task you left at noon, the data is now wrong and you have a cleanup job you didn’t ask for. After a few of those, many people simply stop opening the app.

Automatic trackers remove that step. Something is always recording, so a missed start costs nothing. That is why every tool in our top five tracks in the background. The difference between them is what the recording captures. App-level trackers like ActivityWatch, RescueTime and Screen Time know you were in a browser or a code editor. Document-level trackers like Timing know which file or URL. Screen capture, which Dayflow uses, gives the AI enough context to write “reviewed the Q3 deck, then answered support email” rather than “Safari, 47 minutes.”

If the idea of anything recording your screen feels off, that is a fair reason to prefer an app-level tracker. Our piece on time tracking without surveillance goes through the tradeoffs, and local and cloud processing explains where Dayflow’s data goes in each mode. For the broader idea, see what an automatic time tracker is.

How do you review your day without it turning into a guilt report?

A tracker is only useful if you look at it, and a dashboard that leads with “productivity score: 41%” is easy to avoid. What tends to help is a review that describes rather than grades.

A few habits that work with any tool on this list:

• Look once, at a fixed point. End of day or first thing next morning. Not every hour.
• Read the shape, not the total. Where did the long stretches happen? What pulled you out? A timeline answers that better than a pie chart.
• Write one line. “Deep work happened 9 to 11, lost the afternoon to email.” That line is the review.
• Skip productivity labels you didn’t set. If a tool categorizes Slack as “distracting” and Slack is your job, change the rule or ignore the score.

Dayflow is built for this kind of review because the output is already sentences, and the Markdown export can feed a weekly status report or a deep work review. Timing’s AI activity summaries and Rize’s AI insights move in the same direction. For more on the “where did the afternoon go” problem itself, see our piece on apps for time blindness and how to remember what you worked on.

Where Dayflow is the wrong pick

You want something to stop you, not just record you. Dayflow has no website blocking, focus sessions or alerts. RescueTime’s Focus plan or the free Apple Screen Time limits win here.

You bill clients by the hour. Dayflow does not create invoices, billable rates or payroll approvals. Timing is the better Mac pick, with billing status, report rounding and invoicing integrations. Toggl wins if your team already tracks billable time there.

You manage a team. Dayflow has no team reports. Toggl, Rize Team, RescueTime’s team plans and Timing Connect are built for that.

You also work on Windows, Linux or a phone. Dayflow is Mac only. ActivityWatch covers Windows, Linux and Android for free, Rize covers Windows, and RescueTime lists iOS and Android apps.

Your Mac runs something older than macOS 14. Dayflow will not install. Rize supports macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and later.

You don’t want any screen recording or any AI setup. Apple Screen Time is already on your Mac, and ActivityWatch records app and window data with no AI at all.

You want zero ambiguity in your numbers. Dayflow’s AI summaries can miss or misread work. If you need exact hours for a client, use Timing’s tracked durations.

How much do they cost?

Tool	Plan	Price
Dayflow	Free	$0
Dayflow	Pro	$20 a month
Timing	Professional	$9 per month billed annually, or $11 billed monthly
Timing	Expert	$11 per month billed annually, or $14 billed monthly
Timing	Connect	$16 per user per month billed annually, or $20 billed monthly
Rize	Basic	$9.99/mo billed annually, or $12.99/month billed monthly
Rize	Pro	$23.99/mo billed annually
Rize	Max	$39.99/mo billed annually
Rize	Team	$29.99/seat/month billed annually, or $39.99/seat/month billed monthly
Rize	Enterprise	Custom, contact vendor
ActivityWatch	ActivityWatch	Free
RescueTime	Lite	Free; limits not listed, see the vendor’s pricing page
RescueTime	Focus (Solo)	$7/month billed annually ($84), or $9 billed monthly
RescueTime	Solo+	$12/month billed annually ($144), or $15 billed monthly
RescueTime	Team Focus	$10/month/user billed annually, or $12 billed monthly
RescueTime	Team+	$16/month/user billed annually, or $18 billed monthly
Apple Screen Time	Included with macOS	Free, built in
Toggl	Free	$0, up to 3 users
Toggl	Starter	$9 per user per month billed annually, or $12 billed monthly
Toggl	Premium	$16 per user per month billed annually, or $24 billed monthly
Toggl	Enterprise	Contact vendor

The cheapest sensible setup is Dayflow on Local AI for the record plus Apple Screen Time for limits, which costs nothing beyond your own hardware. If you would rather pay than configure, RescueTime’s Focus plan at $7 a month billed annually covers tracking and blocking in one app, and Dayflow’s plans are on our pricing page.

The bottom line

If forgetting the timer is the problem, pick Dayflow for a free, readable diary of your Mac day. If you bill clients, Timing is the stronger Mac choice at $9 a month billed annually. If you want an app that blocks distractions, RescueTime is built for it, and Apple Screen Time does a free version of limits on any Mac. If you want free and local with no AI, ActivityWatch is the one.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best time tracker for ADHD if I always forget to start the timer?

Choose an automatic tracker, because it records whether or not you remember. Dayflow captures your screen and writes a timeline, Timing and Rize log apps and websites in the background, and ActivityWatch does the same for free. Timer-first apps like Toggl only work if you press start, which is the step this whole problem is about. Check each vendor's pricing page for current plans.

What is the best app to block distracting websites on a Mac?

Not Dayflow. Dayflow has no website blocking. RescueTime lists distraction blocking and focus sessions on its Focus plan, $7 a month billed annually or $9 billed monthly, with a 14-day trial. Apple Screen Time is free and built into macOS, with downtime schedules, time allowances for app categories and content blocking. Many people pair a blocker with a separate tracker that records the day.

Is there a free automatic time tracker for Mac?

Yes. Dayflow is free and MIT licensed, with an optional Pro plan at $20 a month. ActivityWatch is free and open source under MPL-2.0, with no feature gates according to its developers. Apple Screen Time is free and built into macOS. Toggl has a free plan for up to 3 users, but it is mainly timer-based rather than a full automatic record.

Does Apple Screen Time work as a time tracker?

Partly. Once you turn on App & Website Activity, Screen Time reports which apps and websites you used and for how long, in daily or weekly views. Apple's documentation does not describe projects, billing or exports, so it shows usage totals rather than a record of what you worked on. It is a good free baseline and a useful limit-setter, not a work log.

Do I need a time tracker that takes screenshots?

No. RescueTime states it does not collect screenshots or keystrokes, ActivityWatch records the active app and window title, and Timing tracks apps, websites and documents. Screen capture, which Dayflow uses, gives the AI more context to describe what you did, at the cost of storing recordings on your Mac. If you would rather nothing visual is captured, one of the others suits you better.

Which Mac time tracker keeps data on my computer?

ActivityWatch states all data stays on your device. Timing stores tracked time locally unless you opt into sync. Dayflow stores recordings and its timeline on your Mac, and screenshot analysis stays on-device if you use Local AI through Ollama or LM Studio. Rize, RescueTime and Toggl are cloud services. Apple Screen Time is local, with optional sharing across your Apple devices.

Is Rize worth it for ADHD on a Mac?

Rize tracks apps and websites automatically, categorizes them with AI and adds focus insights and AI chat. There is no free tier, only a 7-day trial with no card required. Basic is $9.99 a month billed annually or $12.99 billed monthly. It suits people who want coaching-style insights and Windows support, and who are comfortable with cloud-hosted data on AWS.

Can a time tracker help me bill clients if I never log hours?

Yes, if it records automatically and has billing features. Timing tracks your Mac in the background and adds billing status, report rounding and invoicing integrations, starting at $9 a month billed annually. RescueTime's Solo+ plan adds timesheets with billable rates. Dayflow does not produce invoices, so for billing you would export its Markdown record and build entries elsewhere.

What is the cheapest setup for tracking time and limiting distractions on a Mac?

Pair two free tools. Dayflow (free, with Local AI on your own hardware) or ActivityWatch records what you did, and Apple Screen Time handles downtime and app limits at no cost. If you want blocking and tracking in one paid app, RescueTime's Focus plan is $7 a month billed annually.