Previously, we had covered the best time-tracking Android apps for freelancing. But the problem with a smartphone app is that you should have the device alongside — which can be a distraction. That is why we need a desktop time tracking app, with features like automated tracking.
In this article, we will be talking about the best time-tracking apps for Mac. Some of these are dedicated Mac apps while others are fully-fledged services. Anyway, regardless of who you are — a freelancer or a project manager —, you will find a suitable app on the list. Shall we start?
Also Read: Best Timer Apps for Mac For Every Need
The cell phone location tracker app is the perfect solution to the location sharing and tracking needs. It offers a wide range of features such as geo-fencing, real-time location tracking of target devices, a web-based interface that you can remotely access, stealth mode, and access to your social media feeds, etc. History Viewer is a nicely-rated freeware which offers basic website and application. Time tracking apps for mobile. Based on the state of work in 2020, your time clock app needs to have a mobile component. This is critical for remote businesses, companies with mobile teams, sales staff — really, any company. The Internet is a terrifying place, and Objective Development’s Little Snitch 4 ($45) has tried for many years to help keep your Mac locked down by monitoring connections and letting you control. If you want a free Time Tracking Software for Mac that does not get launched automatically, then Tyme is the one for you. Its reminder feature reminds you to start the app in case you forget to start recording your working hours. Once you launch the application, you can use it for a wide range of purposes. The MAC address variable is an important one when it comes to tracking devices on your network. Most networks use DHCP servers so you cannot rely on tracking activity based on IP addresses only. MAC addresses are unique per device so they will give you a reliable audit trail as to what is happening on your network.
Best Time Tracking Apps for Mac
1. Toggl — Best Mac Time Tracker for Freelancers
Toggl was also present when we covered the best Android apps for time-tracking, remember? Well, Toggl is a cross-platform app available as a Mobile app (iOS, Android), Desktop app (Win, Mac, Linux) and even as Browser Extensions for Chrome and Firefox. So, if you are looking for time tracker that works everywhere, Toggl is a good place to start.
Internet Tracker App
Toggl works like most time tracker apps, you open the app, create a new entry for the project you are working on, and start the timer. Toggl will start counting seconds and minutes. Once you are done, press the stop button, and the total amount of time is saved to your Toggl account. There are a few advanced features too if you’re interested.
The UI has been kept as clean as it can be. It displays a list of the activities you’ve done and are doing right now. At the same time, if you are looking for a detailed report, Toggle has a fully-fledged web interface — a quite feature-rich one.
Iphone Tracking App
Coming to Team Integration, most features in Toggl are available in the Enterprise version. Thanks to Team Dashboard, however, you can easily manage team members, their projects and insider activities.
In the free version you get, core time-tracking tools, idle detection, and you can manage up to five teams. The paid plans start at $9 per month. You can find the pricing details here.
Pros: Impressive & Simple UI, Integrates well with macOS, Pomodoro timer,
Cons: None worth noting
Who is it for: While Toggl is made for both teams and individuals, we think freelancers would find the tool more appropriate. Compared to other time-trackers for Mac, Toggl has a cleaner interface and offers an easy way to manage time-slots.
Check Out Toggl (Free; Paid Plans start at $9/Month)
2. Harvest — Best Mac Time Tracker for Teams
Harvest is undoubtedly one of the fully-fledged time tracking software for macOS. It has primarily been built for Teams, but individual use is also fine. Just so you know, Harvest for macOS is a part of the overall Harvest package. You can access and modify your data from multiple devices, including Windows, Android, and iOS. As far as the macOS app is concerned, it doesn’t have a proper window by default.
You can access the Harvest app from the menu-bar of macOS. In a single click, you can provide all the details and start a certain project. Harvest would be showing the elapsed time on the menu-bar as long as the task is running.
In order to access features like Invoicing and Expense Management, you will have to visit the web interface of Harvest. There, you can get comprehensive reports as well, subject to the plan you’re running. The best part about Harvest is that it keeps all the necessary features behind an intuitive UI. Like, a user can decide not to use the features if they want something simple.
Pros: An intuitive UI, Better invoicing and Timesheet support, Menu-bar integration
Cons: Not-so suitable for individuals
Who is it for: Unlike Toggle, Harvest is the better choice for teams out there. It ticks all the necessary boxes when it comes to enterprise-level features and still offers a simple UI for managing everything. So, if you have a team and you want them to have the best time-tracking experience, go for Harvest.
Check Out Harvest (Free; Team plans start at $12/Person/Month)
3. Timing — Best Automated Time Tracker for macOS
Timing is one of the best apps I’ve personally loved using on my Mac. It really helps in automating the time-tracking process. You don’t have to worry about starting or stopping the timers. Everything you do on Mac would be tracked and analyzed. At the end of the day, you’d know where you spent your time. Timing also automates the labeling process.
There isn’t anything fancy about the UI of Timing. Once you have opened the app, you can see an icon with a timer on the menu-bar. It works as a quick menu for starting and stopping certain tasks. It’s completely up to you to create the task beforehand; Timing works otherwise too.
Probably the best part about Timing is that it provides an overview of your time. You’d know where every second of yours was spent. At the end of the day, you can drag and drop time-slots to individual projects or tasks. You can even add tasks that you did outside the Mac, you know. Last but not the least, Timing offers some superb reporting features as well.
Pros: Fully automated; deeper, app-level tracking, native macOS app
Cons: None worth noting
Who is it for: Timing is the perfect time-tracking app for freelancers. I, for one, have been using it for a long time, probably due to the automation feature. Despite the deep tracking features, Timing is quite flexible as well.
Check Out Timing (Freemium; Basic version starts at $39)
4. Clockify — Best Free Time Tracker for Teams
It’s tough to find a completely free time-tracking app for teams. Clockify is indeed an exception here. You’d be able to use the service and the apps for tracking hourly time, as much time as you want. Unlike some of the other free plans, Clockify does not have limits on the number of users. While it’s predominantly a SaaS, the macOS app is pretty good too.
You can easily add the task and start working on it. You can minimize the window and have a look at overall spent time via the menu-bar itself. It should be noted that the whole UI is pretty minimal. Most of the work take place under the hood.
Clockify Desktop as a simple client for time-tracking. You and your team can visit the web-based interface to do reporting and analysis. From the visual breakdown of time consumption to time-sheet data export, a lot of features are available in this package. It’s also one of the most used team time-tracking solutions out there in the market.
Pros: Completely free, simple UI, Sufficient features
Cons: The Desktop client is too basic.
Who is it for: We’d recommend Clockify to everyone who needs a completely free macOS time-tracker for teams. If you have an office with a few iMacs for work, you should consider getting Clockify — it comes with no limits.
Check Out Clockify (Free)
5. Timely — Best Time Tracking App with Scheduling
There are times when you want to not just track time but schedule how you spend it. Timely is the best way to do both. It packs enough features for planning your tasks ahead and tracking where you spend your daily time. It should be noted that Timely works automatically — from suggesting you the project names to adding the entries, everything is as per schedule.
The UI of Timely does not have anything fancy to offer. Everything has been kept as minimal as possible. The UI even resembles that of Timing, another automatic time-tracking app we listed above. You can go through the different tabs to explore different sections of tracking.
We think it’s like having Timing for a team. In Timely, everything is synced with the server and your team. It can really help when it comes to team-based project management. Even if you’re a solo performer, there is a lot of options for scheduling. Thanks to the power of AI, Timely can track even the slightest activities that you are doing inside each app.
Pros: Completely automated, scheduling options, AI-powered
Cons: Learning curve is steep
Who is it for: If you want to improve the accuracy of time-tracking, enable scheduling and make things better altogether, Timely is a great option for you. It’s not the most affordable tracker out there, though. However, you are getting a fully-fledged macOS client.
Check Out Timely (Plans start at $7/month for an individual)
Which is the best time tracking apps for Mac?
Depending on what exactly you are looking for, you can pick one from the above options. If you happen to be a busy freelancer, the choice is pretty easy, since you can go for Toggl. On the other hand, if you want an automated system, we’d recommend Timing or Timely — based on whether you’re a team or a one-player army. All these apps can offer standard time tracking features on macOS. Nevertheless, we recommend picking one that suits your requirements.
iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. They’re some of the most powerful tools ever made for learning, exploring, and staying in touch. Parents love them. Kids love them. And we’re continually designing new features to help make sure kids use them in the ways you want.
Tools that let parents know, and feel good about, what kids are doing.
Keep track of your
family’s app usage.
Screen Time gives you a better understanding of the time you and your kids spend using apps, visiting websites, and on your devices overall. You can get weekly reports or see specific app usage, notifications, and device pickups.
Set limits and
exceptions.
Screen Time also lets you set the amount of time you and your kids can spend each day on specific apps and websites. You can create exceptions for specific apps, like Messages or education apps, and kids can always request more time for you to approve.
Take time away.
With Downtime, you can set a specific time, like bedtime, when apps and notifications are blocked. You can choose which apps are on and off limits.
The App Store.
A safe place for kids.
The Kids section is carefully curated to be a great space for children. And we review every app to make sure it does what it says it does. In Restrictions, you can also tap an age range and, just like that, your kids can buy or download only apps appropriate for them — including curated recommendations.
Choose which apps they can use.
If you want to, you can prevent kids from installing new apps, like social media or photo sharing — or even turn off the Safari web browser. Enable Ask to Buy, and you can approve or decline their app purchases and downloads right from your device.
Easily create app limits.
With Combined Limits, you can combine individual apps and websites, and even whole categories, into a single, easy-to-manage limit. Set a limit for a group of apps and websites, like games or your kids’ favorite streaming apps.
Decide who can talk to them.
Communication Limits let you choose who your children can communicate with throughout the day and during downtime, so you can make sure they’re always reachable.
Keep them safe on the internet.
You can set up your kids’ devices to limit adult content or open only websites that you select. You can also install special web browsers that are designed to display kid-friendly content and nothing else.
Get one more minute.
Give your kids an extra minute to wrap up what they’re doing. They’ll get a notification when they’ve reached their time limit, so they can quickly wrap up a conversation, save a file, or close a game session before their time runs out.
Make sure what they see is appropriate.
With a few taps you can keep your kids from accessing movies, TV shows, music, music videos, apps, books, or podcasts that contain things you don’t want them to see or hear.
Manage in‑app purchases.
Many apps, even free apps, allow (or encourage) purchases within the app itself. A setting in Restrictions lets you block all in‑app purchases automatically.
Find your missing device with Find My.
Map its location.
The Find My app enables offline, Wi-Fi–enabled devices to send out Bluetooth signals that can be detected by other Apple devices in use nearby. They can then relay the detected location of your missing device to iCloud so you can locate it in the app.
Share locations with friends and family.
Easily locate friends and family members to stay coordinated and keep kids safe. Using the People tab, you can invite friends to share a location or automatically receive location-based alerts — like when your child leaves school. Parents can even manage how their kids share locations.
It’s all anonymous.
The process is anonymous and encrypted end-to-end so no one, including Apple, knows the identity of any reporting device. And because the reporting happens silently using tiny bits of data that piggyback on existing network traffic, there’s no need to worry about your battery life, your data usage, or your privacy.
Share apps, movies, music, and more.
Get everyone started with an Apple ID.
The first step to sharing is making sure each family member has an Apple ID. That way you all have your own private logins, and everyone’s info stays separate. It’s fast and easy — parents can even set one up for kids under 13.
Be one big happy, healthy family.
Make teen driving safer.
No one should be distracted by the phone while driving. With Do Not Disturb While Driving, iPhone won’t interrupt you with messages, calls, or notifications until you reach your destination. In an emergency, callers can override it and get through.
Keep everyone fit.
Mac Internet Tracking App Password
Apple Watch offers a fun way for everyone to get fit and stay fit: Introduce a little daily competition to see who can close their Stand, Move, and Exercise rings first. And the winner is…your whole family.
Turn down the blue light at night.
Research has shown that exposure to blue light before bedtime can make it harder to fall asleep. Night Shift automatically changes the display to a warmer hue when the sun goes down.
Better sleep for better health.
Set up iPhone or iPad to tell you and your kids when it’s bedtime and wake you with customized alarms — which might save a few “time to get up” visits to their bedrooms. And you can all track your sleep over time with daily, weekly, and monthly summaries.
Reduce distractions overall.
Do Not Disturb eliminates distractions from calls and notifications for a specified period of time. It’s a great way to keep your kids from getting interrupted when they’re sleeping or doing homework. If you need to get through in an emergency, you can.
Your medical info, there when it’s needed.
On iPhone and Apple Watch, emergency personnel can quickly access a Medical ID with important information like allergies, blood type, emergency contacts, and more.
Emergency SOS.
If you need help, ask Siri to call 911 or your emergency contact. You can also enable your iPhone and Apple Watch to automatically dial emergency services with a press or a few taps.
Reach kids in an emergency.
Even if your children don’t have their iPhone at school, you can still reach them in an emergency if they’re wearing an Apple Watch with cellular.
Technology should be for everyone.
We design products for everybody, including people with disabilities. In fact, every device we make offers a wide range of innovative tools that help people of all abilities create, explore, stay in shape, and communicate.
Help first responders locate you.
Get help when you need it most. When you call 911 with your iPhone, you can automatically and securely share your location with first responders.
Your privacy comes first.
So much personal data lives on your family’s devices. That’s why we’ve designed our hardware and software to keep this information private. Touch ID and Face ID, for example, are two of the most advanced security technologies on personal devices. We’ve also made it easy for parents to set privacy controls on their kids’ devices.
Apple helps in the classroom, too.
Our commitment to families doesn’t stop at your front door. Apple devices expand what’s possible in the classroom, and apps like Classroom help teachers keep students on track. Educators have access to many of the same controls you do. And Apple doesn’t use your kids’ information to create a profile or market to them.