Time Tracker app for mac?

[rcorai]

I would like to know if anyone has any experience with a time tracker app for mac. I found a lot of different apps but not sure what's the best. Any suggestion?

 

[2457244]

What features are you looking for.. ?

I've been (legally) using an app called Timing for a while now.
https://timingapp.com/

It's a nice app, it's okay, not perfect or amazing category. It stands out form all/most other 'work' time tracking apps because this app doesn't work like a stopwatch where you manually have to press a start and stop button while working. I've tried all of those and they all work the same and at the end of the day, you're more busy remembering to stop a project - **** you forgot to stop a timer - and end up confused how long did you really work on this project. Right, beside, I'm often working on two or more projects at the same time. Busy at one project, someone calls and you have to switch projects for half an hour while the timer of someone else is still ticking. It's frustrating, at least for me. I never could find anyone that worked for me because it was all based on manually switching the timers on and off.

This Timing works a little different, the app records by default all activity on your computer during the day, and your task will be to try and let the app automatically attach X type of activity to your clients Z project.

It works as follow. First you Whitelist < > Blacklist apps and directories on your system you want to track or prevented from tracking and recording.

After that, you'll add clients projects in the sidebar, those projects are similar to smart folders and labels (color) on your computer.

Next, you'll add one or a few project folders for your client on your computer. You probably are doing this already by default right now. This is pretty normal I guess.
Let's say Mac Rumors is my client so I'll add a folder called Mac Rumors inside my Dropbox > Projects folder. After that I'll attach this new created 'Mac Rumors' folder to my Mac Rumors clients project in the sidebar of the app. What this does is telling the Timing app to watch every activity inside this Mac Rumors folder.

You're done. Now it's just working as usually.. Every file you open inside 'Mac Rumors' folder in Dropbox will be watched and recored based on all you Whitelisted apps of course.

This will look something like this over time. You'll see all the apps and you can toggle inside them to see that files you've been working on and for how long.
You can even attach domains to Safari so it will only track activity from X domain - web developers like myself probably do lot's a testing or content adding in some CMS via the browser.

This example is a screenshot in the perfect world. Remember this app is not perfect so you stil have to find time to manually check and see if all time tracking is going well. If some (new) app hasn't been whitelisted yet and it's tracking activity but not appending it to your clients project just drag it on top of the project and the time will be added.

Also not all apps allow FILE tracking, like Pixelmator. It still does track your overall time inside this 'Mac Rumors' folder perfectly but it doesn't tell you the names of the files you've been working on.


----

Overall this app is a cool way to track your time but I have to say the price tag at 50.- is a complete joke and stinks. It doesn't stand in any means to the real value of this indie-software. If this app should really costs 50.- apps like Affinity Designer should costs around 980.-
I often like to compare software prices a little bit even while it's barely impossible to compare but I've paid about 35.- for Bryan's CodeKit and even while he's an indie-indie developer trying to make a living his app is really professional and top notice compared to this and also very active in development. It doesn't feel like Bryan has a day job and does CodeKit on the side. This Timing app feels like it's a side project. Not trying to say anything bad about this software, I really like it, but if I had to pay all over again I would never pay 50.- for this app.

I've used this app illegally for a while until I found a discount period on MacUpdate.com (JIEEEK) I bought it for about 15.- I think and I would say this app should costs 25 or 35.- at max. It's far from perfect and if you like to do something a little bit out of the box you'll get in trouble as soon as you think about it. It's all very fixed and limited, but still very good when you're a bit creative behind your computer.

 

[MrMage_]

What features are you looking for.. ?

I've been (legally) using an app called Timing for a while now.
https://timingapp.com/

It's a nice app, it's okay, not perfect or amazing category. It stands out form all/most other 'work' time tracking apps because this app doesn't work like a stopwatch where you manually have to press a start and stop button while working. I've tried all of those and they all work the same and at the end of the day, you're more busy remembering to stop a project - **** you forgot to stop a timer - and end up confused how long did you really work on this project. Right, beside, I'm often working on two or more projects at the same time. Busy at one project, someone calls and you have to switch projects for half an hour while the timer of someone else is still ticking. It's frustrating, at least for me. I never could find anyone that worked for me because it was all based on manually switching the timers on and off.

This Timing works a little different, the app records by default all activity on your computer during the day, and your task will be to try and let the app automatically attach X type of activity to your clients Z project.

It works as follow. First you Whitelist < > Blacklist apps and directories on your system you want to track or prevented from tracking and recording.

After that, you'll add clients projects in the sidebar, those projects are similar to smart folders and labels (color) on your computer.

Next, you'll add one or a few project folders for your client on your computer. You probably are doing this already by default right now. This is pretty normal I guess.
Let's say Mac Rumors is my client so I'll add a folder called Mac Rumors inside my Dropbox > Projects folder. After that I'll attach this new created 'Mac Rumors' folder to my Mac Rumors clients project in the sidebar of the app. What this does is telling the Timing app to watch every activity inside this Mac Rumors folder.

You're done. Now it's just working as usually.. Every file you open inside 'Mac Rumors' folder in Dropbox will be watched and recored based on all you Whitelisted apps of course.

This will look something like this over time. You'll see all the apps and you can toggle inside them to see that files you've been working on and for how long.
You can even attach domains to Safari so it will only track activity from X domain - web developers like myself probably do lot's a testing or content adding in some CMS via the browser.

This example is a screenshot in the perfect world. Remember this app is not perfect so you stil have to find time to manually check and see if all time tracking is going well. If some (new) app hasn't been whitelisted yet and it's tracking activity but not appending it to your clients project just drag it on top of the project and the time will be added.

Also not all apps allow FILE tracking, like Pixelmator. It still does track your overall time inside this 'Mac Rumors' folder perfectly but it doesn't tell you the names of the files you've been working on.


----

Overall this app is a cool way to track your time but I have to say the price tag at 50.- is a complete joke and stinks. It doesn't stand in any means to the real value of this indie-software. If this app should really costs 50.- apps like Affinity Designer should costs around 980.-
I often like to compare software prices a little bit even while it's barely impossible to compare but I've paid about 35.- for Bryan's CodeKit and even while he's an indie-indie developer trying to make a living his app is really professional and top notice compared to this and also very active in development. It doesn't feel like Bryan has a day job and does CodeKit on the side. This Timing app feels like it's a side project. Not trying to say anything bad about this software, I really like it, but if I had to pay all over again I would never pay 50.- for this app.

I've used this app illegally for a while until I found a discount period on MacUpdate.com (JIEEEK) I bought it for about 15.- I think and I would say this app should costs 25 or 35.- at max. It's far from perfect and if you like to do something a little bit out of the box you'll get in trouble as soon as you think about it. It's all very fixed and limited, but still very good when you're a bit creative behind your computer.

Hi! Daniel here, the developer of Timing. Thanks for your feedback on the app!

Regarding pricing - if your time is worth $50+ per hour and Timing just saves you half an hour per month (either in extra billed time or improved productivity), it's still a steal.

Also, yes, Timing used to be a side project. However, I spent the past year working full-time on a complete rewrite of the app. It's much better in every regard (interface, start/stop timers etc. etc.). I'd really encourage you and rcorai to take look at it. It's currently in private beta, which you can sign up for at https://beta.timingapp.com. I'd love to hear what you think of it!

 

[SackJabbit]

Hi! Daniel here, the developer of Timing. Thanks for your feedback on the app!

Regarding pricing - if your time is worth $50+ per hour and Timing just saves you half an hour per month (either in extra billed time or improved productivity), it's still a steal.

Also, yes, Timing used to be a side project. However, I spent the past year working full-time on a complete rewrite of the app. It's much better in every regard (interface, start/stop timers etc. etc.). I'd really encourage you and rcorai to take look at it. It's currently in private beta, which you can sign up for at https://beta.timingapp.com. I'd love to hear what you think of it!

Hi Daniel, I just signed up for the beta test. Your app looks like something I would totally get, as I am into seeing how I distribute my productivity time (or lack of!). Looking forward to trying it out. All the best in the development!

 

[MrMage_]

Hi @MrMage_ friend can you guide me what is timing app and how can I use this app?

Timing is an automatic time tracking app for Mac. To use the app, just sign up at https://beta.timingapp.com and follow the instructions I send you. You'll then automatically get a guide on how to use the app via email.

 

[2457244]

Regarding pricing - if your time is worth $50+ per hour and Timing just saves you half an hour per month (either in extra billed time or improved productivity), it's still a steal.

Last time I checked you were the developer not my accountant.

Beside all that.. Those beta screenshots are looking very nice!

This new UI and Dashboard view looks way better. Very nice, looking forward to Timing 2.0.

To Do:
- New app icon.

 

[Qot]

I would like to know if anyone has any experience with a time tracker app for mac. I found a lot of different apps but not sure what's the best. Any suggestion?

Have you seen our app, Qbserve? We still have problems with the app's visibility. :\

If you need productivity tracking – it's the only alternative to RescueTime that also does the job better by giving real-time feedback and keeping data locally.

Also we just updated it with automatic project tracking and invoicing though the site does not reflect it yet.

 

[MrMage_]

If you need productivity tracking – it's the only alternative to RescueTime that also does the job better by giving real-time feedback and keeping data locally.

Timing does this as well...

 

[Qot]

Timing does this as well...

Ah, ok. Maybe the second version? I used the first one for a while and it was based on manual categorizing back then.

 

[MrMage_]

Ah, ok. Maybe the second version? I used the first one for a while and it was based on manual categorizing back then.

Hmm, Timing 1 already did automatically categorize your activities. However, Timing 2 adds productivity scores that you can set per-project, and computing the average productivity score over the time you spent.