TimePrivate watches the frontmost Mac app and, in a browser, the domain, offers idle time back when a timer is running, and writes a daily draft that stays unbillable until you approve it. You still decide what the hours were for. The Mac just stops you from reconstructing the afternoon from memory.
TimePrivate is not released. There is no download, no trial and no purchase today. Apple Silicon Macs first, Windows on the roadmap.
Automatic time tracking means the computer notices what you worked in, so you do not have to start a timer every time you switch tasks. TimePrivate does that on a Mac with two facts only: the frontmost application, and the browser domain when the frontmost application is a browser. Those facts become a daily draft. You decide what, if anything, becomes billable.
Two limits up front. Automatic capture cannot see work that happened on a phone, on paper, or in a meeting with the lid closed. And TimePrivate cannot stop an employer from installing a different tool on the same Mac.
Automatic time tracking exists for one afternoon like this. You start a timer for a client at 9:10. At 10:40 a Slack message pulls you into a different project. At 11:15 you open the browser to a staging site. At 12:40 you remember the timer is still running on the first client. The afternoon then becomes a reconstruction exercise: which stretch belonged to whom, which minutes were lunch, which tab was actually the billable one.
A manual timer is clear about intent, because you named the project, but that intent only exists on the days you remember to start the clock. The Mac already knows which application was in front, so TimePrivate writes that down and you reconstruct the afternoon from a draft instead of from memory.
The draft is still a guess about billable work. Sitting in Figma for forty minutes can be client work, or it can be you rearranging your own icon set, which is why TimePrivate stops at a draft and waits for you. Capture that books itself is how a tracker turns into a monitoring tool.
If you already keep a weekly sheet by hand, keep doing that until the app exists. The TimePrivate timesheet app page still has a free weekly template you can download today, no email. Automatic capture is the part that fills the same columns later, on your Mac, after you join the waitlist and the app actually ships.
For desk work, the best way to keep track of time is automatic capture plus a same-day review. A manual timer is exact but fails on the days you forget it. TimePrivate records the frontmost app and browser domain, then waits for you to approve a daily draft.
| Question | Manual timer | Automatic capture alone | TimePrivate: capture, then you approve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who starts the record | You, every time you switch tasks | The computer, all day | The Mac, from the frontmost app and browser domain |
| What it gets right | Intent. You named the project when you pressed start | Coverage. A forgotten timer does not erase the afternoon | Both. Rules label the draft, you confirm the intent |
| What it gets wrong | The 90 minutes after you forgot to switch it | Guessing that an hour in a browser was billable | Work away from the Mac still has to be added by hand |
| When hours become billable | When you stop the timer | Depends on the tool | Only after you approve the daily draft |
TimePrivate keeps a manual timer too. Start it when you know exactly what you are about to bill, and let automatic time tracking cover the rest of the day.
Automatic is the easy part. The useful test for any automatic time tracker, TimePrivate included, is which facts get written down and which never do.
Hours live in a local database on your Mac. The app has no TimePrivate account and no TimePrivate server to upload to.
Two labels cover most of a desk day. The rest is a rule you write once, not a screenshot you regret later.
If you live in Xcode, Figma, Numbers or Mail, the application name already tells you which bucket the hour belongs in. TimePrivate stores that name. It does not need a picture of the canvas to know you were in Figma.
A lot of client work now happens in a tab. The domain is the stable identifier: github.com, linear.app, a client's staging host. TimePrivate records the domain, not the ticket title and not the query string. That is enough to map the stretch to a project without storing the contents of the page.
You can map github.com to a client and a project. You can map a local app the same way. After that, the draft arrives already labelled. The mapping lives with the rest of the database on your Mac. There is no shared workspace for someone else to browse.
Frontmost app names are read from the window list. Browser domain capture is a separate, optional step and may ask for Automation permission so TimePrivate can read the domain in Safari or Chrome. Neither path is a screenshot feature, and there is no screenshot permission sitting behind a second toggle.
At the end of a day of automatic time tracking, TimePrivate has a pile of labelled stretches: twenty minutes in Mail, an hour on github.com, a chunk in Figma, a stretch that looks like idle. The draft is those stretches rolled into the clients and projects your rules point at. It looks like a timesheet someone else started for you, which is the point. You are still the person who signs it.
Accept the draft, edit a row, or throw the day away. Until you do one of those, the stretches are not billable hours, they are not on an invoice, and they are not a report you owe anyone. The walk from an approved day to a PDF is on the TimePrivate time tracking and invoicing page.
Draft rounding in the app today is 5, 15 or 30 minutes, which is a way to snap the raw capture while you clean the day. If you bill in tenths of an hour, that unit goes on the invoice after you approve. The TimePrivate page for lawyers writes that difference out, including that TimePrivate bills lawyer time in tenths once you are in that workflow. The on-page work hours calculator already has a 6 minute, tenth of an hour option you can use today in the browser.
The draft lives in a local SQLite style database. No account is required to hold it. Optional sync shares end-to-end encrypted copies of projects, time entries and assignment rules between your Macs through a folder you choose, such as iCloud Drive or Dropbox. The separate raw app and domain activity log is not in those sync files. Your cloud provider may store the encrypted files, but TimePrivate does not run a sync service of its own.
Idle is the stretch after the Mac last saw input. TimePrivate reads the time since that input. It does not read the input. There is no keystroke log hiding under the idle prompt.
The keep or discard prompt appears when a timer is running and you come back. Automatic capture that goes quiet is not offered as a pending idle block. It also is not marked billable. You still approve the draft.
Keep the idle minutes on the project you were in, move them, or drop them. The draft updates. If sync is on, the encrypted time entries can include your change.
Most automated time trackers charge per user per month. TimePrivate is planned as one flat subscription for one person, at $9 a month or $79 a year, and it is not on sale yet. The other prices below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 23 September 2026.
| Automatic time tracker | TimePrivate | Toggl Track | Clockify | Timely |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Listed price | Planned $9 a month or $79 a year. Waitlist only today | Free plan $0. Starter $9 per user a month billed annually, $12 billed monthly | Free plan $0. Paid plans from $3.99 per seat a month billed annually, $4.99 billed monthly | Starter $9 per user a month billed annually, $11 billed monthly |
| Where automatic capture runs | The TimePrivate Mac app, Apple Silicon first | Toggl Track desktop apps for Mac and Windows. Toggl also ships mobile apps and a browser extension, but activity tracking is a desktop feature | Clockify desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux. Clockify also has iOS and Android apps, but the auto tracker is a desktop feature | The Timely Memory app, which Timely says runs locally on your machine |
| Who sees raw activity | Only you. Raw app and domain activity stays on this Mac; optional sync copies encrypted time entries, projects and rules | Toggl says app and website activity is stored locally and not shared with other team members | Clockify says tracked activity is saved locally and is not available to workspace admins | Timely says memories are private by default and only you can see them unless you share an entry |
| Account and approved hours | No account. Time entries are local by default, with optional encrypted folder sync | Toggl Track account. Time entries sync to the Toggl workspace | Clockify account, free to sign up. Reports run online | Timely account. Timesheets live in the Timely web app |
Read that table honestly and the raw activity is private by default at all four. The difference TimePrivate sells is the account. Toggl Track, Clockify and Timely keep your approved time entries in a hosted workspace, and TimePrivate keeps them in a local database on your Mac with optional encrypted folder sync and no TimePrivate account. A team that needs shared reports and a manager view is better served by one of the hosted tools. The side by side with one of them is on the TimePrivate comparison with Toggl Track.
RescueTime is the automatic tracker missing from that table because it answers a different question: its help centre says activity data is sent to RescueTime's servers every few minutes. If that upload is why you are looking elsewhere, TimePrivate's list of RescueTime alternatives sorts seven trackers by where the activity log ends up, with each price quoted from the vendor on 29 September 2026.
TimePrivate automatic time tracking is built for one person billing from one Mac. Two kinds of people fit that shape, and one does not.
TimePrivate automatic time tracking maps each app and domain to a client, so a freelancer with four clients gets a labelled draft instead of a blank evening. The rate and invoice maths live on the TimePrivate freelance time tracking app page.
Automatic time tracking for lawyers in TimePrivate means a rule maps an app or domain to a matter, the draft snaps to 5, 15 or 30 minutes while you clean the day, and tenths of an hour go on the invoice after you approve. The TimePrivate page for lawyers covers the billing side.
TimePrivate automatic time tracking has no manager dashboard, no shared workspace and no staff approval queue. If a manager has to approve other people's timesheets, a hosted tool from the cost table above is the right shape.
Automatic time tracking is a desk tool, and TimePrivate is no exception. These are the edges where it stops being useful, said before you shortlist it.
A client meeting, a phone call, a walk. If the Mac is asleep, there is no frontmost app to name. Add those hours by hand, or accept that the draft will have a hole.
github.com can be one client on Monday and another on Tuesday. Rules help when the mapping is stable. When it is not, you edit the draft. Automatic tracking is there so a forgotten timer does not erase the afternoon; you still decide what the hours were for.
If an employer installs a different tracker on the same Mac, TimePrivate does not block it, hide it or compete with it. There is no manager dashboard and no screenshot mode, so if you later share hours with someone else you export a file.
Solo consultants who need the hours to stay on a machine the client never logs into should read the TimePrivate consultant time tracker page. The capture path is the same. The reason you care about it is not.
Automatic time tracking is any setup where the computer records what you worked in without you starting a timer for every switch. In TimePrivate that record is the frontmost Mac app and, in a browser, the domain. The result is a daily draft you approve before it becomes billable.
No. Automatic capture stores app names and browser domains. It does not store screenshots, screen pixels or keystrokes. Idle detection uses the time since the last input, not the input itself.
No. TimePrivate drafts the day and waits. You accept, edit or discard. Until you approve a stretch, it is not billable and it does not land on a PDF invoice.
If a timer is running, idle time is offered back: keep it, move it or drop it. If only automatic capture is running, quiet stretches are not silently kept as billable and they are not turned into a keep or discard prompt. Either way, nothing is billable until you approve the draft.
Yes. A rule can map github.com to a client and a project. The project name can be a matter name if that is how you file work. The mapping sits in the local database with the rest of your hours.
In a local SQLite style database on your Mac. No account is required. Optional sync writes end-to-end encrypted files containing projects, time entries and assignment rules to a folder you choose, such as iCloud Drive or Dropbox. The raw app and domain activity log is not synced.
Yes. The draft will still need your eyes, because a day in the browser is not automatically a billable day, but you will not be reconstructing eight hours from memory at 6pm.
Most automated time trackers charge per user per month. On 23 September 2026 Toggl Track Starter listed $9 per user a month billed annually, Clockify paid plans started at $3.99 per seat a month billed annually, and Timely Starter listed $9 per user a month billed annually. TimePrivate is planned at $9 a month or $79 a year for one person and is not on sale yet.
For desk work, the best way to keep track of time is automatic capture plus a same-day review. A manual timer is exact but fails on the days you forget it. TimePrivate records the frontmost app and browser domain, then waits for you to approve a daily draft.
Yes, for a lawyer billing from one Mac. A rule maps an app or domain to a matter, the draft snaps to 5, 15 or 30 minutes while you clean the day, and tenths of an hour go on the invoice after you approve. There is no firm-wide dashboard.
No. TimePrivate is not released. There is no download, no trial and no purchase today. Planned pricing is $9 a month or $79 a year, on Apple Silicon Macs first, with Windows on the roadmap. The waitlist is one email the day it opens.
App, domain, idle offer, draft, then your approval. Join the waitlist and we will write when TimePrivate opens.
Not released yet. Leave your email and we will write to you the day it opens.