Track your screen time without giving up your privacy

Have you ever reached the end of a day spent on your computer and asked, “Where did all that time go?” Between work, surfing the web, and playing games, it’s easy to lose track. ActivityWatch is a free, open-source app that shows how you use your computer. It can help you spot what keeps you on task and what pulls you away.

After you install it, ActivityWatch runs in the background. It tracks the apps you use and the titles of your active windows. It also comes with a browser extension to track your active tab in Chrome, Firefox, or Edge. The app even marks when you step away from your desk as well, automatically listing you as AFK after three minutes with no input—when your computer is asleep or in hibernation, it records no activity.

You can open the dashboard to see a timeline and charts for your day. You can check how long you spent in Word, on YouTube, playing a game, or reading email. You can sort those tasks into groups such as work, fun, and chat, which makes the data much easier to scan.

I’ve tried other time-tracking apps and most end up trying to guilt-trip me into being more productive. But with ActivityWatch, it simply gives you the facts without telling you how to spend your time. After a few days, you may spot habits that are hard to see as they happen. That “quick” YouTube break may actually be a 40-minute time-suck. Sorting through your inbox may be eating up most of your morning.

Screen trackers can often feel a bit invasive, but ActivityWatch deals with that concern by keeping all of your data on your own device. It doesn’t send anything about you to the cloud or back to some unknown company. The app is free and has no ads or use limits. You can get it for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android.

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