Best automatic time trackers in 2026, compared

An automatic time tracker records your work without a timer. You never press start or stop: it runs in the background, sees which app or site is in front, and builds the day from that. The tools below all do this. Where they differ is what they record, who turns that record into projects, what you get at the end (a score, a timeline or a timesheet), and what leaves your computer.

The short answer: Timing is the strongest choice on a Mac if you want data to stay local. TimeUno fits if you want projects and timesheets filed for you on Mac, Windows or Linux, including the time your AI coding tools spend working. Timely suits agencies that bill from AI-drafted timesheets, RescueTime and Rize suit people who care most about focus, and ActivityWatch is the free, open source pick. Prices are as of October 2026, from each company's own pricing page.

RescueTime

RescueTime is where many people first met automatic tracking. It records the app in focus, the window title and, for browsers, the URL, and turns your day into a Productivity Pulse score from 0 to 100.

Strengths: a free Lite plan, apps for iOS and Android, Focus Sessions that block distracting sites and apps, and goals and alerts. It never takes screenshots or logs keystrokes. Solo+ adds a timeline, projects, billable rates and AI suggestions that propose a project for each stretch of time, which you review.

Weaknesses: the base plan gives you a score, not a timesheet: projects cost extra. When AI suggestions are on, app and website names may be sent to OpenAI. The current help page lists Linux as not supported.

Price: Solo Focus $7 a month billed yearly ($9 monthly), Solo+ $12 yearly ($15 monthly), Team Focus $10 per user yearly. 14-day trial.

Timing

Timing records every app, document and website on your Mac, including the full file path or URL, and keeps it local unless you turn on sync. No screenshots.

Strengths: the most detailed timeline on the Mac. You build rules by dragging activities onto projects, AI summaries group your day and suggest entries, idle time can be excluded, and it prompts you after calls. Reports export to PDF, Excel, CSV and HTML. The Connect edition adds team projects and a local MCP server, so an assistant like Claude Code can file unassigned time for you.

Weaknesses: Mac only, macOS 14 or later. No Windows or Linux. AI summaries are processed by OpenAI when you opt in. No built-in invoicing.

Price: Professional $9 a month billed yearly ($11 monthly), Expert $11 yearly ($14 monthly), Connect $16 per user a month. 30-day trial, no free plan.

TimeUno

TimeUno runs in the background and records the app or site in front of you, the window title, idle time and the project you are in. It never records what you type. It builds a timeline, sorts every stretch into a project and a category, and marks it productive or unproductive.

Strengths: projects are detected from the folder open in your editor or keywords you set for a client, so most of the filing is done before you look. When it gets one wrong, you correct it once and it remembers. Timesheets for this week, last week or this month come straight from tracked time, with a client name, and export as CSV. TimeUno also tracks AI tools, including agents that work in the background like Claude and Cursor, on their own timeline with tokens and cost. It reads metadata only, never prompts, answers or code, and a server agent picks up AI coding sessions on a remote server. It runs on Linux. Data is stored in Germany and never sold. In a team, admins see worked time and scores, never your apps or sites.

Weaknesses: no free plan, no mobile app, so it only sees work on your computer. No billable rates, invoicing or focus blocking. Screenshots and on-screen text are on by default; you can turn them off per computer. Windows and Linux are in beta, and the browser extension is Firefox only for now.

Price: Individual $10.49 a month billed yearly ($14.99 monthly), Team $13.99 per seat yearly ($19.99 monthly). 14-day trial.

Rize

Rize records the active window's app, title and URL on Mac and Windows, then sorts it with AI.

Strengths: strong focus features: a Focus Time metric, a Distraction Blocker, focus music and smart breaks. AI auto-categorization and tagging file your time, and paid plans add AI chat, reports, agents and an MCP server. The team plan adds profitability by client, timesheets and invoicing.

Weaknesses: no Linux, and a mobile app only on Enterprise. AI features run on credits, and the plans with agents cost much more than Basic. Data is hosted on Google Cloud in the US, and the AI provider is not named on the security page.

Price: Basic $9.99 a month billed yearly ($12.99 monthly), Pro $23.99 yearly ($29.99 monthly), Team $29.99 per seat with a 2-seat minimum. 7-day trial.

Timely

Timely's Memory app tracks your work in the background on Mac and Windows, and AI drafts timesheet entries from it that you approve in one step.

Strengths: built for agencies and consultancies that bill. Every plan includes billable rates and invoices, and higher plans add accounting integrations, team management and capacity planning. Memory is private: no keystroke logging, no screenshots, and only entries you approve are shared. Since May 2026, Memory reads the real window titles from Claude and Codex, so AI sessions show what you were working on.

Weaknesses: no Linux app. Starter is capped at 5 users and 20 projects. It is priced per user, and the full feature set sits in the higher plans. It tracks AI apps as windows, not their tokens or cost.

Price: Starter $9 per user a month billed yearly ($11 monthly), Premium $16 yearly ($20 monthly), Unlimited $22 yearly ($28 monthly). 14-day trial.

ManicTime

ManicTime records apps, documents and away time into a detailed timeline that you tag with projects and tasks.

Strengths: data stays on your computer, and the free Windows version needs no account. It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. You can buy a license instead of a subscription and host your own server, and an MCP server lets AI tools turn recorded activity into time entries.

Weaknesses: the free version is Windows only, and its docs list auto-tagging, timesheets and server sync as licensed features. Optional screenshots and attendance tracking make it a monitoring tool in some companies.

Price: Cloud Standard $7 a month billed yearly ($9 monthly), Ultimate $9 yearly ($11 monthly), team plans from $10 per user a month yearly. Or a one-time license from $87 per user with a year of upgrades. 30-day trial.

ActivityWatch

ActivityWatch is free and open source. It records the active app and window title, browser tabs through an extension, and AFK time, with optional editor watchers.

Strengths: free, local, and on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. You can read the code and add your own watchers.

Weaknesses: categories are regular expressions you write, there are no projects or timesheets, and device sync is still a work in progress. No team features or support beyond the community.

Price: free.

WakaTime

WakaTime tracks coding through open source plugins for more than 100 editors, IDEs and terminals, plus a desktop app that can track time in any app.

Strengths: it knows the project, branch and language from the editor with no setup. It sends file paths, never file contents. It tracks AI coding tools like Claude Code, Cursor and Copilot, and Premium shows model usage and spend.

Weaknesses: built around code. Meetings, writing and design work only show up as app time, and there are no general timesheets or focus tools. The free plan keeps one week of history.

Price: Basic $8.25 a month billed yearly ($9 monthly), Premium $12.83 yearly ($14 monthly), Team $19.25 per developer yearly.

What about Toggl Track and Clockify?

Both are timers that added some automatic capture, so they are only partly automatic.

Toggl Track's desktop Timeline records every app and site you use for more than 10 seconds, privately. Autotracker rules can suggest or start an entry when a matching window is in front. But your timesheet still comes from timers and entries you confirm.

Clockify's Auto tracker records programs, window titles and URLs on your desktop and keeps them locally for 45 days. Turning them into time entries is fully manual. Its Activity monitoring, on Pro and up, records websites, apps, keyboard and mouse activity and optional screenshots for admins, which is employee monitoring, not personal tracking.

If you bill by the hour and like a timer, both are good. If the timer itself is the problem, pick one of the tools above.

How to choose

Compare these five things, in this order.

1. What it captures. Most record the app, window title and URL. Timing adds file paths. TimeUno and ManicTime can add screenshots (TimeUno has them on by default, you can turn them off). WakaTime sees only your editor unless you add its desktop app. None of them should record what you type.
2. Who files the projects. This decides how much Friday work is left. You build rules (Timing, ManicTime, ActivityWatch), AI suggests and you review (RescueTime Solo+, Timely, Rize), or the tool detects the project and learns from your corrections (TimeUno). WakaTime does it for code only.
3. What you get out. A score (RescueTime, Rize), a timeline (all of them), or a timesheet you can send (Timely, Timing, TimeUno, RescueTime Solo+, ManicTime with a license). If you invoice, check for billable rates: TimeUno does not have them.
4. What leaves the machine. ActivityWatch and ManicTime's free version stay local. Timing is local unless you sync or use AI summaries, which go to OpenAI. RescueTime may send app names to OpenAI for AI suggestions. Rize hosts in the US, TimeUno in Germany.
5. AI tools. If coding agents do part of your work while you do something else, a window tracker misses that time. WakaTime tracks AI inside the editor, Timely now reads Claude and Codex window titles, and TimeUno gives AI tools their own timeline with tokens and cost, including on a remote server.

Questions people ask

What is an automatic time tracker?

A tracker that records your work without a timer. It runs in the background, sees which app or site is in front, and builds a timeline. The better ones also file that time into projects for you.

What is the best free automatic time tracker?

ActivityWatch is free and open source on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. RescueTime Lite, ManicTime's free Windows version and WakaTime's free plan are also free, each with limits.

Which automatic time trackers work on Linux?

TimeUno (beta), ManicTime, ActivityWatch and WakaTime. RescueTime, Timing, Rize and Timely do not offer a Linux app.

Does automatic time tracking count AI coding agents?

Only some tools. WakaTime tracks AI coding inside your editor, Timely reads Claude and Codex window titles, and TimeUno tracks AI tools on their own timeline with tokens and cost, reading metadata only.