Automatic time tracking for freelancers, on your Mac.

What it does

Billable hours without the bookkeeping

Manual timesheets are a memory test most freelancers fail on Friday. Tracker does the time tracking while the work happens.

• 01

  It just watches

  Tracker samples the front window and browser URL every few seconds. You never start a timer, and you never forget to stop one.

• 02

  Rules, not guesses

  A URL or window-title pattern per client. github.com/acme goes to Acme, notion.so/northwind goes to Northwind. Ambiguous sites stay neutral until you decide.

• 03

  Idle is not billable

  Step away for lunch or a call and the gap is cut out of the day. What you export is time you were actually at the keyboard.

• 04

  Reports you can invoice

  Pick a client and a range, get billable hours per day and per source. The export is an invoice-ready CSV for your accounting tool.

• 05

  Native, small, quiet

  Rust and Tauri under the hood. It sits in the macOS menu bar, uses almost no memory, and never asks for attention.

• 06

  Local-first

  A SQLite file on your disk is the whole backend. No account, no sync, no server that knows how you spend your day.

How it works

From install to invoice in three steps

Setup takes a few minutes on your Mac. After that the time tracking runs without you.

1. 01

   Install and grant access

   Open the app, allow it to read the front window. That is the whole setup.

   Accessibility · granted
2. 02

   Add clients and rules

   One client, a few patterns. From then on every matching window is theirs.

   url github.com/northwind → Northwind Co.
3. 03

   Export the report

   Choose the client and the month. Send the file with the invoice.

   northwind-2026-09.csv · 41:20

FAQ

Questions freelancers ask

Short answers on how the time tracking works, what it costs, and where your hours are kept.

• Is Tracker an automatic time tracker?

  Yes. It samples the front window and the browser URL every few seconds and files that time under a client. You never start a timer, you never stop one, and there is no timesheet to fill in on Friday.

• How does Tracker know which client I am working for?

  You write one or two rules per client: a URL or a window-title pattern. github.com/acme goes to Acme, notion.so/northwind goes to Northwind. Anything ambiguous stays neutral until you decide where it belongs.

• Where is my data stored? Is it private?

  In a SQLite file on your Mac, and nowhere else. There is no account and no server, so window titles and URLs never leave the machine. Delete the file and the history is gone with it.

• Can I export billable hours for an invoice?

  Pick a client and a date range and Tracker writes an invoice-ready CSV with totals per day and per source. Attach it to the invoice or paste it into your accounting tool.

• How much does Tracker cost?

  It is free during early access. After launch it becomes a one-time license, not a subscription: the app runs on your own Mac, so there is nothing to rent.

• Which Macs does Tracker run on?

  It is a native macOS menu-bar app and runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs on recent versions of macOS. The exact minimum version is confirmed with the first release.