Compared honestly
Timing alternatives that don’t read your screen
Timing is the best automatic tracker on the Mac, and it is automatic because it reads the apps, document titles and web addresses you have open. If that is the part you want to leave behind, these are the trackers that get their record another way.
Prices and facts checked 10 October 2026 · Quarter Past 2.3.10 · They change; tell us if one has
What “doesn’t read your screen” means, exactly
Since macOS Catalina in 2019, an application cannot be told the title of another application’s window unless it holds Screen Recording permission. So the test is not marketing, it is a system setting: a tracker that can say you spent forty minutes in Pages on a named proposal must be on that list, and usually on the Accessibility list beside it. The three kinds of Mac tracker explains the permission in full.
Every tracker below gets its record without either permission. Two of them, Toggl Track and Clockify, have an optional desktop component that does read app and window titles; it is off unless you switch it on, and the entry for each says so. Nothing here is a camera pointed at your desk.
Timing itself: £84 a year on its cheapest plan, so £420 over five years, with the record synced to its cloud. Quarter Past vs Timing has the full side by side.
Six that don’t
In order of how close each comes to replacing Timing for someone on a Mac. Five-year costs are what you would actually have paid, on the cheapest plan that does the job for one person.
Daily for Mac Asks you, at an interval you set
The nearest thing to Timing in being Mac-native and effortless, except that it asks instead of watching: a prompt at an interval you choose, and you say what you are doing. Its App Store privacy label says no data is collected. By design it records how long each activity took, not when it started and ended, so it will not give you a timeline, and its clients-and-invoices story is thin. Mac only, with an iPhone companion.
Tyme A timer, with reminders when you forget
The polished Apple-ecosystem timer, ten years in: Mac, iPhone, iPad and Watch, synced between them. It reads no documents and no web addresses, and it will nag you to start the timer, which is the honest answer to the timer’s only weakness. It can clock you in by location if you let it. Subscription only.
Toggl Track The timer everyone has tried
A start-and-stop timer on every platform, with reports, billable rates and a free plan that is genuinely usable for one person. It does not read your screen by default. Its desktop app has an optional timeline that records app and window titles to help you fill gaps; leave it off and nothing is read. Your data lives on Toggl’s servers.
Harvest A timer that turns into an invoice
If what you want from Timing was the invoice at the end, Harvest is the timer built for that: entries with real start and end times, timesheets, and invoicing that is the point of the product. It reads nothing on your Mac. Free for one person with two projects; the paid plan is priced per seat for teams.
Clockify The free one, with a caveat
Free for up to five people and genuinely so, on every platform. The timer and manual entry read nothing. The caveat: it also has an auto-tracker that records apps and websites, and the Pro plan and above can take screenshots every five minutes. Use the timer and leave the auto-tracker off, and it belongs on this list; switch them on and it belongs on the other one.
Quarter Past Asks you every fifteen minutes; this site’s own
Every fifteen minutes a small card appears by the menu bar asking what you have been doing. One tap logs the quarter-hour that just passed, with a start and an end, so forgetting to start a timer costs nothing. Forget for an hour and it asks about the hour, and marks the answer as recalled, so the record is honest about its own gaps. It holds no Screen Recording and no Accessibility permission because there is nothing for it to read. The record is a file on your Mac; no account, no server. Mac only, one person, no invoicing.
Four that do, and why they are not on the list
These come up in every “Timing alternative” search, and each is a good product. They are not alternatives on this page’s terms, because reading what you have open is how they work.
- Rize records the focused window and browser addresses and coaches you with AI; data on its servers, from $9.99 a month. Side by side.
- RescueTime is the original automatic tracker, from application and website activity; from $84 a year. Side by side.
- Timemator reads which apps and files are in use to drive its rules, and keeps what it sees on your Mac; $39 once, which makes it the cheapest Timing replacement if the reading does not trouble you. Side by side.
- Memtime records every program and document to the second, offline on your device, then asks you to turn the recording into entries; from £9 a month. Side by side.
Rize and RescueTime prices checked 10 October 2026 on their own pricing pages; Timemator and Memtime on 18 September 2026. Each comparison page carries its own date.
Timemator and Memtime deserve the distinction: they read your screen, but they do not send what they read anywhere. If your objection to Timing was the cloud rather than the reading, they answer it.
Which one, honestly
Choose one of the others if
- You remember to press a timer, or want to be nagged to: Tyme on Apple devices, Toggl Track anywhere.
- The invoice is the point: Harvest.
- You want it free and are happy with your data on a server: Toggl Track or Clockify.
- You want Daily’s way of asking and do not need start and end times.
Choose Quarter Past if
- You want a record without a timer and without anything being read, with every quarter-hour given a start and an end.
- You want the record to say which entries were measured and which were recalled.
- You want one payment, and the file on your own Mac.
- You want to plan the week and see it against the record, and a brief an AI can read at the end of a fortnight.
What Quarter Past does not do
So that this page is worth trusting:
- Mac only. No Windows, no phone, no web version yet.
- One person. No team view, no shared projects, no manager reports.
- No invoicing, no integrations, no Zapier. It exports a CSV and stops there.
- Not on the Mac App Store, by choice; it is signed and notarised with Apple and downloaded from this site.
Try it for a fortnight. Decide then.
Free for fourteen days, no card and no account. If it earns its place, it is £54 once, paid from inside the app. If not, nothing to cancel.
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