Compared honestly
Toggl alternatives without a timer
Toggl Track is the timer everyone has tried, and it is excellent if you remember to press it. The gap in every Toggl record is the hour nobody started. These are the trackers built for that hour: five that watch what you have open, and two that ask.
Prices and facts checked 10 October 2026 · Quarter Past 2.3.10 · They change; tell us if one has
Two ways to get a record without a button
A timer needs you to remember it twice, at the start and at the end, and the record is only as good as the second memory. There are two ways round that. Automatic trackers read the apps, document titles and web addresses you have open and build the record from that; on a Mac this needs Screen Recording permission, and the three kinds of Mac tracker explains why. Asking trackers interrupt you at an interval and record your answer; they read nothing, and the record is in your words.
Toggl Track itself: free for up to three users, Starter $9 a user a month billed annually, so $540 over five years on Starter for one person. Its desktop app has an optional timeline that reads app and window titles to help fill gaps, which is Toggl’s own admission that the timer alone leaves them. Quarter Past vs Toggl has the full side by side.
If what you want is a better timer rather than no timer, that is a different list: Tyme reminds you to start it, Harvest turns it into an invoice, and Clockify is free for five. None of them solves the forgotten hour.
Five that watch
Complete records with no effort, at the price of software reading what you have open all day. Five-year costs are what you would actually have paid on the cheapest plan that does the job for one person.
Timing The best automatic tracker on the Mac
Records which apps, documents and websites are in front of you, builds a minute-by-minute timeline, and files it to projects with rules. Mac only, sold direct, synced to its own cloud, with team plans above. If you want zero effort and are comfortable with the reading, this is the one.
Timemator Automatic, bought once, kept on your Mac
Watches the apps you use and the files you have open, with rules that assign that activity to tasks, plus a manual timer when you want one. What it sees stays on your Mac, with optional iCloud sync. The cheapest way to stop pressing a timer if the reading does not trouble you.
RescueTime The original automatic tracker
Runs on Mac, Windows and phones, records application and website activity with idle detection, and is built around focus and distraction rather than clients and invoices. The Solo+ plan adds timesheets. Your data lives on its servers.
Rize Automatic, with AI coaching
Watches the focused window and browser addresses, scores your focus and coaches you with AI. Mac and Windows, data on its servers, no free tier, and plans priced by AI credits. The most expensive route on this page over five years.
Memtime Records everything, offline, then asks you to sort it
Records every program, document and meeting in the background, to the second, and keeps that recording on your device; you then turn blocks of it into entries, with AI suggesting where each belongs. Windows, Mac and Linux. Subscription.
Two that ask
A record in your own words, with nothing read. The price is a tap every so often.
Daily for Mac Asks at an interval you set; since 2013
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 there is no timeline and no start-and-end entry for an invoice. Mac only, with an iPhone companion.
Quarter Past Asks 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 the entry is good for a timesheet. 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, which is the thing a timer can never tell you. No Screen Recording or Accessibility permission, because there is nothing to read. The record is a file on your Mac. Mac only, one person, no invoicing.
Which one, honestly
Choose one of the others if
- You want a complete record with no effort at all and the reading does not trouble you: Timing on a Mac, RescueTime across devices.
- You want that for one payment and kept on your own Mac: Timemator.
- You want focus scoring and coaching more than a timesheet: Rize.
- You like Daily’s way of asking and do not need start and end times.
Choose Quarter Past if
- You want the forgotten hour recorded and marked as recalled, rather than silently missing.
- You do not want software reading your documents and web addresses, or your clients would not want it.
- You want entries with a start and an end, in your words, exportable to CSV.
- You want one payment, the file on your own Mac, 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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