Timing for Mac

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Timing do?

Timing automatically tracks which applications, documents and domains you spend time with. This way, you can quickly figure out how much time you spent on different projects and which activities (like games, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) have the worst impact on your productivity.

How does it work?

Timing can track your activities by placing a tiny utility (called the menu item) into your menu bar that automatically tracks your activities. As long as the menu item isn't running, Timing won't be able to record the time you spend using your computer.

Does Timing slow down my computer?

Much care has been taken to ensure that the menu item will not slow down your Mac in any way. Although it tracks your activity every second, the menu items' average CPU usage is less than 0.5%. In addition to that, the menu item uses a maximum of 30 megabytes of system memory. Regularly memory consumption will be much less. The activity storage is also very small, growing by less than a megabyte per month.

How about privacy? Can I disable tracking for some activities?

Timing will never send any of the activity data it collects to anyone without your permission. All activity data is stored locally on your Mac, and you have full control over it.

Timing makes it easy to protect your privacy. The Timing menu item has an option to switch to 'Private Mode', where no activities will be tracked. In addition, websites you visit will not be tracked while Safari is in private mode* or if your current Chrome window is an incognito window. You can also delete any activities retroactively or proactively add them to the blacklist, so they won't get tracked in the future.
* Please note that it takes up to 30 seconds for Timing to detect when you enable or disable private mode.

Timing does connect to our server upon startup to check whether there's important information about Timing (e.g. to possibly warn you about a faulty update). Fortunately, this has so far never been the case and we are not going to spam you!

Is there a way to export my activities?

Basic CSV export funcionality is available as of version 1.1. If you are interested in exporting to a specific service or website, please let us know.

Where does the application store its data?

Timing stores its data in the 'Library/Application Support/info.eurocomp.Timing' directory of your user folder.

Will Timing track the time I don't spend at my Mac?

Timing will automatically suspend tracking after a configurable time of inactivity (150 seconds by default). It will resume as soon as you return to the computer.

Can I enter time manually?

Yes. Just click the Timing menu item and select 'Add Custom Activity'.

Why is Timing asking me to enable accessibility support?

Timing has been designed to not only track the application you are currently working in, but also which specific document you are editing. In order to be able to find out the path to that document, a specific setting in System Preferences needs to be enabled. You can do so via the following procedure:

• Open the Universal Access preference pane from the System Preferences application.
• Wait until System Preferences has finished loading.
• Click the checkbox that says "Enable access for assistive devices", which looks like this:

Some application (e.g. Photoshop) is behaving weirdly while Timing is tracking. How can I fix this?

Some applications exhibit erratic behavior when information is retrieved from them via AppleScript. For this reason, you can disable AppleScript tracking for specific applications in the 'Troubleshooting' section of the Timing preferences. Just uncheck the corresponding app in the list, restart it and it should behave normally again.

My question has not been answered here. How can I contact you?

If you have any further questions, you can email us or contact us via Twitter as @TimingApp.

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Which applications is Timing compatible with?

Timing automatically tracks the front document of the currently active application. Below is a list of applications which have been confirmed to be supported by Timing. Applications listed with a have not yet been tested, but are supported with very high probability. In general, most document-based applications are automatically supported by Timing.

Even if Timing can't track document paths for an application, it will still track the name of the application and its window title.