The private, native macOS time tracker — focus, insights, and healthy-work breaks, 100% on your Mac. Nothing is ever uploaded.
A free, open-source, on-device alternative to RescueTime, Timing, Rize, and ActivityWatch for macOS — no cloud, no account, no telemetry.
Apple Silicon + Intel · signed & notarized · macOS 14+ · or brew install --cask ticker · all releases
Most time trackers either ship your keystrokes to the cloud (RescueTime, Rize, Timing) or feel like a database with a UI (the venerable ActivityWatch). Ticker is the one that's native, beautiful, and 100% on-device — and it folds focus tracking + wellness breaks into the same app.
- 🔒 Private by design. Everything lives in
~/Library/Application Support/Ticker/. No servers, no account, no telemetry. Ticker counts how many keys/clicks you make — never which keys or what you type. - 🖥️ Truly native. SwiftUI + Swift Charts. A menu-bar companion and a full dashboard, at home on macOS.
- 🎯 Real focus, not vanity minutes. Focus counts continuous streaks, so the goal reflects deep work — not scattered productive seconds.
- 🧘 Built-in wellness. Configurable move & screen breaks with on-screen countdowns and ergonomics guidance.
- 🧠 Smart about your day. Knows the difference between idle at your desk (reviewable — was it a meeting?) and away (locked/asleep — not counted).
- ⚡ Builds in ~10 seconds. Distributed as source, so there's no "unidentified developer" wall.
| Tracking | Samples the frontmost app every second; counts keys/clicks; reads the active tab/project from the window title; detects idle vs. active vs. away. |
| Categories | Tag apps Productive / Neutral / Distracting, or Excluded to drop them entirely. Drag between columns. |
| Dashboard | Overview · Insights · Apps · Timeline — stat tiles, activity graph, a Focus Goal ring, productivity trend, peak hours, weekly recap, per-app breakdown, and a minute-level timeline. |
| Focus | Continuous-focus streaks (broken by gaps over 10 min), a daily goal, and a focus-streak counter. |
| Wellness | Configurable move and screen breaks with on-screen countdowns that auto-finish; ergonomics tips. |
| Idle review | Returned after 10+ min at your desk? Ticker asks if it was a meeting → count as productive, or delete it. |
| Screen timeline | (optional, off by default) a small screen thumbnail every N minutes, on-device only, auto-deleted. |
| Export | Weekly / Monthly PDF reports and a CSV of all data. |
| Menu bar | A compact panel with a live waveform, focus ring, current app, next-break countdown, and start/pause. |
📖 Want to know exactly how each widget decides what it shows? Read the Widget & Metric Reference → — it documents every tile, chart, and countdown, and the logic behind each number (active vs. idle, focus streaks, categories, break timers, and more).
| Overview | Insights |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Apps | Timeline |
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 |
macOS 14+. Ticker is a universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel).
brew tap ajaysuwalka/ticker https://github.com/ajaysuwalka/ticker-app
brew install --cask tickerGrab the latest notarized .dmg,
open it, and drag Ticker to Applications — it's signed with a Developer ID and
notarized by Apple, so there's no "unidentified developer" wall.
git clone https://github.com/ajaysuwalka/ticker-app.git && cd ticker-app
xcode-select --install # one-time, if you don't have Swift
./tools/make-signing-cert.sh # one-time: stable permissions across rebuilds
./build.sh && open build/Ticker.appTicker appears in your menu bar (the pulse-wave icon) and opens its dashboard. More: INSTALL.md · GUIDE.md · ARCHITECTURE.md
- Homebrew:
brew upgrade --cask ticker. - In-app: Ticker shows a banner when a newer version is out (its only network request — a version check to GitHub; no data is sent).
- Get notified: on this repo, click Watch → Custom → Releases for an email on every release.
Ticker works immediately for app usage and idle/active time. Two macOS permissions unlock more, requested from within the app:
| Permission | Unlocks | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | Keystroke/click counts, window titles (tab/project) | Recommended |
| Screen Recording | The optional per-interval screen thumbnails | Only for Screen Timeline |
After granting either, quit and reopen Ticker (macOS applies the grant on the next launch — the signing cert from step 3 means you only do this once).
Everything is stored locally in ~/Library/Application Support/Ticker/
(data.json + a shots/ thumbnail folder). Your tracked data never leaves
your Mac. Ticker counts how many keys/clicks you make — never which keys or
what you type. Screenshots are off unless you turn them on, and are
auto-deleted.
Ticker's only network request is an anonymous version check to GitHub, so it can tell you when an update is available — it sends none of your data.
To wipe data: Settings → Data → Clear all tracked data, or delete the folder.
Ticker is a SwiftPM package. CI runs on every PR (build, tests, SwiftLint,
CodeQL) — see .github/workflows.
swift build -c release # compile
swift test # unit tests (needs full Xcode)
swift test --enable-code-coverage # + coverage (CI reports this)
swiftlint # lint
./build.sh # assemble + sign Ticker.appCI measures line coverage with llvm-cov, uploads a coverage.lcov artifact,
and (optionally) pushes to Codecov — see ci.yml.
Contributions are very welcome — start with CONTRIBUTING.md
and the good first issue
label. Please keep the privacy promise: no network calls, ever.
- Notarized, universal (Apple Silicon + Intel) signed releases
- Homebrew cask
- In-app update notifications
- Configurable dashboard layout
- More app-category heuristics
- Localizations
Have an idea? Open a discussion.
Built by Ajay Suwalka, and created with the tools provided by Testlio (including Claude Code) as part of day-to-day engineering. Huge thanks to Testlio for the developer tooling that made building Ticker possible.
This is a personal open-source project and is not an official Testlio product. "Testlio" and the Testlio logo are trademarks of Testlio, used here only to credit the tooling.
MIT © 2026 Ajay Suwalka
Keywords: macOS time tracker · app usage & activity tracker · focus timer & deep-work tracking · screen time · productivity analytics · menu bar app · wellness / break reminders · privacy-first · local-first / on-device · open source · SwiftUI · Apple Silicon + Intel · a free RescueTime / Timing / Rize / ActivityWatch alternative for Mac.