ActivityWatch — The Complete Guide: Automatic, Private Time Tracking for Accurate Timesheets
ActivityWatch is an open-source (MPL-2.0) automatic time tracker. It quietly logs which program and window you worked in throughout the day, so at the end of the week you can reconstruct how much time went to each project — without remembering to start a stopwatch.
ActivityWatch
ActivityWatch
Automatic, private time tracking — which programs and documents you worked on, for accurate timesheets.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Automatic logging — the active program and window, all day long.
- Extensions — tracking of browser sites and work in code editors.
- Categories — group activity by project, client or type of work.
- Summaries — working time by day, program and category.
- Full privacy — data stays on your computer and is never sent to a server.
How it helps with timesheets
If the names of your drawing and calculation files include the project number, it is easy to assign every window of your CAD program, spreadsheet or design software to the right project. ActivityWatch does not replace a billing system, but it gives you a reliable basis for filling in the timesheet. Note that the latest stable release is relatively old, and active development happens in beta releases.
Related tools
For structured time recording by client and project, with team reports — Kimai. For personal task management with time tracking — Super Productivity. For a team task board — Kanboard.
Kimai
Kimai
Self-hosted time tracking — log hours per client, project and activity, with reports and invoices.
Get it from the vendor
Super Productivity
Super Productivity project
Task manager with time tracking — log hours per project, Pomodoro timer and Jira, GitHub and GitLab integration.
Get it from the vendorKanboard
Kanboard Project
A very simple Kanban board — what is in progress, what is waiting and what is done.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
ActivityWatch answers the question “what did I actually work on this week?” — automatically, for free and without your data leaving the computer.