TimePrivate watches the frontmost Mac app and, in a browser, the domain, offers idle time back when a timer is running, and writes a daily draft that stays unbillable until you approve it. You still decide what the hours were for. The Mac just stops you from reconstructing the afternoon from memory.
TimePrivate is not released. There is no download, no trial and no purchase today. Apple Silicon Macs first, Windows on the roadmap.
Automatic time tracking means the Mac notices what you worked in, so you do not have to start a timer every time you switch tasks. TimePrivate does that with two facts only: the frontmost application, and the browser domain when the frontmost application is a browser. Those facts become a daily draft. You decide what, if anything, becomes billable.
Two limits up front. Automatic capture cannot see work that happened on a phone, on paper, or in a meeting with the lid closed. And TimePrivate cannot stop an employer from installing a different tool on the same Mac.
You start a timer for a client at 9:10. At 10:40 a Slack message pulls you into a different project. At 11:15 you open the browser to a staging site. At 12:40 you remember the timer is still running on the first client. The afternoon then becomes a reconstruction exercise: which stretch belonged to whom, which minutes were lunch, which tab was actually the billable one.
A manual timer is clear about intent, because you named the project, but that intent only exists on the days you remember to start the clock. The Mac already knows which application was in front, so TimePrivate writes that down and you reconstruct the afternoon from a draft instead of from memory.
The draft is still a guess about billable work. Sitting in Figma for forty minutes can be client work, or it can be you rearranging your own icon set, which is why TimePrivate stops at a draft and waits for you. Capture that books itself is how a tracker turns into a monitoring tool.
If you already keep a weekly sheet by hand, keep doing that until the app exists. The TimePrivate timesheet app page still has a free weekly template you can download today, no email. Automatic capture is the part that fills the same columns later, on your Mac, after you join the waitlist and the app actually ships.
Automatic is the easy part. The useful test is which facts leave the application and which facts never get written down.
Hours live in a local database on your Mac. The app has no TimePrivate account and no TimePrivate server to upload to.
Two labels cover most of a desk day. The rest is a rule you write once, not a screenshot you regret later.
If you live in Xcode, Figma, Numbers or Mail, the application name already tells you which bucket the hour belongs in. TimePrivate stores that name. It does not need a picture of the canvas to know you were in Figma.
A lot of client work now happens in a tab. The domain is the stable identifier: github.com, linear.app, a client's staging host. TimePrivate records the domain, not the ticket title and not the query string. That is enough to map the stretch to a project without storing the contents of the page.
You can map github.com to a client and a project. You can map a local app the same way. After that, the draft arrives already labelled. The mapping lives with the rest of the database on your Mac. There is no shared workspace for someone else to browse.
Frontmost app names are read from the window list. Browser domain capture is a separate, optional step and may ask for Automation permission so TimePrivate can read the domain in Safari or Chrome. Neither path is a screenshot feature, and there is no screenshot permission sitting behind a second toggle.
At the end of a day TimePrivate has a pile of labelled stretches: twenty minutes in Mail, an hour on github.com, a chunk in Figma, a stretch that looks like idle. The draft is those stretches rolled into the clients and projects your rules point at. It looks like a timesheet someone else started for you, which is the point. You are still the person who signs it.
Accept the draft, edit a row, or throw the day away. Until you do one of those, the stretches are not billable hours, they are not on an invoice, and they are not a report you owe anyone. The walk from an approved day to a PDF is on the TimePrivate time tracking and invoicing page.
Draft rounding in the app today is 5, 15 or 30 minutes, which is a way to snap the raw capture while you clean the day. If you bill in tenths of an hour, that unit goes on the invoice after you approve. The TimePrivate page for lawyers writes that difference out, including that TimePrivate bills lawyer time in tenths once you are in that workflow. The on-page work hours calculator already has a 6 minute, tenth of an hour option you can use today in the browser.
The draft lives in a local SQLite style database. No account is required to hold it. If you want the same file on a second Mac, optional folder sync through iCloud or Dropbox is something you switch on and point at a folder you control. TimePrivate does not run a sync service of its own.
Idle is the stretch after the Mac last saw input. TimePrivate reads the time since that input. It does not read the input. There is no keystroke log hiding under the idle prompt.
The keep or discard prompt appears when a timer is running and you come back. Automatic capture that goes quiet is not offered as a pending idle block. It also is not marked billable. You still approve the draft.
Keep the idle minutes on the project you were in, move them, or drop them. The draft updates. Nothing about that choice leaves the machine.
Automatic time tracking is a desk tool. These are the edges where it stops being useful, said before you shortlist it.
A client meeting, a phone call, a walk. If the Mac is asleep, there is no frontmost app to name. Add those hours by hand, or accept that the draft will have a hole.
github.com can be one client on Monday and another on Tuesday. Rules help when the mapping is stable. When it is not, you edit the draft. Automatic tracking is there so a forgotten timer does not erase the afternoon; you still decide what the hours were for.
If an employer installs a different tracker on the same Mac, TimePrivate does not block it, hide it or compete with it. There is no manager dashboard and no screenshot mode, so if you later share hours with someone else you export a file.
Solo consultants who need the hours to stay on a machine the client never logs into should read the TimePrivate consultant time tracker page. The capture path is the same. The reason you care about it is not.
Automatic time tracking is any setup where the computer records what you worked in without you starting a timer for every switch. In TimePrivate that record is the frontmost Mac app and, in a browser, the domain. The result is a daily draft you approve before it becomes billable.
No. Automatic capture stores app names and browser domains. It does not store screenshots, screen pixels or keystrokes. Idle detection uses the time since the last input, not the input itself.
No. TimePrivate drafts the day and waits. You accept, edit or discard. Until you approve a stretch, it is not billable and it does not land on a PDF invoice.
If a timer is running, idle time is offered back: keep it, move it or drop it. If only automatic capture is running, quiet stretches are not silently kept as billable and they are not turned into a keep or discard prompt. Either way, nothing is billable until you approve the draft.
Yes. A rule can map github.com to a client and a project. The project name can be a matter name if that is how you file work. The mapping sits in the local database with the rest of your hours.
In a local SQLite style database on your Mac. No account is required. Optional folder sync through iCloud or Dropbox is a folder you choose, on a machine you control.
Yes. The draft will still need your eyes, because a day in the browser is not automatically a billable day, but you will not be reconstructing eight hours from memory at 6pm.
No. TimePrivate is not released. There is no download, no trial and no purchase today. Planned pricing is $9 a month or $79 a year, on Apple Silicon Macs first, with Windows on the roadmap. The waitlist is one email the day it opens.
App, domain, idle offer, draft, then your approval. Join the waitlist and we will write when TimePrivate opens.
Not released yet. Leave your email and we will write to you the day it opens.