# Best time tracking app **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 12, 2013, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069 "2013-02-12T06:27:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/1 "2013-02-12T06:27:16Z")
I want an app to track the time I’m spending working on a project. What I need: I work on the project on Linux, Mac, and Windows, so it needs to work on all 3 – and needs to be able to share data between all 3 (which probably means web based, or at least uploads to a server) Free, or at least cheap. Preferably if it’s cheap it’s a one-time fee. But because of option 1 that’s likely not an option (since I’ll probably be renting server space). A decent interface. It doesn’t have to be super shiny, but I tried a few out that I could barely even operate because of their atrocious interfaces. As a corollary to the previous, a good way to view and interpret the data. Again, it doesn’t have to be super fancy bar charts, but I’ve seen some really ugly things. Very nice things to have: The ability to track subtasks. This means I can track time worked on a specific part of the project. Good, but not necessary: The ability to track time spent not working on the project when I should be. I.E. if the timer is started and I start doing something else, tell me what I was doing. If it has app recording (as above), it would be really nice if it could check active tabs for browsers too (i.e. if I’m checking an issues list on github, that’s good time, if I’m checking the Dope, that’s probably not). Things I don’t need: The ability to track invoices, payment received, or anything like that. Most of the apps I check out seem to fail at the “works on Linux” requirement. I’d really prefer to not have to use one for Win/Mac, and resort to another one for Linux, but maybe that’s what’ll have to happen. ETA: Wow, my thread title sounds like a spambot. Er… date Time Lords at [datingwho.com](http://datingwho.com) or… something… I guess ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/2 "2013-02-12T06:35:54Z")
you might want to consider a phone or an ipad app. that would solve the “compatibility” issue if you can’t find one that does. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/3 "2013-02-12T06:53:22Z")
Harvest is pretty good. I don’t know if they have app tracking support for Linux, though. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/4 "2013-02-12T07:09:02Z")
Here’s a website with a few choices: > **[Five Best Time-Tracking Applications](https://lifehacker.com/five-best-time-tracking-applications-5362829)** > > Where does the time go? Whether you need to know for billing purposes or just want a better idea of how your work day is split up, you can always answer that question with a good time-tracking application. And I bet you can probably get some of the non-natively-Linux ones to run with Wine. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/5 "2013-02-12T08:40:56Z")
Have a looksee at [https://kanbanflow.com/](https://kanbanflow.com/) It sounds similar to what you’re describing. There are other free Kanban tools if those don’t strike your fancy. ---
**Author:** ![FrankJBN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@FrankJBN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrankJBN)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/6 "2013-02-13T16:43:18Z")
When I want to keep track of time, I look at a clock, since I don’t wear a watch. I track time lapse by checking time at beginning, then again at the end. If I change tasks in the middle, I check the time then. As the saying goes “There’s an app for that?” ---
**Author:** ![kellydrill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/848f3c/32.png) [@kellydrill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellydrill)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/7 "2013-02-17T15:26:40Z")
Hours Tracking might work well for you. It’s $1/month and web-based. Pretty easy to use. [http://hourstracking.com](http://hourstracking.com) ---
**Author:** ![Billy44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@Billy44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billy44)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/8 "2013-08-17T14:08:33Z")
Hi Jragon, have you tried using Time Doctor ( [http://www.timedoctor.com/](http://www.timedoctor.com/) )? I use personally this time tracking app, it tracks effectively all your activities in REAL TIME and gives you accurate data of exactly where time is spent. It includes tracking the websites and applications that are actively being used and for how long. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/9 "2013-08-17T15:06:26Z")
I’ve been using one called Responsive Time Logger for years and I hate it. It’s waaaaay too complicated and has too many instructions. I get exhausted thinking about it. But at the end of the month, it prints a time sheet and an invoice and I’ve been using that to get paid by my clients for the past decade or so, so I guess it works. And now I’ve got a ton of history in it. It’s not free (but I don’t mind paying for something that I depend on and use every day), and there have been a couple of upgrades, but I’ve avoided them, as in my experience, upgrades usually screw things up. I don’t like it for many of the reasons I don’t like Microsoft Word. It’s set up so you can do incredibly complicated things that you or possibly no one will EVER have to do. The menus are VAST and ENDLESS. I get tired just thinking about it. I’ll look at some of those suggested here and look forward to more suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/10 "2013-08-17T15:08:37Z")
> [@kellydrill](#): > > Hours Tracking might work well for you. It’s $1/month and web-based. Pretty easy to use. [http://hourstracking.com](http://hourstracking.com) There’s a typo on their home page. > [@Billy44](#): > > Hi Jragon, have you tried using Time Doctor ( [http://www.timedoctor.com/](http://www.timedoctor.com/) )? I use personally this time tracking app, it tracks effectively all your activities in REAL TIME and gives you accurate data of exactly where time is spent. It includes tracking the websites and applications that are actively being used and for how long. The interface looks like it’s designed for first graders. Take a look at [Responsive Time Logger](http://responsivesoftware.com/). If you can ignore the unwanted features, maybe you’d like it. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-time-tracking-app/650069/11 "2013-08-17T15:23:37Z")
I ended up using the free version of [Rescue Time](https://www.rescuetime.com/). There’s a non-official plugin you can find that lets it work on Linux.