# RescueTime alternatives for Mac, without the subscription or the cloud

The best RescueTime alternative for a Mac depends on why you are leaving: ActivityWatch is free and local, Timing goes deeper on projects, and Tally ($13.99 once) answers where your day went with no account, no subscription and nothing leaving the Mac.

- URL: https://swiftfox.studio/blog/rescuetime-alternatives-for-mac
- Covers: https://swiftfox.studio/apps/tally, https://swiftfox.studio/apps/nomore
- Published: 2026-09-09
- Updated: 2026-10-29
- Publisher: Swiftfox Studio (https://swiftfox.studio)

## In short

- RescueTime's Solo plan is $9 a month or $84 a year, every plan needs an account, and the activity it records is synced to RescueTime's servers.
- RescueTime is still the right tool for tracking a Windows PC and a Mac in one report, for blocking with Focus Sessions, and for timesheets or teams.
- Apple Screen Time is free on the Mac and combines your devices, but its report is a day or a week of time per app and site.
- Tally is a one-time $13.99 menu bar tracker that needs no account, keeps every record on the Mac, and subtracts idle, sleep and lock time back to your last input.
- Tally never blocks anything; its limits only warn, so pair it with a blocker if stopping is the problem rather than seeing.

## What RescueTime is actually good at

RescueTime is an automatic time tracker that has been running quietly on
people's computers for more than fifteen years. Install it, sign in, and it
records which apps and websites your day went to without a single timer to
start. It sorts that time into categories, reports how much of it was focused
work, and on paid plans adds goals, alerts and **Focus Sessions**, which block
distracting sites, apps, email and chat while you work.

Its reach is the other half of the case. RescueTime runs on macOS 11 or later,
Windows, iOS and Android, with a web dashboard over all of them, so a person
who works on a Windows PC and a Mac can see one picture (users report that
iOS data stays separate from desktop data). Solo+ adds
timesheets and billable projects; the Team plans add shared reports for a
group.

On [rescuetime.com](https://www.rescuetime.com/pricing) the paid plans are
**Solo at $9 a month or $84 a year**, Solo+ at $15 a month or $144 a year, Team
at $12 per user a month and Team+ at $18 per user a month, each with a 14-day
trial. A free Lite plan offers basic tracking and reporting. Every plan needs
an account, and the data is synced to RescueTime's servers.

If you track time across several devices, want blocking in the same tool as the
measuring, or need a team view, RescueTime does all three, and no RescueTime
alternative for Mac on this page will talk you out of it.

## Why people go looking anyway

The reasons people leave RescueTime are consistent, and most of them are about
the model rather than the tracking.

**The subscription.** $84 a year is reasonable for what it does, and it is also
$84 every year for something many people want to check once a day. A lapsed
plan falls back to Lite, which has no Focus Sessions.

**The cloud.** Your activity is recorded on your Mac and then uploaded.
RescueTime says it collects no keystrokes, screenshots or page contents and
does not sell the data, and that is a real commitment. Still, a complete log of
every app and site you used is exactly the record some people do not want on
anyone's server, and privacy is a recurring reason in requests for a
replacement, from AlternativeTo comments to a Beeminder forum thread.

**Billing and trial friction.** On Trustpilot, where RescueTime has a 2.3
rating from a small number of reviews, the recurring complaint is being charged
after a trial or after months of not using it.

**Mac-specific gaps.** Mac users report that blocking is easy to get around,
that browser detail needs an extension in Firefox, and that pages in Arc were
not tracked at one point. None of these is universal, but they come up.

## What macOS already does for free

**Screen Time** in System Settings tracks apps and websites on the Mac, can
combine the statistics of all your devices into one view, and sets schedules
and time allowances. It is free and already on. Where it stops is detail: its
report is a day or a week of time per app and site, which answers how much but
rarely what for.

**ActivityWatch** is not built in, but it is the free open-source tracker most
often recommended next to RescueTime. It runs on macOS, Windows, Linux and
Android and keeps its data on your machine.

## Tally: the same question, answered on your Mac

**[Tally](https://swiftfox.studio/apps/tally)** is a menu bar app that answers the question RescueTime
answers - where did today go - with no account, no server and no subscription.
It is **$13.99 once**, with a 30-day trial that needs no card and no email, and
it runs on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel. Everything below is in
the shipping version, and it sits beside the rest of the
[productivity apps for Mac](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/productivity-apps-for-mac) we would install.

### No account, and nothing leaves the Mac

![Tally's General settings: the line saying everything it records stays on this Mac with no account and no network, then the recording options for activity, detail inside apps, the away threshold and an on-device written summary](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/rescuetime-alternatives-for-mac/fig-1.jpg "The first thing the settings say is where the data lives: on this Mac, with no account behind it.")

Tally stores what it records in a file on your Mac and nowhere else. There is
no sign-up, no sync and no web dashboard, and your usage data never touches a
network. For websites the release build keeps the domain, never the full
address. One switch, **Record what happens inside apps**, turns off window
titles and the tool running in a terminal; sites are recorded separately, under
Permissions.

On macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence turned on, **Offer a written summary** adds
a Summarise button that writes a paragraph about your day with Apple's
on-device model, the same approach as the other
[on-device AI apps for Mac](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/on-device-ai-apps-for-mac). It reads the report's
numbers and names, not raw window titles, and nothing about that leaves the Mac
either.

![The Data section of Tally's General settings: Export data as CSV or JSON with Show in Finder, Keep history for 90 days, and Delete all recorded data](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/rescuetime-alternatives-for-mac/fig-2.jpg "Your history is yours to take out, keep for as long as you choose, or delete in one click.")

The data stays yours in the practical sense too. **Export** writes the period on
screen, the last 30 days or everything as CSV or JSON. **Keep history for** offers 30, 90 or 365 days or forever, with 90
the default. **Delete all recorded data** removes every segment in one step.

The honest limit: Tally measures this Mac only. There is no phone app, no
second computer and no merged view; if that is the point for you, RescueTime's
reach is the reason to stay.

### What it never records is a list you control

![Tally's Privacy settings: Skip private and incognito windows, Apps never recorded and Sites never recorded, each with a way to add one](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/rescuetime-alternatives-for-mac/fig-3.jpg "Time in anything listed here is not recorded at all - not as a row, not as a gap with a name.")

**Privacy** settings hold three lists. **Skip private and incognito windows**
keeps private browsing out: Chrome, Brave, Edge, Arc and their relatives say
which windows are private, and Firefox does in English, Turkish, German, Spanish
and French. Safari and Orion do not, so a private Safari window is recorded
unless Safari itself is on Apps never recorded. **Apps never recorded** and **Sites never recorded** take anything
you name, and a site covers its subdomains. Add something that already has
history and Tally asks whether to delete the past time too.

Tally also works with no permissions at all. Out of the box it records per-app
totals; **Accessibility** adds window titles, and **Automation** adds the site
open in Safari, Chrome, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi, Opera or Arc. Firefox needs no
Automation grant, because it exposes the address through accessibility.

### The day keeps its gaps

![The top of Tally's Overview for one day: 8h 27m in total, with cards for focused time, longest stretch, app switches, time away - idle, asleep or locked, never counted - busiest hour and goals met](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/rescuetime-alternatives-for-mac/fig-4.jpg "Away time has its own card, because it is subtracted rather than counted.")

A tracker is only worth reading if it does not count the hour you spent making
coffee. After two minutes with no keyboard or mouse input and nothing playing, a
threshold you can
move from one to fifteen, Tally stops the segment back at your last input rather
than at the moment it noticed. Sleep and the lock screen end a segment the same
way, an app you passed through for under three seconds is discarded, and a
single segment claiming more than eight hours is cut rather than believed.

Reading is not idleness either (playing video already counts as presence), so
**Ask after a quiet stretch of** puts
the question to you instead: after 10 to 60 minutes with no input, a card asks
whether you were still at the Mac, and a yes gives the time to the app you pick.

### Categories by kind, focus by your own labels

![Tally's month view: 183 hours split into Coding, Writing, Design, Communication, Entertainment, Reading and AI, a calendar of the month's days, and a Focus mix ring at 72% focused](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/rescuetime-alternatives-for-mac/fig-5.jpg "Categories describe the kind of activity; which ones count as focus is a label you set.")

Tally sorts time into ten categories - Coding, Writing, Design, Communication,
Social, Entertainment, Reading, AI, Utilities and Other - by the kind of
activity, never its purpose, and you can rename, recolour and add your own.
Each category is labelled focus, neutral or distracting, and that label is all
the focus figures read. There is no productivity grade.

Fixing a wrong category is one click on the row, and it is retroactive:
categories are worked out when the report is read, never stamped onto the
records, so one correction also fixes last month. A rule about a site always
outranks a rule about the browser it ran in.

### Limits that warn, and never block

![Tally's Limits and goals settings: the note that a limit is time you want to stay under and that Tally never closes an app or blocks a site, with alerts for a full limit, an early warning at 80% and a met goal](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/rescuetime-alternatives-for-mac/fig-6.jpg "A limit says something before it is reached, and only says it.")

A limit can be on a site, a category, an app or the whole day, over a day or a
week, and a goal works the other way round - at least two hours of Coding. An
early warning at 80% (movable, or off) comes while there is still something to
decide, and each limit says so once per day or week.

Nothing is ever blocked. That is the clearest difference from RescueTime's
Focus Sessions, and it is deliberate: a tracker that starts punishing is one
people stop running. If blocking is what you need, pair Tally with a blocker such as
[NoMore](https://swiftfox.studio/apps/nomore), covered in
[how to block websites on a Mac](https://swiftfox.studio/handbook/how-to-block-websites-on-mac).

The rest is where you already look: a live badge in the menu bar, like the
other [menu bar apps for Mac](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/best-mac-menu-bar-apps), a popover
with the day's total, timeline and top apps, desktop widgets in three sizes
with a pause button, and Shortcuts actions to get tracked time or top apps,
pause and resume recording, and open the report. A digest arrives on Monday at
09:00 and stays silent after a week with fewer than three active days. The
whole app is covered feature by feature in
[the app usage tracker for Mac](https://swiftfox.studio/handbook/app-usage-tracker-for-mac).

## RescueTime vs Tally, feature by feature

| | RescueTime | Tally |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | Solo $9 a month or $84 a year; free Lite plan | $13.99 once, 30-day trial |
| Account | Required | None |
| Where the data lives | Synced to RescueTime's servers | Only on your Mac |
| Devices | Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, web dashboard | This Mac only |
| Automatic app and site tracking | Yes | Yes, with per-site detail in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Arc and other major browsers |
| Works with no permissions | Needs Accessibility on a Mac | Yes, app totals with nothing granted |
| Categories | Automatic, with productivity reports | Ten by kind, your own focus labels, fixes apply retroactively |
| Blocking | Focus Sessions on paid plans | None by design; limits warn only |
| Timesheets and teams | Solo+, Team and Team+ | No |
| Free trial | 14 days on paid plans | 30 days, no card and no email |
| Purchase model | Subscription only, no one-time purchase | One-time purchase |
| Export | Report CSV export and an API | CSV or JSON |

RescueTime wins three rows outright: devices, blocking, timesheets and teams.
Tally wins on where the data lives, the price over time, and how honest the
numbers are about the time you were not there.

## Other alternatives worth knowing

**Timing** is the deep Mac-only option, built around projects and documents,
with billing status on its higher plans, a 30-day trial and a Professional plan
at $10 a month. If you
bill clients by the hour, it does far more than either app on this page.

**Rize** adds AI categorization by client and project on top of automatic
tracking, at $12.99 a month or $9.99 a month billed annually, with
no free tier and data in the cloud.

**ActivityWatch** is free and open source, keeps its data local and runs on
macOS, Windows, Linux and Android. It is the pick if price is the whole
question and a plainer interface is fine.

**Toggl Track** and **Clockify** are manual timers rather than automatic
trackers: you start a timer for a task. Both have free plans and are the usual
choice for teams who log hours against projects; a
[menu bar task timer](https://swiftfox.studio/handbook/menu-bar-task-timer-for-mac) is the lighter
version of the same idea.

## When RescueTime is still the right choice

Stay with RescueTime if your working day spans a Windows PC and a Mac and you
want them in one report. Stay if Focus Sessions are the part you actually use
(the [best focus apps for Mac](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/best-focus-apps-for-mac) compares
that kind of blocking), since Tally will tell you a limit is full and
never close anything. And stay if you need timesheets or a view across a team;
neither is anything Tally tries to be.

If the free Lite plan already answers your question, there is no reason to pay
for anything else either.

## Switching from RescueTime

1. **Keep your history first.** Before your plan lapses, export the reports you
   care about; RescueTime's reports export to CSV and its API returns CSV or
   JSON. Tally does not import them, so this is your archive.
2. **Install Tally and open it once.** It starts recording per-app totals
   immediately, with nothing granted.
3. **Grant what you want, one layer at a time:** Accessibility for window
   titles, Automation for sites in your browser.
4. **Turn on Open at login** in Settings -> General, so no day goes missing.
5. **Set your focus labels** under Categories, and fix a row or two in
   Breakdown after the first day.
6. **Recreate your goals** as goals or limits in Limits and goals. For blocking,
   add a separate blocker.
7. **Cancel the RescueTime plan and uninstall it**, including its browser
   extension.

Expect a day of data before day-on-day comparisons mean much, and two weeks
before week-on-week ones do.

## Side by side

| Tool | How it tracks | Where the data lives | Blocks distractions | Cost |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Apple Screen Time | Automatic, apps and sites | Your devices, combined across them | Schedules, time allowances | Free |
| ActivityWatch | Automatic | On your machine | No | Free |
| RescueTime | Automatic, apps and sites | RescueTime's servers | Focus Sessions, paid | From $84 a year, or free Lite |
| Rize | Automatic, AI categories | Cloud | Not checked | $9.99 a month billed annually |
| Timing | Automatic, projects and documents | Mac, with sync | Not listed | $10 a month (Professional) |
| Tally | Automatic, apps, sites and window titles | Only on your Mac | No, limits warn only | $13.99 once |

Pick by what you would hate most. If it is your activity on a server, choose
between ActivityWatch and Tally. If it is another subscription, the same two.
If it is one report across a PC and a Mac, RescueTime. For the wider field,
including Screen Time's limits, see
[the best screen time apps for Mac](https://swiftfox.studio/blog/best-screen-time-apps-for-mac).

_Prices and features checked on 29 October 2026._

## Frequently asked questions

### Is there a free RescueTime alternative for Mac?

Yes. Apple Screen Time is built in and free, and reports a day or a week of time per app and site. ActivityWatch is free and open source, keeps its data on your machine and runs on macOS, Windows, Linux and Android. RescueTime itself has a free Lite plan with basic tracking and reporting, without Focus Sessions.

### What is the difference between RescueTime and Tally?

RescueTime is a subscription service with an account, tracking on several devices, cloud sync, Focus Sessions that block distractions, and timesheets and team plans. Tally is a one-time $13.99 Mac app with no account, records kept only on the Mac, idle time subtracted back to your last input, and limits that warn but never block. It tracks one Mac only.

### Does RescueTime upload my data?

Yes. RescueTime records activity on your computer and syncs it to its servers, and RescueTime offers no local-only mode. It says it does not log keystrokes, take screenshots or record page contents, and does not sell data. Tally keeps its records only on the Mac, with no account and no sync, and exports CSV or JSON when you want a copy.

### Can Tally block websites like RescueTime Focus Sessions?

No, by design. Tally's limits and goals send a notification at a threshold you choose, with an early warning at 80% by default, and nothing is ever closed or hidden. If you want blocking, use a separate blocker such as NoMore alongside it.

### Can a Mac time tracker include my iPhone?

RescueTime runs on iOS and Android as well as Mac and Windows, though users report that its iOS data stays separate from desktop data. Apple Screen Time can show the combined statistics of all your devices. Tally measures only the Mac it runs on, and has no phone app.

### Can I move my RescueTime history into Tally?

No, Tally has no import. Export the RescueTime reports you want to keep before your plan ends; its reports export to CSV and its API returns CSV or JSON. Tally starts recording the moment it is installed, a day of data is enough for day-on-day comparisons, and two weeks for week-on-week ones.

### What do RescueTime and its alternatives cost?

RescueTime Solo is $9 a month or $84 a year, Solo+ $15 a month or $144 a year, with a free Lite plan. Rize is $12.99 a month or $9.99 a month billed annually. Timing Professional is $10 a month. ActivityWatch and Apple Screen Time are free. Tally is $13.99 once, with a 30-day trial that needs no card and no email.