Yesterday was one of those days. I sat down in the evening and genuinely couldn't remember what I'd actually done all day. I knew I'd been busy—I felt tired—but when I tried to piece it together? Blank. Some emails, probably. A meeting or two. Some coding? Maybe?
This happens way more than I'd like to admit. And it's not just annoying—it makes it hard to know if I'm actually spending time on the things that matter.
There are tools that can help with this—some quite powerful, like Microsoft's Recall, which captures and indexes everything on your screen. But they work by taking screenshots every few seconds, which raises massive privacy concerns.
This is where the AutoJournal AI can be of great help.
AutoJournal AI takes a different approach. It captures only window titles—plain text metadata, nothing visual. No screenshots. No images of your screen. Just the title bar: "Q3 Report.docx - Google Docs" or "Slack | #engineering".
And guess what? This is more than enough to remind you of what you did, but it's absolutely insufficient for anyone who wants to spy on you. The perfect middle ground.
Runs entirely offline. No cloud. Your data never leaves your machine. (The only exception: the AI analysis feature sends window titles to OpenAI—but that's opt-in and requires your own API key.)
Tracks actual tasks, not just apps. macOS Screen Time tells you that you spent 3 hours in Chrome. Not useful. Mac AutoJournal tracks individual windows and tabs—it knows you spent 45 minutes on a GitHub PR, then 20 minutes on Twitter, then back to the PR. Same app, very different activities.
Learn with AI from your patterns. Run it for a week or a month, then ask the AI: where did my time actually go? What's fragmenting my focus? It turns raw data into actionable insight—not just a record, but a feedback loop.
Open format, your data. Export to CSV anytime. Process it however you want. Or use the built-in AI analysis if you don't want to mess with spreadsheets.
No screenshots means better security. Even if an attacker compromised your machine, they'd only get a list of window titles—not a visual record of everything you've ever done.
Chat with your journal. Connect via MCP to Claude Desktop or any compatible app and ask questions like "What did I work on last Thursday?" or "How much time on social media this week?"
You can download the app here
Sounds good? Here is how it works.
The Dashboard
When you first launch Mac AutoJournal, the dashboard will be empty—nothing's been tracked yet.
Once you've been using your Mac for a while, it fills up with your actual activity: statistics cards showing totals, a usage chart displaying patterns over time, and a chronological list of your window interactions.
The Windows tab shows every window you've had open—title, application, timestamps, usage count. Useful when you want to know exactly which files or browser tabs ate your time.
The Applications tab zooms out a bit, showing a bar chart breakdown of time per app. Good for the big picture—am I actually spending my day in VS Code or am I living in Slack?
AI Analysis (Pro)
This is where it gets interesting. Pick a date range, optionally ask a specific question, and hit "Analyze with AI."
You get back a plain-English summary of your work patterns—what you focused on, which apps dominated, when you were most productive.
Chat with Your Journal (MCP)
This is the feature I'm most excited about. AutoJournal AI supports MCP (Model Context Protocol), which means you can chat with your work history directly from Claude Desktop or any MCP-compatible app.
Ask questions like:
- "What did I work on with Alice last Thursday?"
- "How much time did I spend on social media this week?"
- "When am I most productive?"
It turns your journal into a conversational interface—no need to dig through data manually.
How I Use It
It just runs in the background while I work.
Sometimes I feel like I've been productive but can't point to anything concrete. So I ask: "What did I actually do today?" Turns out I spent 3 hours in Slack and only 45 minutes on the proposal I thought I'd been working on all day.
Other times I notice patterns. I asked "When do I do my best deep work?" and realized I almost never focus well after 2pm—meetings and context-switching kill it.
Last week I couldn't remember what I'd discussed with a client. Asked the journal, found out we'd gone back and forth on their Figma file for over an hour on Tuesday. Would've completely forgotten otherwise.
You might use it differently—weekly reviews, client billing, timesheets, or just curiosity. If you come up with something cool, share it in the comments.
If you've ever ended a day wondering where the time went, give it a try. It's changed how I think about my workday—and it might do the same for you.
Top comments (0)