TeenyScreeny vs Screen Time vs Timing for Mac

If you search for a Mac screen time tracker, you run into three kinds of products very quickly: Apple's Screen Time, small awareness apps like teenyscreeny, and full automatic time trackers like Timing. They overlap enough to be confusing, but they are not trying to solve the same problem.

I built teenyscreeny for one narrow job: keep a live count of today's active Mac time visible in the menu bar. That is useful if you already know you spend too long at the screen and want the number to interrupt you while the day is still happening.

That is a different job from parental controls. It is also different from billable hour tracking. Here is the plain comparison.

Quick recommendation

Where they differ

What TeenyScreeny is good at

teenyscreeny is intentionally small. It shows active screen time in the menu bar, updates the counter every second, and changes color as you cross your own thresholds. If numbers make you twitchy, icon mode swaps the counter for a colored dot.

Clicking the menu bar item opens a compact popover with today's total, yesterday's total, a 7-day average, a small weekly chart, pause or resume, settings, and history. The history window has daily and monthly charts, streaks when you enable a daily goal, and CSV export.

The app does not track which apps you use. It does not classify websites. It does not build a project timeline. That is a limitation on purpose. If the question is "How long have I been at my Mac today?", detailed app logs can become noise.

There is one caveat worth saying clearly: accurate keyboard activity tracking needs macOS Accessibility permission. Without that permission, the app can still see mouse activity, but a typing-heavy session can look idle. The settings screen calls that out because silent under-counting would be worse than asking for permission.

What macOS Screen Time is good at

Apple's Screen Time guide describes Screen Time as a way to see how much time you spend on apps, websites, and more. It also covers parental controls, app limits, downtime, and restrictions.

That makes it the first place to look if you want free, built-in reporting or family controls. Apple's settings page also documents Share across devices, which can include time from other devices signed in to the same Apple Account when you enable it on each device.

My gripe is not with the data. It is with the surface area. Apple's own instructions send you into System Settings to view reports. That is fine for a weekly review, but it is easy to ignore during the workday. If you are trying to catch yourself at 4 hours instead of discovering 7 hours at night, a report screen is not the same as a live counter.

What Timing is good at

Timing is a serious automatic time tracker for Mac. Its FAQ says it records the active window once per second, including the window title and document path or URL when available, and does not record background apps. It also suspends tracking after a configurable delay with no mouse or keyboard usage.

That level of detail is exactly what many freelancers and consultants need. Timing can turn app and document history into project reports. Its site also lists manual timers, productivity scoring, optional cloud sync across Macs, a web app, a Web API, Zapier integration, and browser website tracking for Safari, Chrome, and Firefox.

For personal screen time awareness, that can be more machinery than you need. If seeing the exact document or URL later would help you invoice a client, Timing is in the right category. If you mostly want a quiet number in the menu bar, it is probably too much.

Privacy and data detail

The privacy question is really about detail. teenyscreeny avoids app and website logs, so its local history is just total active time per day. The app does contact Polar for license activation and validation, and Sparkle can check for updates, but screen time tracking itself is local.

Apple says Screen Time usage data and configuration can sync across devices associated with the same iCloud account using CloudKit end-to-end encryption, when the requirements are met. Apple also says specific app or web usage data is not gathered by Apple for Screen Time analytics.

Timing tracks more detailed data because that is the product. Its FAQ says it records active window details and URLs when available. For some work, that detail is useful. For private personal awareness, I would rather not collect it at all.

How to choose

Pick teenyscreeny if you want a lightweight Mac menu bar app that keeps today's total visible and does not care which apps or websites produced the number. It is also the cleanest fit if you like one-time purchases and do not need cross-device syncing.

Pick macOS Screen Time if you want the built-in Apple tool, app limits, downtime, restrictions, or Family Sharing management. It is also the right answer if you do not want to install anything.

Pick Timing if you need to explain where your time went, especially for client work. The project timeline, document detail, URL tracking, manual entries, sync, and integrations make sense when the output is a work log or invoice support.

For more context on lightweight Mac utilities, the broader TeenyApps hub has a guide to lightweight Mac utilities and a list of Mac apps under $10. Those lists are useful if you are trying to keep your setup simple instead of turning personal tracking into another dashboard habit.