Looking for a Timing alternative on Mac
If an hour has to land on a client project by a rule, then reach a teammate or an invoice, Timing already does that work. If you want this Mac's frontmost app, the key presses and clicks in that stretch, and a daily report from local git plus agent sessions you turn on, Hina 0.6.0 does that without a sync account. Timing's rule editor, shared team projects, and GrandTotal import are the parts Hina does not have.
What Timing records before you sort it
On 19 October 2026 the Timing homepage described automatic tracking of apps, documents, and websites, including the full file path or URL. It detects when you stop using the Mac and lets you exclude that idle time, and the menu bar can show a productivity score. Private tabs are discarded, and an exclusion list can skip chosen activities. The same page also covers calls, meetings, calendar events, reminders, a Screen Time import, and a timer in the web app. Hina 0.6.0 has Pause recording and Resume recording, and it does not include those.
The homepage says tracked times stay on the Mac unless you opt into sync. The privacy policy, read the same day, says that without Timing Sync those activities are not sent on, while startup still sends the license key, email, computer name, and an anonymous identifier for the Mac. Optional statistics about how the Timing app itself is used can be turned off in the app. If you use the AI summaries, metadata including window titles goes to Google's Vertex AI service on EU servers.
How a rule assigns the project
A new app activity is assigned to the first project whose rule matches, and that activity belongs to only one project. Option-drag from the Activities screen onto a project saves the rule, and dragging a folder from Finder saves a path rule. A rule can match a domain, a full URL that still contains the query string, a file path, a title, an application, a device, a start time, or a day of week. Filters, which the rules article says require Timing Expert, can match activity already on record. Project rules apply only to what is tracked afterward, unless you re-apply them from the Edit menu to the activities currently visible.
New projects start at the top of the preference order. On a team, team projects match before private ones, and the Team menu switches between the two lists. Rules on a team project are shared with the other members by default. The next morning, a matching activity should already sit on the project. Last week changes only when you re-apply, and anything that matches no rule keeps the manual assignment.
Sync, teams, and invoices
Timing Sync is the optional account behind the web app, the AI features, and teams. Enable Timing Sync merges this Mac in, with a timeline column per device. The privacy policy says the account stores copies of your Timing data on Google Cloud in Frankfurt, encrypted in transit and at rest, but not end to end, because the web app reads it. Data stays until you opt out, then for up to 365 days, unless you request deletion.
The pricing page that day lists Professional, Expert, and Connect, monthly or annual, with the amount shown before you pay, and the homepage trial is 30 days with no credit card. Its FAQ makes Professional one Mac, has Expert add filters on two, and has Connect add teams, MCP, and API export on three Macs per person, and the plan table puts the Web API and Zapier under Connect. Admins see aggregate time on shared projects, not your apps, sites, or personal projects, and they can see manual entries attached to those projects. Exports are PDF, XLSX, CSV, or HTML, while GrandTotal, which requires Connect, imports time entries rather than app usage, treats the root project as the client, and reads a parenthetical rate such as Acme Inc. (50). Hina has no billing path, so the post on reconstructing project hours as a freelancer stops at the CSV and leaves the invoice in a billing tool.
What Hina 0.6.0 keeps on this Mac
Hina 0.6.0 sits in the menu bar and asks for Accessibility, named Device Control and Data Access on macOS 27. Until you grant it, only app names are recorded, and the permission text says Hina does not ask for screen recording. With access it stores the frontmost app, the duration, and input counts: keyboard events, plus mouse and trackpad clicks, not the characters you typed. Record window titles and page paths on the Privacy tab stays off until you turn it on, and it does not read page text. A stored URL keeps the scheme, host, and path, and private windows keep the app name only, which is the default.
The database is hina.sqlite in ~/Library/Application Support/Hina. There is no sync account, and recording, search, charts, and reports run offline. Three clicks reach the network, and none of them carries activity records. The purchase button in Settings opens the checkout page in the browser, Activate posts the license key and a short id, and Check for Updates… reads the version file on hina.day without sending the machine id, and compares versions on this Mac. After activation, later license checks stay on the Mac.
A project name is read from the window title or the document path, and with Read agent sessions on, an agent session's working directory can name the project for that stretch. Hina 0.6.0 has no rule editor that sorts activity into projects by condition. Rename or merge projects, under Settings, Data, renames a detected project or counts a folder as another project, past days included, and it never assigns time that had no project. The post on how project time is attributed covers which paths become a name and which gaps stay unassigned. If you return after 10 minutes to 2 hours with no input, and the Mac was not locked or asleep, the card offers Meeting, Reading / thinking, Watching, and Away. Away, or leaving the card for a minute, leaves the stored row unchanged.
Today's report opens the daily report, Copy puts Markdown on the clipboard, and Export Markdown saves report- plus the date. Choose Folder on the Data tab selects where local git is read, with lazy fetch disabled. Read agent sessions, Read shell history, and AI usage metadata start off. Sessions add your prompts, time, directory, branch, and paths from local Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, and Cursor logs, without replies or tool output, while shell history keeps the command and subcommand, and token counts are labeled as not hours, a finished task, or a bill. A day runs from 4:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m., the week starts on Monday, the trial is 7 recorded days, and after it recording continues and today stays readable, while the daily report needs a license even for today.
When the two sides do not match
Timing's hour may already sit on a project, and its stored URL can still contain the query string. Hina's hour is frontmost time plus input counts, with the query removed. A crop in Figma, a sentence on the page, or words spoken on a call appear in neither record unless the window title already contained them, which the post on time tracking without screenshots covers further. The Timing pages read here do not describe screenshots, Hina does not take them, and the Dayflow post is the one about needing the picture back.
Hina's Trail starts when Hina is recording, and earlier days stay empty. Pause recording or quitting leaves a gap, which means the record has nothing for that stretch. Without Accessibility there are no titles to read project names from, with Read agent sessions off the report has no prompts, and with no folders chosen it has no commits. Timing lets you exclude time after you stop using the Mac, while Hina only asks about an awake, unlocked stretch from 10 minutes through 2 hours, and an unanswered stretch stays Away. After the trial, older days and Today's report need a license, while recording continues.
Which job you are hiring for
Stay with Timing when the next step is a shared project, a filter by device or weekday, a timesheet, or a GrandTotal invoice. Connect is the edition the pricing FAQ and the GrandTotal article tie to teams, the Web API, and that plugin. A second Mac shares the history only through Timing Sync.
Use Hina 0.6.0 when you do not want that account, and you want the front window, the input counts, the prompts you opted into, and the local git. Turn titles on for project names, choose folders on the Data tab for commits, and leave Read agent sessions off if prompts should stay out. The post on choosing a Mac time tracker by how it records sets this beside manual timers, cloud trackers, and screen journals.