
Show HN: Time Cop – A simple, private, open-source time tracking app - hamaluik
https://timecop.app
======
hamaluik
I was recently inspired by a post on HN: “An app can be a home-cooked meal”
[1] and decided I was finally done putting up with time tracking apps that
didn't suit my own use case well enough.

I hate time-tracking, but it is a requirement of my job (grants that help pay
for my job, really) and if I don't have an app handy, I tend to forget to
record my time. I've tried numerous time-tracking apps on the app stores, but
they've each fallen short for me in some way or another—many are too
complicated, or don't _just work_, or cost more than I think is reasonable.
Many necessitate sending data over the network for multi-device sync—a feature
I have no need of, but can never disable.

Since time tracking is fairly simple, I decided to write my own app to scratch
my own itch. I also decided to publish the app and use it as a learning
experience—I've worked on parts of mobile apps before, and developed proof-of-
concept mobile apps before, but I wanted to follow the process through from
start to end. I also decided to localize it (using Google Translate) for the
experience of doing so. My biggest take away from all of this is that the work
required to create and manage a store presence (localization and especially
localized screenshots) is almost an order of magnitude more work than
programming the damned thing in the first place.

In any event, this is an app I made for myself. But if you want to use it or
fork it for your own purposes, please do.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22332629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22332629)

~~~
nileshtrivedi
> I decided to write my own app to scratch my own itch. I also decided to
> publish the app and use it as a learning experience.

Strongly agree with this. I was fed up with all the messaging apps that
compromise on security and privacy, so started building one just to be used
within a family. Using this as a chance to learn Flutter and making it open-
source with end-to-end encryption.

Not yet ready for prime-time so PRs are welcome:
[https://github.com/nileshtrivedi/family](https://github.com/nileshtrivedi/family)

~~~
wtmt
I had a quick look and found it interesting. Do you have any writeup (on
GitHub or elsewhere) on how people connect with each other (since phone
numbers aren't used as identifiers) and also how the end-to-end encryption
(mainly key exchange) works?

~~~
nileshtrivedi
The first member would create a group, and others can join that group by
scanning a QR code. Strictly wanted to avoid any PII such as phone numbers.
Need ideas on how to handle things like removing a person from a group (i.e.
resetting the shared private key).

For encryption, the idea was to keep things simple and have the QR code be the
private key so that it's never transmitted. But another option is to use
Matrix.org's E2E protocol which is a lot more work and requires a server.

------
PTOB
This is just what I've been looking for, and you beat me to scratching that
itch. My job requires granular time tracking, but I've got to be able to do it
at my desk and away from the office. As an Android user I can combine this
with scrcpy[1] to take advantage of my fast desktop keyboard when I'm sitting
down.

[1]
[https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy](https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy)

~~~
hamaluik
Awesome to hear! scrcpy looks really cool, it Kinda makes me wish I still used
an Android on the regular.

------
justkez
On the desktop side, I'd recommend Tim[1] to anyone looking for a similarly-
simple, hassle free time tracking app ($2.99 on Mac app store). My only gripe
is you can't archive old tasks so the menu gets a little overwhelming.

[1]: [https://tim.neat.software/](https://tim.neat.software/)

~~~
hamaluik
Looks great! I don’t use a Mac unfortunately though

------
screamingninja
Would you consider sharing the app on f-droid for those trying to stay off of
the Google ecosystem?

[https://f-droid.org/](https://f-droid.org/)

~~~
trulyrandom
Anyone can submit new apps to F-Droid, the author of the app does not need to
be involved.

~~~
screamingninja
Fair point, but this is an opportunity for the author to add donation links to
the f-droid listing and generate additional revenue.

------
programmarchy
It's refreshing to see the $0.99 app deal again. No subscription nonsense.

For time tracking, the best method I've found so far is just to use the
Calendar app. I have a different calendar for each task type (meeting,
development, project management, etc.) I put in the person or client/project
in the event title, and use the notes field for details. It's quick and easy
to edit time blocks by creating a new event and resizing it as needed.
Visualization of how I'm spending my time in the weekly or monthly views is
intuitive. Automatically syncs with all my devices.

No timers though, although admittedly I frequently forget to stop those
anyway.

------
eftokay83
Just wanted to let you know that Google Translate is really funny sometimes.

The /de/ page translates "fork away" with "weggabeln" which is really not what
you meant (although it is really really funny).

A better translation would be "erstellen Sie Ihren eigenen Fork".

~~~
hamaluik
Thanks, I'll fix that right away!

Knowing some French I know that the translations can be a bit.. special
sometimes. For this app all I can hope for is than in most cases the poor
translations are better than no translations.

~~~
_1tan
Have you checked out
[https://www.deepl.com/en/translator](https://www.deepl.com/en/translator)
already?

~~~
hamaluik
I haven't heard of it before, but I'll certainly check it out right now,
thanks!

------
throwaway55554
Wow! Look at the features! Such a breath of fresh air.

Summary:

> Offline only

> Export to .csv

> Fully private

> Full access to the db

Nicely done!

~~~
hamaluik
Thanks!

------
2data222
Just bought it with Google Play credit to give it a spin. I don't have to
record my time for work. I'm interested in it for personal accountability. I
see it as making yourself step on the scale if you're trying to lose weight.

~~~
hamaluik
Thanks! I need it for work, but since getting my wife to beta test it she has
also used it to somewhat similarly to pretty good success.

------
rsanek
>Associate timers with projects to group your work (or don’t)

Perhaps it's because I'm so used to seeing marketing materials that always
present features in a way that assumes you'll use them, but the "(or don't)"
here caused me to actually laugh out loud and made the "no tracking / spying /
advertising / etc" comment above more believable. Well done.

------
facebiff
Nice work! FYI, there is a ruby testing library with the same name that's
somewhat well-known (~3K stars on github)
[https://github.com/travisjeffery/timecop](https://github.com/travisjeffery/timecop)

------
hiaux0
This comes right on time! I was looking for some tracking apps yesterday, but
wasn't satisfied with any of the choices.

I went for an Apple Shortcut instead `speedy time tracker`.

However, I will switch to yours to show support!

It would definitely be nice to add shortcut capabilities in the future :)

\-------

My Feedback:

\- Starting/Stopping timers should happen on press of list item

\- Editing should happen on swipe left (essentially swapping start and edit)

\- Running times could be indicated in the list itself, no need for separate
section "Running Timers"

\- If, I want to resume, eg. Work, a dropdown appears, eventually leading to
Work (total time)> Work (time1), Work (time2), which makes it hard to resume
(Now I have to open the list)

~~~
hamaluik
Thanks! A shortcut is a good idea, I’ll look into that.

I’ll play around with your other suggestions but not sure if I’ll keep them
(but thank you for them!). I had fiddled with how things worked and settled on
where it is now because it felt the most intuitive to myself. For example when
I had the running timers in the main list itself I found it easy to forget
that I had a timer running. Grouping all running timers in one spot helped cut
that down without too much fuss otherwise.

~~~
hiaux0
No problem!

I figured you had iteration already, and it's how you prefer things, so no
biggies :).

But also thanks for your insights on the running timer ux

------
kmtrowbr
I have used OfficeTime
[https://www.officetime.net/](https://www.officetime.net/) for the past 10
years. I use the OSX version. You can sync between multiple clients on
different devices, but I don't use this. For me, it's just a very simple,
lightweight client app which keeps track of time and has basic reporting and
invoicing functionality. I really like it. It is paid though but, it's a one
time fee for years and years of use, if that makes sense.

------
fenwick67
I have been working on doing something similar automatically using a PIR
occupancy sensor on an ESP32, since I can never remember to clock in or out at
home. It's mostly working.

~~~
hamaluik
Cool! Unfortunately I need to track things more granularly than “at home / at
work / at desk / etc” otherwise something like your solution would be so much
better because of the automation!

~~~
welder
WakaTime is good for this, as it automatically groups into projects based on
git repo.

~~~
t1mmen
WakaTime is awesome, assuming you only need to keep track of how how long
you're working on code.

Shameless plug follows:

timelyapp.com is similar to WakaTime, except it keeps track of _all_ the
programs you use on the desktop, and for how long (MacOS/Windows only). Timely
also tracks when you leave/arrive at work/home/other locations (GPS, requires
mobile app). We can't claim offline mode, but all tracked "memories" are 100%
your-eyes-only.

Timely is a time tracker specifically built for people who are bad at
remembering what they worked on/don't log hours frequently. Sice Timely's
"memories" are recorded to-the-minute, you can easily log accurate timesheets,
even if you only do so once a month.

(Disclaimer: I work on Timely)

------
fluidcruft
Thanks! Only snag so far is I logged a test thing and I can't figure out how
to delete it. I also have to do a lot of task switching, so it would be nice
to select an existing log (like one I was working on 15 min ago) and copy it
or restart it. I figured out that I can have multiple running timers but they
all run continuously.

~~~
hamaluik
You can do those things! You just need to be a magic mind-reader and somehow
know that you can swipe items left or right to either delete them or start
(copy) them. Swipe a timer to the right to show a “delete” button, swipe to
the left to show a “start / copy” button.

Once I can figure out how to make one of those step-by-step walk-through
tutorials I'll definitely add that to the app, because that functionality has
absolutely 0 discoverability.

~~~
cl3misch
Is it by design that I can't swipe on the "parent" of multiple instances of
the same activity?

~~~
hamaluik
Nope! It's by forgetfulness. There's no reason to not have that and would
definitely make sense, I'll try to add that shortly.

Thanks for the feedback!

------
qwertygerty
Awesome! Except, how do I trial run it before buying? (without having to
checkout code and running an emulator...)

~~~
hamaluik
Thanks! And uhh.. you can't really, sorry. I didn't really think of that
before submitting. Part of the learning process was to create a paid app and
learn about the forms and processes required by Apple and Google to sell paid
apps.

If you would like a promo code, let me know and I'll set you up!

~~~
yborg
I'd be interested in one. Not sure how mobile vs. desktop will fit with my
workflow.

~~~
hamaluik
Shoot me an email and I’ll get you sorted

------
maelito
I'm looking for an equivalent of Stretchly for Android.

The goal of Stretchly is not to put a timer on your tasks, but simply to
remind you that you shouldn't stay more than 20 minutes looking at your
monitor without going to walk, stretch, look far through your window, etc.

~~~
segmondy
You can do that with a script, here's mine. It reminds me every 15 minutes. It
speaks it via speaker, then captures it and logs it and time.

    
    
       #/bin/bash
       while sleep 900; do
         DATE=`date`
         echo "Hello, what are you doing?" | espeak
         DOING=`zenity -entry --text="what are you doing?"`
         echo $DATE, $DOING >> ~/data/doing.txt
       done

~~~
maelito
Is it possible to add to this kind of script the monitoring of idle time ?
With a reset when back from an idle time longer than the pause.

~~~
segmondy
Yes, there are commands you can use to monitor keystrokes and mouse movement
from command line and I'm sure you can use that to track the idle time.

------
Summershard
On Windows I recommend Baralga. It's quite old, UI is simple, and it just
works. It's still maintained.

[https://github.com/Baralga/baralga](https://github.com/Baralga/baralga)

------
nakovet
Thank you! Bought it because of many reasons: cheap, simple, fits my use case.
I like the Pomodoro Technique a lot, if possible would you add countdowns or
something, for example: * 25 minutes (countdown) - researching analytics SaaS

------
rkagerer
It's a sad world where this is worthy of being your top feature:

 _...there is no tracking / spying / advertising / etc_

Thanks for contributing to make the world a little less sad!

~~~
hamaluik
I agree and thanks!

------
xerxesaa
I also did a little project for this:
[https://workfission.com](https://workfission.com)

------
knubie
Looks great! Are there any filtering options available? E.g. view all timers
for XYZ project from March 1-31, then show total time?

~~~
hamaluik
There are in the “reports” view and the CSV export, but not for the main
“dashboard” / list of timers. That's something that I could add fairly easily
however, so I probably will. Thanks for the suggestion!

~~~
knubie
No problem, and congratulations on launching!

------
stevewillows
The overall workflow for this app is so intuitive. Really nice work.

This is perfect -- and will also be perfect for cooking large meals.

~~~
hamaluik
Thanks so much! I never would have though about it for cooking meals, but
that's a very clever use for it!

------
Method5440
Picked up a copy to support dev and fellow HN user - nice side effect is that
I can use it, too. :)

~~~
hamaluik
Thanks so much!

------
mosselman
If I want backups for this on iPhone, would I have to manually export or is
there some icloud sync?

~~~
hamaluik
Manual export. That was one of those features that I considered, but don't
really need for my use-case so ended up cutting it. I may add support for that
in the future if I have time, but it's not on any roadmap or anything right
now.

~~~
mosselman
Okay, thanks.

------
zwilliamson
How cool would it be if you could partner with Jean-Claude Van Damme on this?

------
frakkingcylons
The phone on the home page looks like an iPhone but the UI looks like Android?

~~~
hamaluik
The app is built with Flutter [1], which uses Material design by default. So
it's cross-platform, but uses an Android design system. I briefly experimented
with making it look more native on iOS, but although Flutter is capable of
that in theory, it was a giant pain in the butt in practice and not worth it
to me for this app.

[1] [https://flutter.dev/](https://flutter.dev/)

~~~
wpietri
How did you like Flutter for this? I've been playing with it some, and overall
I like it a lot. I think they've made a bunch of smart choices, and the
developer experience is great. But library support ended up being a huge
problem for what I was trying to build. E.g., the official Flutter webview [1]
is still marked as "Developers Preview" and says "it is not recommended to
rely on webview keyboard in production apps". And I was also very disappointed
with the mapping library support.

[1]
[https://pub.dev/packages/webview_flutter](https://pub.dev/packages/webview_flutter)

~~~
hamaluik
I mostly really like Flutter. I haven't done a huge amount of UI development
work in my life, but of the things I have used, I have found Flutter to be far
and away the easiest to quickly express the UI you want to build and just
build it.

I think its killer features are the cross-platform support by default and the
hot-reload—I found the hot-reload functionality so invaluable that I ended up
jerry-rigging hot-reload into my current product at work.

You're right that it is definitely still rough in some places though. The
libraries on pub.dev can be very hit-or-miss, and I definitely wasted some
time trying various libraries from there before either giving up or rolling my
functionality.

I too explored a mapping project using it a year or two ago now and ended up
having to essentially create my own map view using mapbox APIs (unfortunately
I don't have code that I can share from that project). That said, I find
Flutter is at least relatively easy enough to implement things that you can't
find from the ecosystem.

~~~
wpietri
Thanks! I appreciate the reply.

------
monadic2
Does it work as well as the built in tracker?

~~~
hamaluik
It’s rather different. It doesn’t automatically track what app you’re using in
your phone, rather you record things such as when you’re in a meeting, or
actively working, or researching, or going for a run, etc.

------
tsherr
Looks cool. I bought it to try it out.

~~~
hamaluik
Awesome, thanks!

------
1970-01-01
[https://youtu.be/cUAz83K0YRc](https://youtu.be/cUAz83K0YRc)

~~~
hamaluik
Heh, yea.. my wife informed me of the movie after I had already bought a
domain name and posted the first version online. Hopefully a time-tracking app
is different enough from time-travel crime to not cause issues!

~~~
BTBurke
I grew up watching those Van Damme movies so I bought it just for the name!

------
monadic2
Apple opened up its API tracking wasted time?

------
sytelus
Huh? Is this mobile only? Value of such apps are mostly on PC for information
workers. IPhone already has screen time etc.

~~~
hamaluik
Yes, it's mobile only. It does not track what you're doing on your phone—you
tell it what you're doing and it keeps track of it.

I use it at work for recording when I'm in meetings, when I'm actively
developing, when I've researching, etc—things that I need to report but don't
want to manually write down and things that aren't captured by things like
screentime. I always have my phone with me and handy, whereas I don't always
have my computer with my nor handy.

------
bornelsewhere
A happy user of TimeKeeper[1] for Mac. Had an issue, author quickly fixed it.
Thumbs up!

[1]: [https://timekeeperapp.com](https://timekeeperapp.com)

