Observe
The application in front. The elapsed time. A separate session when the foreground changes.
GAMA TIMESCOPE / NATIVE MACOS
THE DAY, MADE VISIBLE.Where did
my day go?
A developer’s question.
A little clarity for anyone
who spends a day at a Mac.
Give a day a shape LOCAL RECORDS / HUMAN CONTEXT / MACOS 14+
01 / The missing hours
“Where did my day go?”
A developer could spend the whole day at a computer and still struggle to describe it. Coding, research, messages, a break, another tab. The hours were real. Their shape was hard to see.
GAMA TimeScope started with that personal question. It grew into a way for anyone using a Mac to look back with a little more clarity.
A DAY AT THE COMPUTER
IS STILL A HUMAN DAY.
IS STILL A HUMAN DAY.
Work. School. Research.
A message. A pause. A little play.
The same hours. Different meanings.
“I was at my desk all day. What did that day contain?”
Give the work a shape.
A build, some research, an unexpected interruption, a return to the editor. The summary shows which applications were active. The timeline shows the sequence. You bring the meaning of the work.
Notice the pattern. Choose tomorrow deliberately.02 / Give the day a shape
A total is a beginning. A timeline tells more.
Record foreground application sessions. Keep their start, end and duration. Then give the person two ways to read the day: a simple summary and the sequence behind it.
Optional website details add context where the browser permits it. The application remains the parent: looking deeper should never count the same minute twice.
AN ILLUSTRATIVE DAY / NO ACTIVITY COLLECTED
Look a little closer.
4h 18mActive computer time
Five foreground sessions.
Idle, pause and missing observations stay separate.
Choose an application to inspect its recorded context.
INSIDE THE APPLICATION
Google Chrome1h 18m
Two foreground sessions, 78 minutes in total. This example includes optional recorded website coverage. Those minutes are already part of Chrome’s total.
example.com28m
wikipedia.org15m
youtube.com10m
Unclassified application time25m
28 + 15 + 10 + 25 = 78 minutes.
More context. The same total.
What permissions make this possible?
Application time: foreground tracking uses public macOS APIs without an additional privacy permission.
Chrome and Safari websites: disabled by default. Choose Enable for each browser and approve its normal macOS Automation request. Page titles and YouTube identifiers are separate optional choices.
Current limits: Opera, Edge and Brave detailed adapters remain disabled; Firefox has no implemented native tab adapter. Generic app tracking remains available. Safari has no verified private-window indicator: disable its website details before private browsing.
A browser illustration of the reporting idea. Every number is fictional. This page cannot observe your applications, tabs or computer time.
THE REPORTING PRINCIPLE
One minute of computer time.
One place in the total.
A browser can contain a website.
A website can have optional metadata.
Context deepens. The total stays honest.
A website can have optional metadata.
Context deepens. The total stays honest.
03 / Quiet machinery
In the menu bar. On your Mac.
A native macOS application observes the foreground app and keeps local records. Daily summaries, a seven-day view, the Activity Timeline and Activity Journal make those records readable.
Recording begins when you choose Start recording. Browser details are a separate choice. No account or cloud service sits between you and your own day.
Keep
Local SQLite records, transactional checkpoints and a journal of recording events.
Explain
A daily total, a seven-day view, a timeline and the context underneath.
Respect
A choice to begin, optional browser detail and visible controls for the person using the Mac.
THE ACTUAL NATIVE INTERFACE
The record.
And the ways to read it.
These are the app’s native SwiftUI views, rendered with isolated synthetic examples. Explore the surfaces. Open any image to inspect the details.
View full size ↗NO ACCOUNT BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR DAY
It stays here.
Activity records stay on the Mac. No GAMA account, cloud sync, subscription, advertising or external app analytics. The app works offline; opening a support website is an ordinary web request.
04 / What time cannot prove
A visible window is not a visible mind.
A page can be open while someone thinks, reads, walks away or talks to another person. A shared macOS account can belong to more than one human. Missing observations leave uncertainty.
TimeScope needed to preserve those limits. An interruption stays an interruption. Unclassified time stays unclassified. The record supports a conversation; it cannot finish it for you.
App time ≠ attention
An application in front does not prove reading, watching or the quality of someone’s work.
A gap ≠ a verdict
An inferred interruption does not establish why recording stopped. Missing observations stay visible.
An account ≠ a person
A shared macOS account cannot tell you which family member used the computer.
More detail ≠ more time
Website observations belong within their application. They do not add more minutes to the day.
The day can be measured.
Its meaning needs a person.
The edges of the observation
Website intervals are sampled foreground exposure and can miss quick tab changes. Passive viewing can become idle. Dedicated lock/unlock detection remains unverified.
Chrome’s native private-window mode is checked before and after a read. Safari has no verified private-window indicator: disable Safari website details before private browsing.
The engine records ambiguous clock changes and interrupted observations as explicit gaps. It does not invent activity for periods before monitoring began.
05 / Clarity, with choice
Useful detail. Deliberate boundaries.
Show the app first. Reveal website details only when they are wanted and available. Keep pause, retention and the privacy explanation close to the record.
For a shared family Mac, visible Guardian Mode can protect settings and history deletion with a passcode. Accountability works best when everyone knows what is being recorded.
Start when
you understand.
The first-use explanation comes before recording. Choose Start recording to begin. Not now leaves it stopped.
Browser context
is optional.
Chrome and Safari details need per-browser Enable and normal Automation approval. Page titles and YouTube identifiers are additional choices, off by default.
Your records.
Your controls.
Inspect sessions, pause recording and manage retention. The default is 90 days; choose 30, 365 or no automatic expiry. Delete activity history from the app.
A visible
Guardian Mode.
Protect settings, tracking configuration and history deletion with a passcode. Optionally protect normal quitting. Everyone using the shared account should understand the recording.
ACCOUNTABILITY / WITH HUMAN CONTEXT
Guardian Mode supports an agreement.
It does not replace one.
Normal operating-system controls remain available. Force Quit, shutdown and uninstalling are not prevented. There is no remote parent dashboard, app blocking or hidden monitoring.
Read the TimeScope privacy policy ↗What stays outside the record
TimeScope does not collect passwords, keystrokes, screenshots, private-message contents, browser cookies or authentication tokens. It does not read page contents, browser history databases, playback state or channel names.
The current app does not request Accessibility, Screen Recording or Input Monitoring. Optional browser metadata uses normal macOS Automation. Local activity is stored in the app’s SQLite container and is not separately encrypted by TimeScope; macOS account protection and your own backups apply.
06 / A day worth understanding
Built for the hours that become a life.
The developer’s first question became a native application: from foreground sessions to browser permission controls, from separate totals to a hierarchy that keeps every minute in its place.
TimeScope is built and in App Store review. The source project includes native interface renders, automated verification and a clear account of what remains to validate for distribution.
- 01
Catch the foreground.
Separate sessions, idle handling, local checkpoints and recovery. A foundation that leaves missing observations visible.
- 02
Bring context carefully.
Optional Chrome and Safari metadata, explicit permissions, conservative URL storage and separate choices for sensitive detail.
- 03
Make the record readable.
A Summary, selectable Timeline, Activity Journal and clear settings. Native interfaces around one coherent local history.
- 04
Keep the hierarchy honest.
App, website and optional recorded metadata. Overlapping observations are handled without turning a deeper view into a larger total.
CURRENT STATE / SPECIMEN 009Built.
Built.
In App Store review.
The retained project documents a universal Mac build and 58 passing automated tests. Its native renders use synthetic examples, with no personal activity uploaded.
App Store Connect shows version 1.0.0 waiting for review on 13 October 2026. Publication of this specimen does not mean Apple has approved the application.
Visit the TimeScope website ↗
GAMA TIMESCOPE / SEE WHERE YOUR TIME GOES.
Your day.
Made visible.
A little more awareness.
A better conversation.