After hearing about Toggl for a long time on MPU, I decided to attempt to switch over to it from my previous time-tracking app (OfficeTime), which I’ve gotten tired of waiting to develop certain features I need.
While the Toggl service overall is excellent, I’ve been a little shocked by how bad the desktop app is. It’s so buggy, it’s borderline unusable. And I find myself grappling with understanding Toggl’s popularity. (Are people are just using the iPhone app or Timery? Or is there some 3rd party desktop app that works better?) I do like Timery, but I’m having a hard time swallowing the bitter pill of paying for a subscription to both Toggl and Timery just to solve time-tracking.
What am I missing here or not getting? Is there a better time-tracking solution that other people have moved on to? Is there some other 3rd party software that works better?
If there is already a thread where this is discussed, please let me know. (I searched the forums, but Toggl’s unfortunate namespace overlap with the common word “toggle” made it difficult to surface.)
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If you’re using Toggl on Mac primarily, there’s an extension for Alfred you can use. I’ve used it in the past and it’s worked well.
Otherwise, I’ve been using Timery plus shortcuts to start timers in particular projects that I am tracking in. It’s easy to do, plus I always have my phone or an iPad with me to start them.
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I used RescueTime for a time.
My work didn’t parse out into their pre-defined categories, and I found it wasn’t motivating me after a time, so I stopped using it.
I haven’t looked at it in a couple or few years, so these issues (for me) may have been resolved.
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I am in the same boat. I’ve tried to try Toggl a few times, but I don’t see the shine others have reported. I too find it buggy and unpolished—even the web app. The exception, of course, is Timery—but I can’t bring myself to subscribe to an app just to have a decent interface to use for a different service I’m also paying for.
I bought Tyme 2 on all platforms a long time ago and while it is a little less aesthetically pleasing that Toggl’s branding, it effectively does the same thing and isn’t a subscription. The developer has since launched a subscription-based Tyme 3. On iOS, it offers better Shortcuts support than Tyme 2, but I haven’t bought in yet—haven’t needed it. Either way, though, the Tyme suite has been a much better experience than Toggl has.
Nonetheless every few months I try Toggl out to try to find what I’m missing…
Edit: Note that you can still buy Tyme 2 if avoiding subscriptions is desired. A nice touch by the dev!
I use Timing, which is available on Setapp. I don’t really track my time, but what I love about it is that I can retroactively for back and figure out when I was working on certain projects based on things like which website was open, which app was open, etc.
That may be standard for time trackers, but I’ve never used any other similar apps, so I can’t really compare. If you have Setapp, it may be worth a look.
@ryanjamurphy – Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll check Tyme out.
@davidrepmo – I do like Timing, but I found the interface a little scary and I couldn’t find any good tutorials, though I didn’t spend a ton of time looking. Timing doesn’t have an OS app, though, which is one of my needs. I’ll look into it again, though. Thanks for the reminder.
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Timing’s lack of iOS options has also been why I’ve stayed away from it. Seems like there are many Mac options without iOS clients, for some reason!
I’m using Timeular which has the fun and strange peculiarity to be usable with a Bluetooth device. (You can use their app without it but it’s not very feature rich.) It basically ships with an octahedron (a d8, for you D&D players) that you assign sides to. When you change activities, you switch the device to the corresponding side and it updates in the app.
If you don’t have very complex time tracking needs (that can’t be solved with 8 sides and tags you can use in the app) I find having an analog device I manipulate very satisfying and fun for such a workflow. It also syncs with Toggl.
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