Every website time tracker does one small thing: it notices which tab is in front and starts a clock. The interesting part is where it watches from — inside the browser, inside macOS, or from an app running beside both.

That vantage point decides which browsers it can see and where your history ends up. For an extension, it also decides who can push new code to the thing reading every address you visit.

Short answer: if you live in one Chromium browser, a free extension like Webtime Tracker is enough — per-site totals, CSV export, data kept in the browser. If you use more than one browser, want site time next to app time, or don't want an extension holding a "Read your browsing history" permission, use a desktop tracker that reads the active tab. ActivityWatch is free and open source; Timex, which I make, is a one-time $49 Mac app.

Website time tracker options compared

Four kinds of tool: the one built into macOS, browser extensions, local desktop apps, and cloud trackers. Every trade-off follows from where each one watches and where it keeps what it sees. Prices checked October 2026.

Method Browsers it sees Where the history lives What you grant Cost
Screen Time (macOS) Varies by browser — check yours Inside macOS, no export Nothing to install Free
Browser extension (Webtime Tracker, Web Activity Time Tracker) The one browser it's installed in That browser's extension storage, wiped on uninstall tabs permission; updates install automatically Free
ActivityWatch Chromium browsers and Safari via its window watcher; extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox Local database on your machine Accessibility for window titles; per-browser Automation consent, since its code reads URLs with Apple events; optional extension Free, open source
Clockify auto tracker Websites via the desktop app (not the Mac App Store build) Local, deleted after 45 days Desktop app install Free plan
Cloud trackers (RescueTime, Rize) RescueTime: Chrome, Safari, Edge, Arc, Brave, plus Firefox with its extension. Rize: its supported browsers Synced to the vendor's servers Automation access per browser RescueTime Lite free, Solo Focus $84/yr; Rize from $9.99/mo billed annually
Timex Safari, Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Vivaldi, Opera, DuckDuckGo, Zen, Firefox One SQLite file on your Mac Accessibility for window titles and tab URLs; no Automation prompt; no extension $49 once

Does Screen Time track websites on a Mac?

Sometimes — it depends on the browser. On macOS 26, Apple's report is literally called App & Website Activity; on macOS 27, Apple's guide sends you to Daily Average and an Apps & Websites selector. Screen Time's web controls sit under a Safari option.

Apple also offers an API browsers can use to report web usage to Screen Time — its controller exists "to report web usage and block restricted webpages" — and Firefox's ticket to adopt it has sat open since November 2021.

The test takes a minute: open System Settings → Screen Time and look for a site you only ever open in your main browser. If it's missing, Screen Time can't answer the question for that browser. Even when it can, there's no export, no rules, and no window titles — more in what Screen Time on Mac counts and misses.

Chrome time tracker extensions: what they record and where the data goes

A time tracker Chrome extension sees one browser, counts time per site, and keeps the history inside that browser. The two that top the results are typical. Webtime Tracker (90,000 users on its listing) shows per-site and per-domain time, daily averages and all-time totals, exports CSV, and counts only while the Chrome window is active and uncovered. Web Activity Time Tracker (30,000 users) adds daily limits, site blocking and a Pomodoro mode, and says its core tracking stays in your browser.

Two consequences don't make it onto either listing.

Uninstalling deletes the history. Extensions like these keep their data in Chrome's local extension storage — one of them says so in its README — and Chrome's storage docs say that area is "cleared when the extension is removed." Export a CSV before you switch tools or reinstall.

It's a silo. A Chrome extension can't see Safari, Firefox, or the hours you spend in Slack and your editor. Fine for "how much YouTube did I watch in Chrome this week". The wrong tool for "where did my workday go", because the browser total has nothing to sit next to.

Chrome extension permissions: what "Read your browsing history" actually lets an extension do

It lets the extension read the address and title of every tab you open — exactly what a website tracker needs, and exactly what a hostile update would want. In Chrome's tabs API, a tab's URL and title are visible only to extensions holding the tabs permission or host access to that page, and Chrome's permissions list shows tabs at install as "Read your browsing history." Both extensions above request it; one manifest is public on GitHub.

Access to every site is the bigger grant. Chrome's install warning for it begins "Read and change all your data", which Google's help page explains as reading or modifying every page you visit — your bank included. Neither extension above asks for that at install.

What matters more is what happens after install. Chrome checks installed extensions for updates every few hours and installs newer versions itself. A Web Store update is pushed to the user base and prompts you only when it requires additional permissions; in that case Chrome disables the extension until you accept. An update that needs nothing new just installs. A tracker already reads every URL, so a hostile update to one needs nothing new.

Hostile updates and malicious Chrome extensions aren't hypothetical:

  • In July 2025, Koi Security traced 18 Chrome and Edge extensions, some clean for years, that version updates turned into browser hijackers logging every site their users visited. The bad versions "auto-installed silently for over 2.3 million users across both platforms, most of whom never clicked anything." One was a color picker with Google's verified badge and featured placement.
  • In December 2024, attackers phished extension developers into authorizing an OAuth app that could publish new versions, then pushed updates to around a dozen extensions, Cyberhaven's among them, that went after session cookies and API tokens.
  • Across the whole store, Hsu, Tran and Fass (2024) found that 60% of extensions had never been updated, and that security-noteworthy ones had reached almost 350 million users.

The permission prompt you clicked on install day is the last review you personally get.

Who owns your extension next year?

The store page won't tell you. Extensions change hands, and the buyer inherits every user and every permission.

The best-known case is The Great Suspender. Its original developer stepped back in June 2020 and handed it to an unknown maintainer. Version 7.1.8 — published to the store but not to GitHub — ran code fetched from a remote server, and the extension was eventually pulled from the Chrome Web Store.

Closer to home: Web Activity Time Tracker. Since March 2025, its original developer's GitHub README has opened with "The Chrome extension has been sold. So I am not responsible for any changes to the functionality of the extension." The store listing doesn't mention the sale. It now ships version 2.5.0, with an optional sponsored banner; the public source stops at 2.2.2.

None of this is evidence of wrongdoing — the store's 2.5.0 package, unpacked, asks for the same permissions as the last open-source version's manifest. The point is narrower: the person you decided to trust is no longer the person shipping updates, and the listing doesn't say so. If you keep an extension, export its CSV monthly so your history outlives whatever happens to it.

Desktop trackers that read the active tab without an extension

A desktop app can ask the browser which tab is in front, so one install covers several browsers and puts site time next to app time. The price is a macOS permission prompt or two, often one per browser.

ActivityWatch is the free, open-source option. On macOS its default window watcher records the URL in Chromium-based browsers and Safari; the optional aw-watcher-web extension for Chrome, Edge and Firefox adds audible and incognito state. There's no official Safari extension — the request has been open since November 2020. Data stays on your device and the dashboard runs at localhost:5600, per its homepage.

Clockify's auto tracker comes with the free plan and runs in the desktop app, not the Mac App Store build. It records websites you stay on longer than a threshold (60 seconds by default, 10 at minimum), keeps the data on your computer, deletes it after 45 days, and leaves turning activities into time entries to you.

Timing tracks each website and URL in Chrome, Safari and Firefox without an extension, on a subscription.

RescueTime's desktop app covers Chrome, Safari, Edge, Arc and Brave on macOS with no extension (Firefox needs one) and syncs to its servers; the Lite tier is free and Solo Focus is $84 a year.

Rize needs Automation access per browser, syncs your activity to its cloud, and starts at $9.99 a month billed annually — more in the Rize review.

Timex reads the active tab's URL on your Mac with no browser extension, through the same Accessibility permission it uses for window titles — no Automation prompt. A browser in Today expands to per-domain time, then the URLs, and all of it lives in one SQLite file on your disk — your data, your file.

One catch runs across these apps: Safari private windows. Safari doesn't expose whether a window is private. Rize's docs say it can no longer detect Safari's private mode. ActivityWatch's macOS watcher records the Safari URL because private mode can't be inspected. Timex skips private windows in Chromium browsers and Firefox but can't in Safari.

Set up website tracking in 10 minutes

Whichever tool you pick, setup is the same few decisions. The specifics below are Timex's; the logic carries over.

Step 1 — Count your browsers (1 minute). One Chromium browser, and you only care about browser time? An extension is enough: skip to step 6. Anything else, use a desktop tracker.

Step 2 — Write rules for the ten domains that matter (5 minutes). Use the narrowest domain that's true. A Timex website rule covers subdomains, so a rule for google.com would swallow every Google subdomain; write docs.google.com instead. In Settings ▸ Categories, assign github.com to Development. For a client whose work lives under one URL path, right-click that URL in Today and make a keyword rule, optionally limited to one app. Recategorizing re-scores your history, so you can change your mind later; the 1.3.0 notes cover both kinds of rule.

Step 3 — Give the distraction its own category (1 minute). Without a rule, time on youtube.com counts under your browser's own category. Give it a category of its own, a negative Focus Score weight, and if you want a nudge, a daily limit — off by default, delivered as a plain macOS notification.

Step 4 — Decide what counts as idle (1 minute). Timex stops counting after 120 seconds without keyboard or mouse input, unless the app in front is playing audio or using the mic — so a video in the front tab counts and one in a background tab doesn't. Webtime Tracker lets you set its idle interval and media behavior; ActivityWatch marks you away after 3 minutes by default.

Step 5 — Close the private-window gap (1 minute). Do private browsing in a Chromium or Firefox private window, or hit pause in the menu bar before opening a Safari one.

Step 6 — Read the week, then export (1 minute). After a week, expand your browser in Today: domains first, then the URLs under each. Export Daily summary (CSV) from the Today header for day × category × app × site. On an extension, export its CSV now.

The honest limits

Front tab only. Every tracker here counts the tab in front. A talk playing in a background tab while you write isn't site time.

A domain isn't a task. github.com can be code review or an hour in the issues of a project you'll never use. URL keyword rules get closer. And a tab in front with no input could mean reading or waiting; nothing here can tell which.

History starts at install. Timex's per-site history begins the day you install it. ActivityWatch lists a Screen Time importer, which its own docs call an "attempt at importing from macOS's Screen Time."

Timex is Mac-only. No Windows, no iPhone, no sync between Macs, and it can't split one browser tab between two clients. It needs macOS 15 or later on Apple Silicon.

Pick by browser count

One browser and browser-only questions: Webtime Tracker plus a monthly CSV export covers it. Anything wider needs a desktop tracker — ActivityWatch for free, or Timex for $49 once, with everything in one file you can open. Download Timex — the 100-hour trial is about two and a half work weeks, long enough to see which domain has been eating your afternoons.

— DK