Using Tokify

Getting started

Install Tokify by running the script below in your terminal. It runs on macOS 11 and later, and needs no account.

Prefer a download? Grab the latest release from GitHub. Once it’s running, Tokify lives in your menu bar.

Tracking from the menu bar

Click the Tokify icon in your menu bar to open the Now view. Type what you’re working on, press Start, and the timer begins. When you switch tasks or stop for the day, start a new activity or stop the current one. Your running activity stays visible in the menu bar so you always know what’s being tracked.

The History view lists your past activities grouped by day, so you can review where your time went.

Where your data lives

Every activity Tokify records is a line in a plain-text log at ~/.tock.txt. There is no database and no lock-in. The file is human-readable, so you can read it, grep it, edit it in any editor, or keep it in a git repo. Your history is yours, in a format that will still open in fifty years.

Configuration

Tokify’s behavior is configured in a plain YAML file at ~/.config/tock/tock.yaml. Edit it in any text editor to tune how Tokify works for you.

Exporting

Your history exports to CSV, JSON, or plain text, scoped by date range or project. Use it for invoicing, reporting, or feeding your time into another tool.

Microsoft Teams status

Tokify can set your Microsoft Teams status message to your current activity — only for the projects you choose. The token lives in your macOS Keychain, and Tokify only ever writes your status message.

Optional encrypted sync

Sync is optional and off until you enable it. When you sync across Macs, activities are end-to-end encrypted before they leave your machine, so the sync server never sees what you worked on. If you never turn it on, Tokify stays fully offline.

Prefer the terminal?

Tokify bundles the tock CLI and shares the same text file, so you can start a timer from a shell script and stop it from the menu bar.