Using Tokify

Getting started

Tokify runs on macOS 11 and later, on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. You don’t need an account to start tracking.

1. Download the latest macOS release from GitHub.
2. Unzip it and move Tokify.app into Applications.
3. Open Tokify and start your first activity.

Current releases are not signed with an Apple Developer ID, so macOS may block the first launch. Review the release installation instructions before proceeding. The terminal installer also removes the downloaded app’s quarantine flag.

Tracking time

Open the Now view, type what you’re working on, and press Start. When you switch tasks or stop for the day, start a new activity or stop the current one. The menu bar keeps a compact view of the running timer while Tokify holds the complete activity history.

The Log lists your past activities grouped by day, with a year-long activity graph, so you can review where your time went. Right-click an entry to edit or delete it, and use Projects to rename projects or change their colors.

Made a mistake? Undo and redo cover every change to your activities.

Notes and to-dos

The screen just to the left of Now is a rich-text notepad. It saves as you type and stays on your Mac. Press Cmd+Pto file what you’re writing under a project section. Activities have notes of their own, too.

Start an activity straight from a to-do. If the to-do runs over several lines, the first becomes the activity and the rest become its notes. When you stop, Tokify asks whether the to-do is done; choose Always, or flip the setting, to tick it off automatically.

Where your data lives

Tokify keeps your activity history in a local SQLite database at ~/.tock.db. Nothing leaves your Mac unless you turn on sync.

Upgrading from an earlier version? Your ~/.tock.txt log is imported automatically the first time Tokify opens, and the original file is left untouched as a backup.

Exporting

Choose Export from the menu in the top-right of the window to save your history as CSV, JSON, or plain text, scoped by date range or project. Use it for invoicing, reporting, or feeding your time into another tool.

Command line

The tokify CLI works on the same database as the app, so a timer started in one shows up in the other. Open Settings and install the command from the Command line section. Tokify may ask for an administrator password to add it to your PATH. You can also build it from source with make cli-install.

tokify start "Client work" "Draft proposal"
tokify stop
tokify list --date 2026-09-24
tokify watch --format '{{.Project}} · {{.Duration}}'

tokify watch prints the running timer and exits, which makes it cheap to poll from a status bar. Run tokify help for every command.

AI agents

Tokify includes a local MCP server for your own compatible agent. It can list projects and activities, and add, edit, or delete entries. This is an optional technical integration, not an automatic tracking or weekly review feature.

Open Settings → AI agents and copy the command for your agent. It points at your copy of Tokify, so it works wherever the app is installed. For Claude Code with Tokify in Applications, it is:

Other MCP apps can use the JSON config shown on the same screen. Start with a read-only request such as “show my recorded activities for yesterday.” Supply confirmed start and end times if you ask it to add an entry; commits alone do not establish how long you worked.

Agents follow the same rules as the app. Entries can’t overlap or end in the future, and a change that breaks those rules is refused with the conflicting entries listed. Edits and deletes sync like any change you make yourself, and a deleted entry is returned to the agent so a mistake can be undone.

An agent can read the plaintext entries you give it access to. If it uses a hosted model, those entries may be processed by its provider. Tokify’s encrypted sync does not cover that separate connection. You can use all of Tokify’s tracking features without connecting an agent.

End-to-end encrypted sync

Sync is optional and needs an account. Activities are end-to-end encrypted before they leave your machine, so the sync service never sees what you worked on. If you never sign in, Tokify stays fully offline.

Teams

Tokify supports shared team activity. Activities sync to every user on the team, so everyone works from the same history, while end-to-end encryption keeps that history private from the sync service. Add a profile picture from your account so teammates recognise your work at a glance.