Time tracking without screenshots
ActivityPulse tracks billable hours from application and window metadata alone. There is no screen recording at all, and no keystroke content on any plan — what a person types is not captured and there is no code that could. Screenshots are the one exception, and they are a choice someone has to make: an Enterprise capability, off unless an administrator deliberately turns it on, and listed for everyone it applies to on their own data page in the console.
What it captures instead
Enough to attribute an hour to a project. Not enough to read over anyone's shoulder.
- Which application and window were in the foreground, and for how long.
- For browsers, the site-level identity of the active tab — not the page contents.
- Whether the machine was idle, so idle time is subtracted rather than billed.
- The project or task the time is attributed to, and the device it came from.
What it never captures
- Keystroke content — what you type is never recorded, on any plan.
- Webcam or microphone — the agent has no access to either.
- Continuous screen recording — there is no session replay or video capture.
- Personal file contents — the agent reads window and process metadata, not documents.
- Browsing on a paused device — pausing capture stops collection, it does not hide it.
Why screenshots are usually the thing that kills a rollout
Screenshots are easy to sell to a buyer who does not trust the number, which is why most of this category takes them. They are also the single most common reason the people being tracked refuse — and a monitoring tool that a team works around stops producing data worth trusting, which defeats the reason it was bought.
In Europe the objection is not only cultural. A screenshot captures whatever happened to be on screen, including personal messages and colleagues' data, which makes proportionality far harder to argue under GDPR Article 88 and far harder to get past a works council.
Metadata answers the question that was actually asked — where did the hours go — without collecting the thing nobody wanted collected.
What the design guarantees
- no-keystroke-logging
- Keystroke content is never captured — there is no code path that records what a person types.
- sensitive-capture-off-by-default
- Screenshots and input-activity capture are off by default, and a narrower scope can never widen what a broader one allows.
- no-productivity-score
- ActivityPulse reports what happened and does not grade the person it happened to — there is no productivity score.
- transparent-agent
- By default the person being monitored can see what is being captured on their own machine and can pause capture. The one exception is a covert investigation, which is Enterprise-only, unavailable in the EU, capped at 90 days, and audited.
Frequently asked questions
Is there time tracking software that does not take screenshots?
Yes. ActivityPulse captures the identity of the foreground application and window and how long it was in front, and turns that into per-project hours. Screenshots are a separate Enterprise capability that is off unless an administrator deliberately enables it, so the default configuration takes none at all.
How can it prove work was done without a screenshot?
Each attributed segment records which application and window were in the foreground, for how long, on which device, against which project or task. That is metadata evidence rather than visual evidence — it shows what was worked on and when, without showing the contents of anyone's screen.
Does it log keystrokes instead?
No. Keystroke content is never captured on any plan — there is no code path that records what a person types. Some tools that avoid screenshots still count keystrokes and mouse movements to derive an activity percentage; ActivityPulse does neither.
Why do so many time trackers take screenshots?
Because screenshots are the easiest thing to sell to a buyer who does not trust the number. They are also the single most common reason a rollout is rejected by the people being tracked, and the reason many deployments never get past a works council.
Can we turn screenshots on later if we need them?
On the Enterprise plan, and only after a compliance review. They are off by default and enabling them is a deliberate act rather than a switch someone flips on a Tuesday — which is the point of gating them.
Will our team accept it?
That is the case the product is built for. Anyone can look up exactly what is captured about them on their own data page in the console — no administrator in the middle — the agent offers a pause control for personal time, and no productivity score is calculated for anyone.
See where the hours actually went
Free for up to three people. Windows and macOS. No keystroke content on any plan, and screenshots off unless an administrator turns them on.