Time Sink is a tool that helps you track what you've been doing on your Mac. It works by watching which apps and windows you use, how long they've been running, and how often they're in the foreground. Basic usage is as simple as launching the app—Time Sink will then start watching what you do while working on your machine.
Beyond the basic usage, of course, there's much more to Time Sink: You can customize which apps and windows it tracks, create groups of related activities (Time Sink calls these Pools), and view and export various reports on your activities.
Using Time Sink
The General Usage section covers the Time Sink interface, Menus covers the menu items, and Settings explains each section of the app's settings.
For App Store users of prior versions of Time Sink
When you first launched this new version of Time Sink, you probably saw a dialog like that in the screenshot at right. The reason we had to show you this dialog is that this version of Time Sink is sandboxed, as must be all new or significantly-updated App Store apps. The older version of Time Sink was not sandboxed.
If you clicked Import "Default.plist" in that dialog, you should be up and running with all your old data and settings.
On the off chance that you clicked Start Over without recognizing that this would actually dump all your historical data, don't worry—you can still import your old data file (but you will lose any time tracked since updating to the new version of Time Sink).
To import your old data file, please contact us for assistance. The process isn't overly complicated, but we do want to work with you to make sure everything happens correctly.
About this Help
The help file has been broken into sections, each covering a different aspect of Time Sink:
The Settings section covers all of Time Sink's settings, and the Menus section goes through each menu option available; reading each of these sections will provide a good overview of all of Time Sink's features and settings.
Pools are groups of apps and/or windows that you'd like to track together—you could group all windows related to a given project, for example. Read the Pools section to learn how to create Pools, how to use wildcards to expand their powers, and how to customize them to your particular needs.
Time Sink includes automatic always-updated usage reports that can be sorted in a number of ways. You can also easily change the period of time displayed in the report, and export your results to a text file, for processing in another app. Read the Reports and Exports section to understand everything you can do with reporting and exporting.
Tips on Using Help
Our help system is designed to be easy to use. The top area of the window contains page navigation buttons on the left, and a magnifying glass icon (that will open a search box) on the right. If you find the font size too small, you can increase it by pressing ⌘=; ⌘- will reduce the size.
We use some standard conventions for certain bits of text throughout our help system:
These sections of text contain additional explanatory material that's related to the topic being discussed, but may go into more detail or not quite fit in the regular flow, so we set it apart with a visual call-out.
These sections of text contain tips, shortcuts, hidden features, or other similar "goodies" to help you get the most out of the app.
This is text we really want you to read—generally, something that's very important relative to your use of the app. If you're just skimming the help files, don't skim these notes—please read them.
When we reference items in the menu, we highlight each menu item's name, and separate them with an arrow, like this:
→ →When we reference a setting in Settings, it'll be called out like this: A user-settable setting
Keys you type are called out: ⌘⌃4
Get More Help
If this help isn't enough, and you need additional assistance with Time Sink, you can reach out to us via our other channels. Use our support page to open a trouble ticket or email us directly, and you can often find us on our Discord channel.
You might also find answers to your Time Sink questions on the Time Sink FAQ pages.