I Made a Free Mac Screen Time App Like Spotify Wrapped

Every December, Spotify hands you a card that claims to know exactly who you are, and half the internet shares it within the hour. Your Mac knows far more about you than Spotify ever will - which apps own your time, when you actually work, whether you're secretly a night owl. It just never tells you. So I built a free Mac screen time app that does. It's called MacWrapped, and you can download it today.

MacWrapped sits quietly in your menu bar, reads the usage history macOS already keeps, and turns your last 28 days into a share-ready, Spotify Wrapped-style stat card. No subscription, no account, and none of your data ever leaves your Mac. Here's what it does, how it works, and why I made it free.

What's on your card

The card is built entirely from your real numbers. At the top you get the headline stats: total minutes on screen over the last month, how many days you were active, your busiest day, and your peak hour. Mine currently reads like a confession.

Below that, your top five apps are ranked with each one's share of your time. It's one thing to suspect your browser is eating your week; it's another to see it holding a percentage next to your actual work apps. There's also an hour-by-hour ribbon showing when your Mac is alive across a typical day, which makes your working rhythm weirdly legible at a glance.

The card also places you against typical Mac usage with an intensity score - so you might find out you're in the top few percent of Mac users, for better or worse. And if you want to go deeper than the card, a full breakdown window ranks every app you've used and groups your month into categories: development, creative, communication and so on.

So which one are you?

The bit people seem to enjoy most is the personality. MacWrapped reads the shape of your month - when you work, how hard you switch between apps, what dominates your time - and stamps your card with one of eight archetypes:

• Night Owl - a big slice of your time lands after 10pm
• Maker - heads-down in dev tools
• Creator - design, video and audio apps own your month
• Communicator - mail, chat and calls dominate
• Deep Worker - long, focused stretches in a handful of apps
• Switch Hitter - lots of apps, constant context-switching
• Marathoner - on your Mac nearly every day, racking up serious hours
• All-Rounder - a balanced mix with no single defining habit

It's an honest mirror. I came out as a Maker with a strong Night Owl streak, which surprised precisely nobody who knows me.

Eight colourways, or roll your own

Every card ships in eight hand-tuned palettes, from Sky and Mint through to Midnight, plus a fully custom mode if none of them suit you. When you're happy, one click renders a crisp 1080x1350 card straight to your clipboard, sized for X, iMessage or the group chat.

A Mac screen time app that never phones home

Privacy isn't a feature of MacWrapped - it's the reason the app is built the way it is. Everything is computed on your Mac. Your usage history is read locally and your stats are built locally. There's no server, no account and no cloud component at all.

The app is also read-only by design. macOS already keeps a record of your app usage in a local database - MacWrapped simply reads it. It adds no tracking of its own, and nothing you type or click is ever monitored. If you're surprised your Mac quietly keeps this history in the first place, it's in good company - I've written before about the hidden things macOS ships that Apple never mentions.

The only network request MacWrapped ever makes is an optional check for app updates. No analytics, no telemetry, no tracking pixels. The only thing that ever leaves your machine is the card image itself - and only when you choose to post it.

Why MacWrapped isn't on the Mac App Store

This is the question I expect most, so let's get it out of the way. To read your usage history, MacWrapped needs Full Disk Access - that's the only way macOS allows an app to read the local database where your screen time lives. App Store sandboxing forbids that permission entirely, so a Mac App Store version simply couldn't do what the app exists to do.

Instead, MacWrapped is distributed directly as a DMG, signed with my Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple. That means macOS has verified the app before you ever run it, and Gatekeeper treats it like any other trusted download. Updates are built in, so you're not stuck manually checking for new versions either.

Setup takes about two minutes

Getting your first card is quick:

1. Download and open. Grab the DMG from macwrapped.app, drag MacWrapped to Applications, and it appears in your menu bar.
2. Grant one permission. The app deep-links you straight to the Full Disk Access pane in System Settings, then picks up where it left off once you've flicked the toggle.
3. Meet your month. Your stats appear instantly - a compact popover, the full breakdown window, and your share card in whichever colourway you fancy.

MacWrapped runs on macOS 13 Ventura or later, and it's a single universal binary, so it works on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Because macOS retains roughly four weeks of usage history, your card covers a rolling month from the moment you install - no waiting around for data to build up.

Why it's free

My other app, RawCraft, is a paid tool because it solves a real workflow problem for iPhone photographers. MacWrapped is different. It's the kind of app I wanted to exist for its own sake - a small, fun, well-made thing that tells you something true about how you use your Mac.

Charging for it would have meant accounts, receipts and licensing plumbing, all for an app whose whole point is that it's light and private. Free felt right. It's also part of why I've been drawn to free, on-device Mac software lately - it's the same reason I switched my dictation to FluidVoice. Good Mac apps don't have to come with a subscription attached.

MacWrapped FAQ

Is MacWrapped really free?

Yes, completely. There's no trial, no paid tier and no account. It ships as a notarized DMG for macOS 13 and later, as a universal app for both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

Does MacWrapped upload my usage data anywhere?

No. Every stat is computed on your Mac and stays there. The only network request the app makes is an optional check for updates - no analytics, no telemetry, no accounts.

Why does MacWrapped need Full Disk Access?

macOS stores your app usage history in a local database that can only be read with Full Disk Access. MacWrapped reads it on your machine to build your stats, and the data never goes anywhere else.

If you've ever wondered where your month actually went, the answer is sitting in a database on your Mac right now. Download MacWrapped, grant one permission, and thirty seconds later you'll have a card that tells you - possibly more honestly than you'd like. If you share yours on X, tag me; I want to see how many Night Owls are out there.