Protect your time!
Ever wonder how you really spent your day? Time Guardian silently captures screenshots and uses AI to tell you exactly what you were doing—so you can finally answer the question: "Where did my afternoon go?"
Why Time Guardian?
📸 Automatic tracking — Set it and forget it. Screenshots every 5 seconds, intelligently filtered.
🧠 AI-powered analysis — AI Vision understands what you're doing, not just which app is open.
📊 Honest reports — See breakdowns by app, activity type, and get AI-generated summaries.
🔒 Privacy-first — Everything runs locally. Your screenshots and data stay on your machine.
Installation
pip install time-guard
Quick Start
# Start tracking (runs until you stop it)
time-guardian track
# Generate a report of your activity
time-guardian summary
That's it. Time Guardian will capture screenshots, analyze them with AI, and show you where your time went.
Usage
Tracking
# Track indefinitely (Ctrl+C to stop)
time-guardian track
# Track for 1 hour
time-guardian track --duration 60
# Custom interval (every 10 seconds instead of 5)
time-guardian track --duration 60 --interval 10
# Track without AI analysis (just screenshots)
time-guardian track --no-ai
Screenshots are saved to ~/.time-guardian/screenshots by default.
Reports & Analysis
# View activity summary
time-guardian summary
# Analyze a specific screenshot directory
time-guardian analyze-screenshots -s ./my-screenshots
# Check version
time-guardian version
Utility Commands
# Verify screen recording permissions work
time-guardian check-permissions
# Take a single screenshot
time-guardian screenshot -o snapshot.png
# See connected monitors
time-guardian monitors
# List visible windows
time-guardian windows
# List running processes
time-guardian processes
Example Report
Time Guardian Activity Report
=============================
Generated at: 2025-12-04T05:26:42
Activity by Application
-----------------------
[Cursor] - 7 events
• Coding
• Code editing and running a script
...
[iTerm2] - 4 events
• Coding
...
AI Summary
==========
The computer activities primarily consisted of "Coding," with one
instance involving "Code editing and running a script."
How It Works
graph LR
A[📸 Capture] --> B{Changed?}
B -->|Yes| C[💾 Save]
B -->|No| D[Skip]
C --> E[🤖 AI Classify]
E --> F[📊 Report]
- Capture — Screenshots taken every N seconds across all monitors
- Compare — Only saves when screen content actually changes
- Classify — GPT-4 Vision analyzes each window to determine activity
- Report — Aggregates data into human-readable summaries
Command Reference
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
track |
Start tracking screen activity |
summary |
Display activity summary |
analyze-screenshots |
Analyze a directory of screenshots |
check-permissions |
Verify screen recording permissions |
screenshot |
Take a single screenshot |
monitors |
Show connected monitors |
windows |
Show visible windows |
processes |
List running processes |
Track Options
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
--duration |
∞ | Minutes to track |
--interval |
5 | Seconds between captures |
--ai/--no-ai |
enabled | AI classification |
--min-pixels |
1000 | Change threshold |
Requirements
- Python 3.12+
- macOS (Windows/Linux support planned)
- Screen recording permission for your terminal
Development
# Clone and setup
git clone https://github.com/brycedrennan/time-guardian
cd time-guardian
make init
# Common commands
make test # Run tests
make lint # Run linter
make af # Auto-format code
make check # Run all checks
License
MIT
Stop wondering. Start knowing. → pip install time-guard
Release files for time-guard 0.0.4
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Source distribution (sdist)
| File | Size | Uploaded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| time_guard-0.0.4.tar.gz | 2.2 MB | Details |
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| time_guard-0.0.4-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
Total release size: 2.3 MB
Release files / time_guard-0.0.4.tar.gz
| Download URL | time_guard-0.0.4.tar.gz |
|---|---|
| Size | 2.2 MB |
| Tags | Source |
|
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
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|
|
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums |
a80b3542867074c7677704a08406d02eb9b5591f9aaf0c10cf123aa239e3f911
|
| Upload date | |
|
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing? |
No |
| Uploaded via |
twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.12.8
|
Release files / time_guard-0.0.4-py3-none-any.whl
| Download URL | time_guard-0.0.4-py3-none-any.whl |
|---|---|
| Size | 28.9 kB |
| Tags | Python 3 |
|
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
30ee75fae7b9d005291d854a37314ac443fa18374c11af6ba72ac83f4565e98b
|
|
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums |
9c14622e59482754300d840d78523e248cdd39865613f0fc477cbd3753fe9f75
|
| Upload date | |
|
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing? |
No |
| Uploaded via |
twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.12.8
|