Chronos for Android

As a freelancer, I need to track my time. However, I despise apps that promise to automatically track your time, as I always would end up having to dig through the logs to sort stuff out. Chronos has the perfect set of features for me, without too much complexity. It’s just one of those apps that makes you wonder why developers would build anything else. The menubar helper is really sweet, too. Two things would make it perfect for me. First, it hasn’t been updated since August 2013. Although it still performs perfectly, the UI is looking a bit dated and I like to see some ongoing development. The developer is still writing apps though, so let’s hope that he returns to Chronos sometime soon. Because of this apparent abandonment, I’ve tried and failed to find a suitable replacement that would “stick". The other change? It would be lovely if you could hide the dock icon. Overall, it's a great app with perfect functionality, and I will continue to use it, praise it, and hope that it gets some love soon.

Extremely straightforward and simple. Create a Project. Create a ticket. Ticket has a timer. Start. Stop. That’s the entire app. No invoicing, no rates, no nothing else. Basically a hierarchal list of timers. The only things I’d like to see added are a log for each timer (record of start/stop times), and an ability to adjust timer logs manually.

I have tried about 5 different apps to track my time as a freelancer, ranging from free to $15 and I have been disappointed by all of them. This is the first app that is covering all the things I need - ability to create client categories, projects under those categories, ability to start and stop time AND it stops the time on its own if it there is no activity (you set the idle limit). You can also add notes for each project and export your stats. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. A really helpful app for the money.

I was unfortunately unable to get the app recording time at all on my 2012 Android Air. When I pressed the red Record button no time started accruing. I have purchased and used over 100 apps and this was the first that I have been unable to operate. There is unfortunately very little “how to” information in either the app or the website. I am disappointed to say that this app has for me been a complete waste of money and time.

I have been using Toggl for years, (paying the $5/month) but it was more than I really needed. Chronos has been great, does what I need, simple to activate from the menu bar, easy to pick which projects I need to attach time logs to, and has a nice simple Export function. If you need simple time tracking, give this one a spin!