Drifty
Summary
Most time trackers make you do the logging — start a timer, add a tag, remember to stop — and the data you get back reflects your discipline with the tool, not your actual day. Drifty skips the timers entirely, running in the background and using AI classification to sort your app and site activity into focus, neutral, and drift without you touching it.
The core loop is passive: Drifty records your active app, site, and session title in three-minute blocks, then routes that minimal context through an AI classification engine to label each block. You review a timeline at the end of the day, a weekly heatmap, and a drift alarm that can nudge you mid-session. The privacy architecture is the differentiator — no screen recording, no screenshots, and you choose whether classification runs locally on your Mac, through drifty's managed cloud, or via your own API key. The ceiling appears quickly if you need billable hour exports, client-facing reports, or integrations with invoicing tools — the vendor page describes none of those. Mac-only, no API, no self-hosted option outside the local AI mode.
Bottom line: Pick Drifty if you want a zero-effort focus audit for your own Mac workday — hit a wall the moment a client asks for a timesheet or you need this data inside any other system.
Pricing Plans
SubscriptionLast verified 2 weeks ago- Price
- $5/month
- Free Tier
- Local classification and predefined rules, OpenRouter API key supported, Self-hosted local AI endpoint supported, No drifty Cloud billing required
Free
LOCAL-FIRST Use drifty locally with rule-based classification and your own optional AI setup.
- Local classification and predefined rules
- OpenRouter API key supported
- Self-hosted local AI endpoint supported
- No drifty Cloud billing required
Individual
CLOUD AI For one person who wants hosted Cloud AI analysis without managing keys or models.
- drifty Cloud AI analysis
- Richer focus and drift summaries
- Account-backed access on this Mac
- Local tracking remains local-first
View full pricing on drifty.so →
Pricing may have changed since last verified. Check the official site for current plans.
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Pros
Sign in to edit- Fully passive capture in three-minute blocks with no timers or manual tags, so the data you review at the end of the day reflects what actually happened rather than how consistently you remembered to log.
- Three AI routing options — managed cloud, your own API key, or local on-device — so teams with strict data policies can run classification without any activity context leaving the Mac.
- Session-level detail beyond app names, so the timeline shows what was happening inside each app rather than just which window had focus.
- Drift alarm fires during detected drift periods, which means you get a mid-session nudge instead of discovering the pattern only when reviewing last week's data.
- Weekly heatmap and focus rhythm views aggregate daily patterns automatically, so identifying which hours of the week produce the most focused work requires no manual analysis.
Cons
Sign in to edit- No export, API, or integration surface is described anywhere on the vendor page — if a freelancer needs to turn tracked focus time into a client invoice or feed data into a project management tool, Drifty provides no pathway to do that, and they move to a dedicated time tracker like Toggl or Harvest.
- Local AI mode requires downloading a model that the vendor states consumes approximately 5–7 GB of RAM — on a MacBook with 8 GB, that classification load competes directly with the development or creative work being tracked, making the free tier impractical on lower-spec machines.
- Mac-only with no web access and no Windows or Linux support means any team member not on a Mac is excluded, ruling Drifty out for cross-platform teams tracking collective focus patterns.
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About
- Platforms
- Mac
- API Available
- No
- Self-Hosted
- No
- Last Updated
- 2026-06-30T13:44:38.223Z
Best For
Who it's for
- Mac users seeking passive productivity insights
- Freelancers and developers tracking focus time
- Students monitoring study versus distraction habits
What it does well
- Automatic workday time tracking without timers
- Identifying focus versus drift patterns
- Reviewing productivity rhythms across days and weeks
- Receiving nudges during drift periods
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Is Drifty free?
- Drifty has a permanent free tier alongside paid upgrades (paid plans from $5/month). You can keep using a baseline version indefinitely without paying.
- Is Drifty open source?
- No — Drifty is a closed-source tool. Source code is not publicly available.
- What platforms does Drifty support?
- Drifty is available on: Mac.
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Curated lists that include this category
App-level time tracking tells you how long you had Slack open. It does not tell you whether you were in a deep thread resolving a production incident or refreshing out of habit. Drifty addresses that gap by capturing the active app, site, and session title in three-minute blocks — automatically, without timers — and running those signals through an AI classification engine that labels each block as Focus, Neutral, or Drift. The result is a daily timeline and weekly calendar view that reflects what the time was actually spent on, not just which windows were open.
The classification engine is the core technical bet. The vendor describes a ‘Context Engine’ that routes activity signals through fast model routes — DeepSeek V4 Flash, Kimi K2.6, and Qwen 3.6 27B, depending on the mode selected — applying profile rules to produce labels without asking the user to tag anything. Critically, the vendor states that only ‘minimal context label hints’ leave the Mac when using cloud routes, and no screenshots or screen recordings are taken in any mode. Users who want nothing leaving the device can run classification locally using a downloaded model that the vendor states consumes approximately 5–7 GB of RAM; that local route is free.
Drifty fits a specific profile well: a developer or freelancer on a Mac who wants a passive record of where focus actually went across the week, with enough detail to spot recurring drift patterns without maintaining any logging discipline. It breaks as a professional billing tool — there is no API, no export pathway described on the vendor page, no integrations with invoicing or project management systems, and no web or Windows access. Teams that need to reconcile focus data with client deliverables or share reports externally will exhaust what Drifty provides quickly.
All functionality runs on Mac only, and there is no self-hosted server option — the local AI mode keeps classification on-device but the application itself is a Mac download. The drift alarm feature is described as a nudge mechanism that fires during drift periods, giving the tool a light behavioral layer on top of the passive tracking and review workflow.