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How to track time across two Macs

· 6 min read

If you work on two Macs, the honest way to track time across them is to keep a record on each and combine the two afterwards. Trackers that merge the machines live do it by syncing through their servers, which means an account and your data leaving both Macs. Punchcard takes the other route: its license covers two Macs, each keeps its own record on its own disk, and the CSV export is how you put them together. This post explains what that looks like in practice and when it is not enough.

Two Macs, one day: what you are actually trying to measure

Most two-Mac setups fall into one of three patterns.

  1. A desk Mac and a laptop, used at different times of the same day (desk in the morning, laptop in the cafe after lunch).
  2. A work Mac and a personal Mac, where the question is how much of the evening leaks into work.
  3. Two Macs at once: a main machine and a second one for a build, a stream, or a reference screen.

For the first two, the two records barely overlap and adding them gives you the day. For the third, adding them double-counts, because you were in front of both at once. Decide which pattern you are in before choosing how to combine.

The synced approach, and its cost

A tracker that shows one dashboard for both Macs does it by sending each machine’s record to a server and merging there. That is convenient. It also means an account, a subscription in most cases, and a copy of your app-by-app day on someone else’s infrastructure. For some people that trade is fine. If you are reading this because you would rather it did not leave the Mac, why your time tracker should not need an account covers the reasoning, and the rest of this post is the alternative.

The local approach with Punchcard

Punchcard contains no networking code at all, so it cannot sync, and does not pretend to. What it offers instead:

  1. Install Punchcard on both Macs. One license key covers two; enter the same key on each. Tracking never expires and the first seven receipts are free on each machine before a key is needed.
  2. Set the same closing time on both. Each Mac prints its own receipt at that time: the day itemized by app, a total, a stamp. Neither Mac knows about the other.
  3. Each Mac keeps its own SQLite file at ~/Library/Application Support/Punchcard/punchcard.sqlite.
  4. When you want the combined picture, export CSV from each Mac and add them up. The next section shows how.

The receipts themselves stay separate, which is less of a problem than it sounds. A desk receipt and a laptop receipt side by side tell you something a merged one would hide: which machine gets which kind of work.

Combining two CSV exports

  1. On each Mac, export CSV from Punchcard. Name the files by machine (desk.csv, laptop.csv) so they do not get confused.
  2. Move one to the other Mac with AirDrop, a shared folder, or a USB stick. Nothing about the file is special; it is plain text.
  3. Open both in Numbers or any spreadsheet. Paste the rows from one under the other.
  4. Add a column for the machine name if you want to keep them distinguishable.
  5. Build a pivot table, or use SUMIF, by date and by app. Per-day totals are the sum across both files; per-app totals likewise.

For pattern three (both Macs at once), do not add the totals. Instead take the main Mac’s record as the day and treat the second Mac’s as a breakdown of what the side screen was doing. Adding them would give you a fourteen-hour day that did not happen.

If you do this weekly it takes five minutes. The Sunday roll is a reasonable time to do it, since both Macs print a week roll that day anyway.

Work Mac and personal Mac

The second pattern deserves its own note, because the goal is different. You are not adding the machines up; you are looking for leakage. Put Punchcard on both with the same closing time. The personal Mac’s receipt should be short on weekdays, and if it is not, the lines on it (the editor, the mail client) tell you what kind of work is following you home. Are you working more from home or just longer is the longer version of that investigation.

What this approach cannot do

Say it plainly.

  • No live combined view. You will not see a single number for both Macs until you export and add.
  • No automatic deduplication when both machines are in use at once.
  • No sync of settings, paper style, or license state. Each Mac is set up on its own, which takes under a minute.
  • No iPhone app, so time on the phone is not part of any of this.
  • No per-project or per-client tracking on either machine; the records are by app.

If a live merged dashboard across devices is a hard requirement, a synced tracker is the right tool and this is not. If a trustworthy daily record on each machine, kept on that machine, is what you want, two Punchcards and a spreadsheet are enough.

Questions

Do I need to buy two licenses? No. One license covers two Macs, for nine dollars once, with every future update and a 30-day refund. Enter the key on each.

Can I move the data from one Mac to the other? The record is one SQLite file at ~/Library/Application Support/Punchcard/punchcard.sqlite. Copying it to the other Mac would replace that Mac’s record rather than merge with it, so for combining, use CSV. Copy the file only to back it up.

Does the receipt show which Mac it came from? If you are keeping receipts from both, name the exported files by machine when you save them so they do not get mixed up. The date is on every receipt and encoded in the barcode; the machine is something you label yourself.

Will the totals on two Macs ever disagree with Screen Time? Differences of minutes are normal, and Screen Time with Share Across Devices on may be counting the iPhone too. A frontmost-app record on each Mac counts only that Mac.