Can you use Toggl Track for personal time tracking? My setup, and where it hurts

Yes, you can use Toggl Track to track your personal time, and I did, for over a year. But Toggl is built for work, so I needed Toggl Track plus an app called Timery plus an Apple Shortcut to make it feel right. This post covers the exact setup, the midnight problem I had to work around, and where it hurt.

How did I set up Toggl Track for personal time tracking?

I turned Toggl’s projects into my activity categories: Sleep, Work, Guitar, Exercise and so on. I also grouped projects under Toggl’s “Clients”, for example Guitar under Personal, though I rarely used that grouping for anything. I found tags not very useful, though they might be with a different setup.

All of this data was the base for my full year of tracking.

Why did I need the Timery app?

Starting a timer in Toggl’s own app means filling in project, client and tags every time. Timery is an iPhone app that connects to Toggl through its API and lets you save timers as templates. One tap starts a timer with everything already filled in.

A Timery widget on my lock screen opened the list of saved timers, so switching activity took under two seconds. Timery is an Apple-only app, so that quick switching was never an option on Android.

What is the Toggl midnight problem?

Toggl counts a time entry that crosses midnight entirely on the day it started. A nine-hour sleep that starts at 11:30 pm is counted toward the first day, so that day looks too long and the next day looks shorter than 24 hours. Toggl staff have said this behaviour can’t be changed (see this thread in the Toggl community).

My workaround was an iOS Shortcut that ran at midnight every day. It stopped the running timer and immediately started a new one for the same activity, so every entry was split at midnight and each day added up to 24 hours.

What were the pain points of this setup?

It worked, and I used it for a year. But it had real pain points:

1. Three pieces instead of one. Toggl Track, Timery and a Shortcut all have to work together, and I had to set up and maintain each one.
2. A Timery subscription. Timery’s free version is limited, and using it fully means a subscription on top of Toggl. Check the App Store listing for current pricing.
3. Apple only. Timery and Shortcuts exist only on Apple devices, so no quick switching on Android.
4. The Shortcut sometimes failed. When it failed, the entry was not split and that day’s numbers were off. In my experience it also did not work without a connection. Toggl’s own apps do sync offline entries later, but my extra pieces were the weak link.
5. Built for work, not for life. Projects, clients and billable hours are the right ideas for freelancers and teams. For tracking sleep, friends and hobbies, I was bending the tool every day.

Should you still use Toggl Track for personal time?

If you already use Toggl for work and want a free way to start, yes. Toggl Track has a free plan and the setup above costs no money to try (apart from the Timery limits). It is a solid way to run a personal time audit for a week.

If you want to track your whole day, every day, the friction adds up. That is exactly why I built my own.

What did I build instead?

I built Nanominute as a single app for this use case. I’m the solo developer, so take this as a disclosed bias: I made it for my own pain point, and I use it every day.

• One app, one timeline. Your whole day is a continuous timeline and activities never overlap.
• One-tap switching. Plus Lock Screen and Control Center widgets for starting a timer in two taps.
• Midnight handled for you. An entry that crosses midnight stays one entry, and your daily stats split it per day, so there is no Shortcut to maintain.
• Offline. Timers work without a connection and sync later.
• Everywhere. iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux with one account.
• Goals and insights. For example “exercise 3 hours a week”, with a timeline and breakdown by day, week or month.

It is not free forever: you can try it free for 2 weeks, and after that it costs $49.99 a year (US price, shown in your own currency in the app). There are no ads, and I never sell your time tracking data. For a fair side-by-side, see Nanominute vs Toggl Track, and for the wider landscape, the tools I tried for tracking personal time.