I recently discovered CountUp while browsing GitHub for simple time tracking solutions. Like many remote workers, I often need to track how long tasks actually take, but most time tracking apps come loaded with features I don’t need - project management, invoicing, team collaboration. CountUp takes the opposite approach: it’s just a stopwatch that lives in your menu bar.
The app does exactly three things: start, pause, and reset. That’s it. When you click the menu bar icon, you get a clean timer display showing elapsed time in hours, minutes, and seconds. One click starts the timer, another pauses it, and you can reset when you’re done. No accounts, no syncing, no analytics dashboards. Just straightforward time measurement for when you need to know how long something takes.
During my testing on a Mac Mini M4, CountUp proved to be genuinely lightweight. The app uses minimal system resources and stays completely invisible until you need it. The developer built this in Swift specifically for macOS 13.7 and newer, taking advantage of native Mac frameworks rather than bloating the app with cross-platform code.
What I appreciate most is the zero-friction approach to time tracking. I’ve been using it for tracking deep work sessions and estimating how long specific tasks consume. No need to categorize, tag, or export data. Just start the timer when you begin, check it periodically if needed, and reset when done. For casual time awareness without the overhead of full time tracking systems, this hits the sweet spot.
The app is completely free and open source under the MIT license. The developer, problaze20, actively maintains the project and has a clear roadmap posted on GitHub. Two planned improvements caught my attention: optimizing timer resource usage when paused, and implementing persistent state so the timer survives app restarts. Both would be welcome additions, though neither absence is a dealbreaker for current functionality.
One important note: CountUp is not yet notarized by Apple, which means you’ll see a security warning on first launch. The developer acknowledges this upfront and notes it’s safe to use. Since the entire codebase is public on GitHub, technically inclined users can verify this themselves, though the lack of notarization might deter some users who prefer Apple’s security validation.
The app also lacks the advanced features of dedicated time tracking tools. No automatic breaks, no task labeling, no data export, no historical tracking. If you need those capabilities, look at apps like Timing or RescueTime instead. CountUp works best as a simple stopwatch for measuring single tasks or sessions without the commitment of a comprehensive time tracking system.
After using CountUp for the past few weeks, I’ve found it fills a specific niche perfectly. Sometimes you just need to know how long something takes without the overhead of launching a full app or managing a time tracking database. For students timing study sessions, developers measuring task duration, or anyone curious about time expenditure on specific activities, CountUp provides exactly enough functionality without excess complexity.
