How to Enable “Screen Time” on Your Mac to Monitor App Usage

Many users are familiar with the “Screen Time” feature on their iPhone, which provides a sobering weekly report of exactly how many hours they spent scrolling through social media versus reading emails. However, most users do not realize that Apple built this exact same feature directly into macOS.

When enabled on your Mac, Screen Time tracks exactly which applications you are using and for how long. It also monitors how many notifications you receive and how often you wake your computer from sleep. This data is invaluable for understanding your personal productivity habits, identifying distractions, and even setting hard limits on specific entertainment apps to force yourself to focus on work.

This guide explains how to enable and use Screen Time on macOS.

Step 1: Enable Screen Time Tracking

By default, Screen Time tracking is often turned off on Macs to preserve privacy. You must manually opt-in to allow the operating system to monitor your application usage.

1. Click the Apple menu () in the top-left corner of your screen.
2. Select System Settings (or System Preferences on older macOS versions).
3. In the left-hand navigation sidebar, look for the hourglass icon and click on Screen Time.
4. If the feature is currently disabled, you will see a large button asking if you want to turn it on. Toggle the main switch at the top of the panel to the On position.

The Mac will immediately begin tracking your active application window in the background. It only records time when an app is the primary focus; if Safari is open but hidden behind a Word document you are actively typing in, only Word gets credited for that time.

Step 2: Reviewing Your Usage Data

After leaving Screen Time on for a few days, you can return to this same System Settings menu to review your productivity data.

1. Open System Settings > Screen Time.
2. Under the “Usage” section, click on App & Website Activity.
3. You will see a colorful bar chart breaking down your day or week. Below the chart, you will see a specific list of applications (e.g., Safari, Messages, Microsoft Excel) ranked by exactly how many hours and minutes you spent actively using them.

If you use Safari or Chrome, you can expand the browser entry to see exactly which specific websites you spent the most time looking at.

Step 3: Setting App Limits

If your data reveals that you are spending three hours a day watching YouTube videos when you should be working, you can force the Mac to intervene.

1. In the main Screen Time menu, look under the “Limits” section and click on App Limits.
2. Toggle the main switch to On.
3. Click the Add Limit button.
4. You can either select entire categories of applications (e.g., check the box for “Social” to limit Twitter and Facebook simultaneously), or you can scroll down and check the box next to one specific application (e.g., the TV app).
5. Set a time limit at the bottom of the window (e.g., 1 hour every day).
6. Click Done.

Once you hit that 1-hour limit, the Mac will violently blur the application window and present an impenetrable lock screen, forcing you to step away and return to your actual work.