MONA
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MONA for Mac

The hours you worked, already written down

A small menu bar app that notices which project you are working on in SketchUp, Mail, Canva, and your browser, and drafts the hours on your MONA timesheet. You review them. Nothing is billable until you accept it.

Download for Mac

Version 0.1.2. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel. Signed and notarized by Apple.

What MONA collects, and what it never collects

  • On Mac, about once a minute, MONA takes a picture of the window you're working in and reads its words on this Mac to tell which project it is and what you did. The picture is deleted right away and never leaves this Mac. No keystrokes, no audio.
  • Only apps you allow are looked at. Private and incognito windows, password fields, and banking and health sites are never captured.
  • Raw activity, including the words read from your screen, stays on this device and is deleted after 14 days. Only work MONA could match to one of your projects is sent: the project, the app name, a duration, the words that matched, and a one-line description of the work.
  • Studio admins see the hours you accept, never your activity.
  • Pause any time. Delete everything any time. Revoke this device from Settings › Time.

Setting it up

  1. 1

    Install and sign in

    Open the DMG, drag MONA to Applications, and sign in with the email code you already use for monaverse.com.

  2. 2

    Grant Accessibility and Screen Recording

    Accessibility lets MONA read the title of the window you are in. Screen Recording lets it take a picture of that one window about once a minute and read its words on your Mac, so it can tell which project an Untitled file belongs to and describe what you did. The picture is deleted right away and never leaves your Mac.

  3. 3

    Pick the apps you track

    Design and office apps are on by default. Everything else is off, and off means not sampled at all.

  4. 4

    Review your hours in MONA

    Every morning MONA drafts the hours it measured, grouped by project, with the evidence that produced them. You accept, correct, or discard. Nothing reaches an invoice until you accept it.

Prefer not to install anything?

The MONA Clipper for Chrome carries the same idea for browser work (vendor sites, Gmail, Docs) with no OS permission at all. Turn on “Track browser time for MONA” in its side panel.

More detail in How MONA tracks time, and in the Privacy Policy.