PC Recap: The Year Your Computer Remembers

Your music app can tell you what you listened to all year. Your computer, meanwhile, has witnessed hundreds of small projects, late-night sessions, abandoned ideas, and that one application you apparently cannot stop opening. Usually, it keeps that story to itself.

PC Recap wants to give it a shape. This young, open-source app for Windows, macOS, and Linux turns recorded application activity into daily views, timelines, and longer recaps. Think of a personal history of computer use rather than a competition to accumulate the most respectable-looking hours.

A history that has to happen first

The project records foreground application use and session duration, then builds views for days, weeks, months, years, and longer periods. Its README also describes records, streaks, app pairings, and different usage eras, produced without external AI services.

There is a useful honesty in the project's starting point: a new archive is empty. It does not invent sample activity to greet you with a convincing-looking year in review. You need to collect real sessions or import supported history before those memories exist.

That matters because the tempting mental image is an instant recap of your entire digital life. Installing a tracker today does not magically reconstruct what you did three summers ago. PC Recap can import certain existing records, but the documentation is careful about what each source actually proves.

Clues are not hours

The repository describes imports from supported trackers alongside clearly labelled historical clues. Those sources can help an archive begin with more than an empty page, but measured sessions and recovered hints are not the same kind of evidence.

The important distinction is that recovered clues are not turned into usage duration. Finding evidence that an application was launched is not proof you spent the afternoon working in it. Keeping those categories separate is more interesting than simply putting a large number on a colourful card.

Even foreground time has limits as a story about a person. An editor left open does not prove uninterrupted concentration, and time spent thinking away from a keyboard is still time spent thinking. Use a recap to notice patterns or remember a project, not as a courtroom transcript of your productivity.

Local history is still sensitive history

According to the README, the desktop app stores history in a local SQLite database. It requires no account and has no telemetry, cloud sync, advertising identifier, or external AI API. The project also says it does not collect keystrokes, screenshots, clipboard contents, or file contents.

Window-title collection is optional and off by default. The current README says the app does not scan browser history or collect URLs. Tracking can be paused, individual apps excluded, and history exported or erased. Optional performance tracking has its own controls. Inspect those choices before collecting anything you would rather not keep.

Local does not mean public-by-default, but it does not mean harmless either. A usage archive can reveal habits, working hours, and interests. Protect your computer and exported backups accordingly. Check a share card before posting it, and do not install a personal activity tracker on somebody else's machine without their agreement.

An interesting beta, not a finished promise

The current public beta has actual packages for Windows on x64 hardware, macOS on Apple Silicon and Intel, and Linux x64 as AppImage or deb. Linux foreground tracking requires X11 and xprop. On Wayland, the app can open but reports its foreground collector as unavailable rather than inventing activity. The source is GPL-3.0-only, and beta rough edges should be expected.

The beta packages are unsigned, and the macOS builds are not notarized. Windows SmartScreen or macOS Gatekeeper may therefore show a warning. That is a real practical caution, not an instruction to dismiss every warning. The release provides checksum files and an install guide; verify the source and decide whether you are comfortable testing a beta before installing it.

Another detail worth knowing: closing the window does not stop collection. The app continues in the system tray. If you want a break from tracking, use the pause control rather than assuming the disappearing window has done it for you.

This is a documented discovery, not a long-term hands-on review. We have not accumulated an archive, verified its totals, or tested the import and backup round trip. Its most appealing idea is the personal timeline: a way to remember what your computer helped you do, with the history staying on your machine. Just let it become a diary, not another score you feel obliged to improve.

Official site: https://pcrecap.online

Documentation and source code: https://github.com/TheAgencyMGE/pc-recap

Cover image: official PC Recap promotional artwork, not a screenshot of our activity or a tested recap.