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Memory is the engine behind Timely’s automatic magic! 🚀 It’s an app that quietly captures everything you do on your computer throughout the day—no timers, no hassle. It’s all stored inside Timely in a special place object called (yep, you guessed it!) a “Memory.”

Since the concept of Memory might be new to some, we’ve put together this guide to explain the basics and break down key Timely terms. Let’s get you set up with automatic time tracking in no time! ⏰💻

Before diving into Timely’s automatic time tracking awesomeness, you’ll need to get Memory up and running on your computer. This little sidekick is what captures all your daily activities behind the scenes! Don’t worry, it’s super easy to set up—just follow our handy installation guides for Mac or Windows.
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Once Memory is installed, you’ll be tracking time like a pro, and Timely will help you assign that time to projects and tasks with ease. 🎉🔧 Ready to get started? Let’s do this!

We refer to the individual work events Memory captures as “memories”. These are uploaded to a daily timeline inside Timely that is 100% private to you. Each memory shows you the specific web or desktop app you worked in, with a title of the document or page you visited — as well as when you accessed it and how long you spent on it. Memories can be events from your calendar, your GPS location for Android and iOS, a file you worked on, a video call you attended, an email you sent or a website you visited.

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You need to set up Memory on your Mac or Windows device to start capturing work memories. Once enabled, head to your Day view in Hours. You’ll see your memories arranged across an elegant timeline, customizable to your preferences!

This timeline view lays out your memories in chronological order, pinning them to the time they occurred during the day. It allows you to review simultaneous tasks (like presenting a document or answering an email in a meeting) or ー if you have Timely's location tracker enabled ー when you were in a certain place.

By hovering over the items on your timeline you'll see additional context such as the file or website name. You can click also click the small ❓icon to see the additional details behind each individual Memory or Memory grouping. This will reveal additional context such as the website URL, file name, or document title.

Memory history is the cumulative record of all your memories. It lets you go back in time to look at past memories for previous days. Just click through the calendar days on Day view in Hours, or switch to Week or Month view for a wider overview.

All our plans offer unlimited Memory history, meaning there’s no limitations to how far back in the past you can delve! See everything you've worked on since you first installed Memory. ⏪ ⏩

Memories are the building blocks to help you easily visualize the full context of your day. As you begin assigning them to projects and tasks, you'll notice that the timestamps from that activity is captured and reflected in your time entry - showing the duration of your work.
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Those time frames can be easily edited or adjusted as needed, to more accurately reflect your work.
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Want to learn more about logging your time using Memories? We deep dive into that very topic in our Logging hours using Memory article.

As you begin to explore the new timeline experience you'll likely want to start diving into how specific apps or websites are handled and your memories arranged. To get started, hover over any of the individual memories on your timeline, click the ⚙️ shaped Display options button:
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You'll see a handy preview at the top showing you exactly how the memories from that app will display on your timeline along with a number of helpful customization options for you to choose from:
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Pro Tip: Along the left-hand side you'll see a listing of any apps or websites that you've already customized, allowing you to easily review and edit those settings at any time. You'll also notice your general timeline settings available under "All Memories"
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When grouped, Timely provides a unified view of the time you've spent on activities within an app or website and typically arranges that activity on your timeline as one continuous memory named for that specific app or website.

However we recognize that this arrangement may not suit everyone's needs. Many have requested the ability to view memories in much more granular detail and we've heard you loud and clear!

For example, to be able to see time spent per e-mail as separate blocks in the timeline instead of a big "Gmail" block:

You can now easily ungroup the activities that make up that memory group by changing the grouping option for Gmail, or indeed any other app.

When configuring the app or website, simply change the Group Memories setting from "Grouped" to "Don't group" -

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This will result in each e-mail title appearing as separate memories:

If you'd notice that your memories have "disappeared" after choosing to split, then you'll want to double check your memory visibility settings.

👩‍💻 Pro Tip: If you want easily to split up all your memories, you can use the toggle in the top of the timeline:

If ever in doubt, you can easily revert back to your default setting sby clicking the "Don't customize" button above each category:
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Multi-taskers rejoice! You can now configure Timely to ignore brief interruptions in your activity tracking, when switching back and forth between two tabs or apps for example, keeping a smooth continuous flow. Simply make your selection under the Maintain continuity setting

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By default this feature is configured for a "middle of the road" approach under Regular, though you can of course choose to give yourself more leeway with the Extended option, more specificity under the Short option, or simply turn this feature Off entirely for targeted accuracy.

For those who frequently work with multiple monitors, apps, and windows, or are heavy multitaskers, we also offer a noise cancellation feature to help declutter your timeline.
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This enables you to hide micro-memories that might be generated when tabbing between screens or perhaps firing off that millisecond message to a friend or colleague 😁.
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You'll find this option under Memory noise cancellation in the configuration menu and you can select High, Medium, Low as to your preference, or turn this feature Off entirely to display all your activities in full detail.
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Are you a project warrior juggling dozens of files and documents and want them all visible on your timeline at a glance? Or perhaps you prefer the aesthetics of a clean, minimalist timeline? Maybe you fall somewhere in between? We've got you covered!
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In the configuration menu you'll see a Memory titles option where you can choose how a specific activity is displayed on your timeline.

With the File or page name option you'll be able to see at a glance the important projects and files you've worked on throughout the day. With the app name option, you'll have a slightly more zen timeline with just the the basics. Or you can choose to Hide that information and just display the app or website logo for a clean ultra minimalist timeline.

For those folks that see the same familiar apps or 'sites on their timeline day in and day out, we've added some helpful organization options to keep that activity gathered together in one place where you can easily log it.

By selecting the Highlight option in the configuration menu you'll see a dedicated column appear on your timeline that gathers the activity from that app or website in one place with a dedicated button to add that time or remove it from in just a click.

The Always on top option freezes the column associated with that app or website, in a similar fashion to freezing a column in an app such as Excel or Google Sheets. It ensures you always have the most important information at hand and at a glance.

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As you can see, I've chosen Gmail as one of my most important columns and always visible, even when scrolling.
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Do you have Memory for mobile devices?

At the moment, we only offer Memory for your computer and while Memory can't currently capture mobile work activity in the same way as our desktop apps for Mac and Windows, it's certainly an interesting idea for us to consider in future. Ultimately, we want you to benefit from Timely wherever your work takes place ー so as soon as Apple and Google make this type of tracking viable, we'll get on it. 🛠

In the meantime, check out our GPS location time tracking for iOS and Android, and let us know about particular mobile integrations you'd like to see here!

What’s the difference between hidden and deleted memories?

Deleting a memory removes it from Timely permanently. whereas hiding an app or activity simply removed it from your view. Keep in mind that memories are always private to you and cannot be viewed by anyone on your account, so there isn't often a use case for completely deleting a memory.

Can I delete all of my memories at once?

While it will severely limit the value you get from automatic time tracking, you also have the option to quickly delete whole chunks of your Memory history. It’s your data after all, and we want to help you manage your memories however you want.

You’ll find this option by going to Settings > Profile, then scrolling down to the “Delete memories” link:

Just select the timeframe of memories you want to delete and hit “Submit”. Keep in mind that it can take up to seven days for memories to be deleted:

From this same page you can see a history of all bulk memory deletion requests, including the status, scope and date they were submitted:

​Note: This process permanently deletes memories from all Memory-related tools and their integrations. All unapproved AI drafts with memories associated during that time period will also be deleted, but planned time drafts with no memories associated will not be affected. Importantly, your AI model will remain unaffected.

Is my data safe/private?

Data from Memory is private to you and only you! We take privacy very seriously so click to read more about what data we capture, how we protect and process your data and how that data is incorporated into your Timely experience.