Dayflow: AI-Powered Mac App for Daily Activity Timelines

Dayflow: Automate Your Daily Timeline with AI on macOS

In our increasingly digital world, understanding how we spend our time on our computers can be a game-changer for productivity and self-awareness. Dayflow, a native macOS application, offers an innovative solution by automatically generating a clear, visual timeline of your day based on your screen activity, all powered by artificial intelligence.

What Dayflow Does

Dayflow is designed to be a silent, unobtrusive assistant. It records your screen at a low frame rate (1 FPS) and, every 15 minutes, uses AI to analyze recent footage. This analysis culminates in concise summaries of your activities, presented in an easy-to-digest timeline format. Beyond mere logging, Dayflow identifies and highlights potential distractions, offering valuable insights into your work patterns.

Privacy-First Design

One of Dayflow's standout features is its strong emphasis on privacy and user control. Recognizing the sensitive nature of screen activity data, the app offers flexible AI processing options:

• Gemini (Cloud, BYO Key): For users who prefer the power of cloud-based AI, Dayflow can integrate with Google's Gemini API. Crucially, users bring their own API keys, and Dayflow's developer highlights methods to prevent Google from using your data for model training if Cloud Billing is enabled.
• Local Models (Ollama / LM Studio): For maximum privacy, Dayflow supports local AI models like Ollama or LM Studio. This means all processing stays entirely on your machine, with no data ever leaving your device. While local models might offer varying performance compared to cloud counterparts, they guarantee complete data sovereignty.

The project is fully open source under the MIT license, reinforcing its commitment to transparency. Users can inspect the code to understand exactly how their data is handled.

Key Features at a Glance

• Automatic Activity Timelines: Effortlessly visualize your day's work and activities.
• AI-Powered Summaries: Get concise, intelligent summaries of your screen sessions.
• Minimal Impact: Lightweight (25MB app, ~100MB RAM, <1% CPU) with 1 FPS recording.
• Distraction Highlights: Pinpoint what pulls your attention away from tasks.
• Native macOS Experience: Built using SwiftUI for a slick, integrated feel.
• Auto Storage Cleanup: Old recordings are automatically removed after three days to manage storage.
• Automation Support: Trigger recordings via dayflow:// URL schemes for integration with Shortcuts or other tools.

How It Works Under the Hood

Dayflow's process is streamlined: it captures short video chunks, sends them to your chosen AI provider for analysis, generates timeline cards with activity summaries, and then displays them. The AI processing pipeline differs significantly between Gemini (which efficiently analyzes video directly) and local models (which reconstruct understanding from multiple frame descriptions), giving users choice based on their priorities for speed versus privacy.

Get Started with Dayflow

Dayflow is available for macOS 13.0+ and can be easily installed from GitHub Releases or via Homebrew. Developers can also build it from source using Xcode 15+.

Dayflow is more than just a time-tracking tool; it's a personal analytics companion designed to help you regain control over your digital day. By providing transparent, privacy-conscious insights into your screen activity, it empowers you to work smarter and with greater awareness.