TypingCounter

A lightweight macOS Menu Bar app that silently counts your keystrokes — privately, locally, and with minimal resource usage.

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Screenshots

  

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What It Does

TypingCounter lives quietly in your macOS Menu Bar and counts every keydown event in real time. No text is captured — only the count.

• 📊 1 Day view — See your keystroke breakdown by hour for today
• 📅 7 Days / 30 Days view — Track your daily keystroke totals over the past week or month
• 🔒 Privacy-first — Zero text capture, zero network calls, fully local
• ⚡ Lightweight — Counts are batched to disk every 10s instead of on every keystroke
• 🚀 Launch at Login — Optional toggle to start automatically on sign-in
• 🛡️ Reset confirmation — Clearing today's count requires a second confirmation

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Privacy

What TypingCounter does	What it does NOT do
✅ Counts keydown events	❌ Capture or log typed text
✅ Stores history locally on your Mac	❌ Send any data over the network
✅ Shows count in Menu Bar	❌ Access clipboard or app content

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Getting Started

Option 1 — Download (Recommended)

Download the latest .app from Releases and drag it to your Applications folder.

Option 2 — Build from Source (VSCode + swiftc)

This project uses swiftc + Charts directly, without an Xcode project.

1. Open the folder in VSCode
2. Run the existing swiftc-based build script
3. Launch the generated macOS app bundle
4. Rebuild after any source changes

Option 3 — Xcode Setup

1. Open Xcode → File → New → Project
2. Choose macOS → App (SwiftUI, Swift)
3. Set deployment target to macOS 13.0+
4. Add all source files (TypingCounterApp.swift, AppDelegate.swift, Core/*, Models/*, Views/*) to the app target
5. Ensure @main is set in TypingCounterApp.swift with @NSApplicationDelegateAdaptor(AppDelegate.self)

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Permissions Required

TypingCounter only needs Accessibility to function — the global keydown monitor is built on an API that doesn't require Input Monitoring.

System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → Enable TypingCounter

The app polls for this permission automatically, so counting starts on its own once granted — but if you enable it while the app is already running, quitting and relaunching once is the most reliable way to pick it up.

⚠️ If running from Xcode during development, grant permission to Xcode instead.

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Required Info.plist Keys

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>
<key>NSInputMonitoringUsageDescription</key>
<string>TypingCounter needs Input Monitoring permission to count keydown events globally.</string>
<key>NSAppleEventsUsageDescription</key>
<string>TypingCounter may use Apple Events for accessibility-related automation support.</string>

• LSUIElement = true hides the Dock icon and keeps the app in the Menu Bar only.
• NSInputMonitoringUsageDescription is present for informational purposes but isn't actually gated on — see Permissions Required above.

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Project Structure

TypingCounter/
├─ AppDelegate.swift          # Menu bar status item + popover lifecycle
├─ TypingCounterApp.swift     # SwiftUI app entry point
├─ Core/
│  ├─ CounterManager.swift    # Main counting/state orchestration
│  ├─ KeyboardMonitor.swift   # Global keydown monitoring
│  ├─ HistoryStore.swift      # Local history persistence (batched writes)
│  └─ DateUtil.swift          # Shared date formatting helper
├─ Models/
│  ├─ DailyRecord.swift       # Daily count data model
│  └─ HourlyRecord.swift      # Hourly count data model
├─ Views/
│  ├─ PopoverView.swift        # Main popover UI
│  ├─ StatsView.swift          # Stats chart UI
│  └─ HistoryChartView.swift   # 1-day/7-day/30-day chart rendering
└─ README.md

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FAQ & Troubleshooting

Counter doesn't increase

• Check Accessibility is enabled for TypingCounter in System Settings
• If using Xcode, grant permission to Xcode too
• Relaunch the app after granting permission — it also polls automatically every few seconds, so it should pick this up on its own without a relaunch in most cases

Some keypresses don't count

• Arrow keys, function keys, media keys, and shortcut keys are intentionally ignored
• Some apps don't expose a focused text element clearly, so the keypress is skipped

Menu bar icon not visible

• Confirm LSUIElement is true in Info.plist
• Verify NSStatusItem is created inside applicationDidFinishLaunching

Popover doesn't open

• Ensure the status item button has action and target set
• Confirm the popover content view/controller is initialized

Works once, then stops counting

• Check event monitor lifecycle — make sure the monitor reference is retained and not deallocated
• Re-check permissions if the app bundle ID changed

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Limitations

• Counts keydown events only — no awareness of what was typed
• Requires user-granted macOS privacy permissions
• Local and single-device only (no sync)
• Keyboard layout / IME behavior may affect event semantics

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Roadmap

• Per-app keystroke breakdown (still text-free)
• Weekly/monthly stats — 7-day and 30-day views
• Export anonymized count metrics (local file only)
• Better onboarding flow for permissions — auto-poll + direct link to Accessibility settings
• Health indicator for monitoring state — green/orange status label in the popover

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License

MIT © Joe NG