How do I start tracking on startup and stop on shutdown in Sandtime.io?
The desktop app can start your timer when it opens and end it when you quit. Both settings live in Settings > Time tracking > Desktop app, both are off until you switch them on, and each person sets their own - an administrator cannot set them for the team.
Together they make the working day start when your computer does and end when you shut it down. A timer left running overnight is how hours nobody worked end up on a client invoice.
The settings apply to the Windows and macOS desktop apps. The web app and the phone apps ignore them.
How do I turn these on?
- Open Settings.
- Go to Time tracking.
- Open the Desktop app section at the bottom.
- Turn on Start tracking on startup, Stop tracking on shutdown, or both.
- Select Save.
Nothing changes until you save, and Start tracking on startup applies from the next launch rather than straight away.
What does Start tracking on startup do?
It starts a timer the moment the desktop app opens, so the day is being recorded before you have thought about it.
The new entry carries over the project and the Billable setting from your most recent activity, exactly as the Start tracking button does. If that project has since been archived, the entry begins under Unassigned, and you can pick a project while it runs.
If a timer is already running, nothing new is started.
Does the app open by itself when I turn on my computer?
No. Sandtime.io does not add itself to your startup programs, so that part is an operating system setting:
- Windows - add Sandtime.io to your startup apps.
- macOS - right-click the Sandtime.io icon in the Dock, open Options, and tick Open at Login.
Once your computer opens the app, Start tracking on startup does the rest.
What does Stop tracking on shutdown do?
It ends the running timer when you quit the desktop app, so nothing keeps counting after you have finished for the day. Quitting normally gives an exact end time.
Closing the window is not quitting. On macOS and Windows the app keeps running in the background, which is what lets the timer carry on while you work. Use Quit when you want the timer to end.
Why did my timer keep running after I shut down?
Because nothing reached the app in time to stop it. Sandtime.io corrects the entry for you the next time you open the desktop app.
Windows ends the app without warning, and a crash or a flat battery gives no notice at all, so there is no moment at which the timer can be stopped. Instead, while a timer runs with Stop tracking on shutdown on, the app notes every minute that it is still going. The next launch reads that note, ends the leftover entry at the last minute your computer was on, and only then starts a new one.
That is why you see two entries after a crash: the old one, closed at roughly the time the machine went down, and a fresh one for today. Both are ordinary time entries.
What this means for your records:
- The correction never adds time you did not work. The note is written once a minute, so an entry can end up to a minute short of the real moment, never long.
- It arrives when you next open the desktop app. Until then the timer still reads as running in the web app and on your phone. Opening the web app does not trigger it, because closing a browser tab is not a shutdown.
- You can still edit it. Adjust the end time as you would on any entry - see Edit or delete a time entry.
This is not where the feature stops. A server-side check is planned so the correction no longer waits for the next launch, though there is no announced date for it.