Tracking
Can you track work time without an internet connection?
Yes, provided the app stores your sessions on the device rather than in a browser tab. An offline-first tracker records the punch locally the moment you tap and treats the network as an optional extra, so a flight, a basement or a rural client site costs you nothing. A web-based tracker that needs a round trip to start a timer will lose exactly the hours you are least able to reconstruct.
Why
The question to ask of any tracker is where the write goes first. If the answer is 'to the device', everything else — sync, sharing, reporting — is a bonus layered on top of a record that already exists. If the answer is 'to a server', then every feature depends on a connection, and the moments when tracking matters most are disproportionately the moments when there is not one.
Do this
- Choose a tracker that works with the phone in aeroplane mode, and test it before you need it.
- Check that editing and exporting work offline too, not only starting a timer.
- Treat sync as a convenience for reaching your other devices, not as the place your data lives.
- Confirm what happens when the connection comes back: changes should go up without you doing anything.
Avoid this
- Relying on a browser tab that has to reach a server to start a session.
- Assuming an app works offline because it opened; try it with the radio off.
- Keeping the only copy of a month's hours in a place you cannot reach on a plane.
- Postponing a punch until you have signal, and then forgetting.
What it looks like in the log
The same advice, as the row a tracked session actually leaves behind.
Aeroplane mode — Alder & Finch
- Connection
- None
- Punched in
- 11:40
- Stored
- On the device
- Running
- 2h 05m
All of this is easier when the hours were written down as they happened. Punch O'Clock is a free tracker that does it in one tap, works offline, and exports the range you are billing.
Free. No ads, and no account unless you want sync.
Related questions
Do I need an account for an offline tracker?
You should not. If the data lives on the device, there is nothing for an account to unlock. An account earns its place only when you want the same data on a second device, which is what sync is for.
What happens to offline sessions when I go back online?
In an offline-first app, nothing you have to think about: the sessions were already saved, and if sync is switched on they are uploaded in the background. The record was never waiting on the network to become real.