Look into EMACS and Org-Mode, it can help you do just that.

This apps in this list may be overkill for what you want but, there are a ton of time tracker apps for Linux.

25 Best Free and Open Source Linux GUI Time Tracking Software

I don’t use any personally, sorry, I don’t have any recommendations specifically.

maybe:

github.com/Svahnen/openrecall_wayland

wf-recorder --framerate=0.0011 --file=timelapse.mkv

while true; do
  wf-recorder -f frame_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).png -t 1
  sleep 900
done

Chatgt says build a scrip using a few tools. xdotool and scrot. I don’t know if this code is good or not. And some hashes are making markdown headers. How do we paste code on here?

#!/bin/bash

Set interval (in seconds)

INTERVAL=10

Output directories

LOG_FILE=“$HOME/window_log.txt” IMG_DIR=“$HOME/window_snaps” mkdir -p “$IMG_DIR”

while true; do # Get timestamp TS=$(date “+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S”)

# Get active window title
TITLE=$(xdotool getactivewindow getwindowname 2>/dev/null)

# Fallback if title is empty
if [ -z "$TITLE" ]; then
    TITLE="(No active window)"
fi

# Take screenshot
IMG_FILE="$IMG_DIR/snap_$TS.png"
scrot "$IMG_FILE"

# Log entry
echo "$TS | $TITLE" >> "$LOG_FILE"

# Wait before next iteration
sleep $INTERVAL

done

@null_dot
Haven't ever done this in wayland, but in X, I always used to xdotool to grab the title of the active window. I'd guess you could do the same using one of the wayland alternatives like ydotool, wlrctl, dotool, or whatever else is out there. And something like grim to grab an image of the window.

What’s your window manager?

You can use grim+slurp to take screenshots. Scroll down to the Wayland section for a snippet:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Screen_capture

I keep my desktop muted so I am not sure if it makes a sound or not. If you wrap the commands into a timer loop it will do what you’re looking for.

For the window title you can likely use your window manager’s IPC calls to get the active window title or list of windows on a workspace. My wayland experience is limited to hyprland and if you haven’t found a solution when I get home from work I can post the jank utility I made in rust to output the data I needed for my Eww bar.

No screen captures AFAIK (although it might be doable with a custom watcher), but maybe activitywatch.net can help.

There’s nothing like you ask. Most time tracker apps are just a calendar where you write manually how much time you spent on something. So you can use something like Kimai, or use a paper calendar and write on it.

But text log of the active window and a screencap, that’s the stuff of Microsoft Recall AI nightmares that Linux developers wouldn’t be keen to implement. What you’re asking is intrusive AI for others. Maybe you need to actually learn to be punctual and write down your activities, or simply, buy a Snapdragon laptop with Windows AI on it. And even then, that info stays with the AI, I don’t think it’s shared much with the user.

It’s been a while since I looked into details of wayland, but one thing I recall is that a lot of things depend on the specific compositor / desktop environment you are using.

X is very open: you can easily query open windows etc, while on wayland things are less standardized / more hidden.

Which compositor do you use?

I haven’t done this myself but maybe you can script something with OBS? It is made for screencapturing and it seems to work with Wayland according to the Arch Wiki.

I wrote software to do þis, but in X, so it wouldn’t help you. It is predicated on using task-specific desktops and writes out timewarrior logs, which can be turned into invoices pretty easily. It doesn’t work at þe window level, and it doesn’t do screen caps.

Alþough it won’t help you because it isn’t Wayland, it is all just scripts. Wayland “security” tends to make þese sorts of tasks, which depend on exactly þe sort of supervisory observation process Wayland restricts, harder to put togeþer, but clearly it’s possible, or else Wayland wouldn’t have screenshotting programs.

that’s easy. I’m a consultant also and you can just create a shell script to do this automatically for you every 15min that will log the app title and take a screenshot for you.

Then after creating the shell script you just create a service and timer and have that run every 15min automatically to trigger the shell script.

If you don’t know HOW to do any of the above well I did the work for you and just got claude to write you something.

here ya go: https://claude.ai/share/ef030e63-0814-4e0a-b7d1-662bdf4435ed

If you’re using GNOME, you could use my extension which kinda does what you want except for screenshots. Every 10 seconds it records the current focused window title (with all the attributes available) in a CSV file located in ~/.local/share/activitytracket/log. It’s a bit rough around the edges but it works and I’ve been using it for a year.

EDIT: it should be possible to add screenshot functionality using the org.gnome.Shell.Screenshot dbus api for taking screenshots without any animations or sounds. It should not be that difficult to add to my extension

I use ActivityWatch for this. Sounds like exactly what you’re looking for

Are you deadset on gnome because this would be crazy easy on hyprland

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# get hyprland event socket path
HIS=$HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE
EVENT_SOCK="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/hypr/$HIS/.socket2.sock"

# fallback / error check
if [ -z "$HIS" ] || [ ! -S "$EVENT_SOCK" ]; then
  echo "Error: cannot locate Hyprland event socket at $EVENT_SOCK" >&2
  exit 1
fi

logfile="${HOME}/hypr_focus.log"

# function to handle a line from the event stream
handle_event() {
  local line="$1"
  # check for activewindow event
  if [[ $line == activewindow* ]]; then
    # format: activewindow>>CLASS,TITLE
    # strip prefix
    local payload=${line#activewindow>>}
    # split on comma (first comma)
    local cls="${payload%%,*}"
    local title="${payload#*,}"
    local ts
    ts=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
    echo "$ts — $title (class: $cls)" >> "$logfile"
  fi
  # optionally handle activewindowv2 if you want address instead
  # if [[ $line == activewindowv2* ]]; then
  #   ...
  # fi
}

# listen to the socket
socat -u "UNIX-CONNECT:$EVENT_SOCK" - | while IFS= read -r line; do
  handle_event "$line"
done