Is there a free game time tracker for Windows?

Yes. PlayCounter is free and MIT-licensed, with no account and no paid tier. Store counters are also free but only cover their own games.

Does it slow down games?

It watches running processes from the background and does not hook into or inject anything into games, so it is not an overlay and does not interpose on rendering.

Do I need to keep it open while playing?

It needs to be running to observe sessions, which is why it can start with Windows and sit in the system tray. The window itself does not need to be open.

Can it track applications that are not games?

Recognition is aimed at games. Unknown executables can be added as local custom entries, which is how people track other applications they care about.

Game Time Tracker for Windows (Free)

What a game time tracker should do

The useful version of this tool has four properties, and most options fail at least one of them.

Automatic. No start button, no stopwatch, no remembering. If you have to press anything, you will forget.
Launcher-independent. It should count a Steam game, a Game Pass game, and a folder of extracted files identically.
Local. A tool that sees every program you run should keep that on your machine and be inspectable.
Out of the way. Tray application, low overhead, no new launch routine.

How PlayCounter does it

PlayCounter runs in the Windows system tray and watches which applications are running. When it recognises a game's executable filename, it opens a session; when the process exits, it closes it. That is the whole interaction model - there is nothing to press.

For matching, the executable filename is sent to PlayCounter's API. On Windows the full path is not sent. Sessions, totals, and history are stored in local app storage on your PC. There is no account, and cover art is fetched from IGDB for recognised titles.

What you see in the app

Now playing - the running game with its cover, current session time, lifetime total, and session count.
Library - every recognised game you have played, with totals and session counts.
History - session-by-session records you can filter and inspect.
Statistics - how your time distributes across games and across days.

Honest limitations

It is Windows-only today; macOS and Linux are not distributed. It starts counting from installation and does not import existing launcher hours, though older sessions can be added manually.

Recognition is based on executable filenames, so a new, renamed, or generic name may need a one-time local choice. Emulators that share one process across ROMs are recorded as the emulator, and browser or cloud-streamed games are recorded as the client.

None of that changes for the majority of a normal PC library, where games have their own executables and are recognised on first launch.

Getting started

Download the installer, let PlayCounter start with Windows, and play. The first recognised game you launch creates its own entry, and the record grows from there. It is free, MIT-licensed, and the installer is published on GitHub with release notes and checksums.

A free game time tracker for Windows