What Linear tracks on its own
Linear has three time-adjacent features. None of them records the hours someone worked on an issue.
- Estimates. Points that express complexity, not time. Teams choose ascale: linear, exponential, Fibonacci or T-shirt sizes.
- Cycles. Automatic, time-boxed periods similar to sprints. They tell you when work was planned, not how long it took.
- Time in Status. Added inJanuary 2026, this shows how long an issue sat in each workflow state. An issue can spend four days "In Progress" while getting three hours of actual work.
Linear's Insights (cycle time, lead time, effort) are useful for spotting bottlenecks, but they're built from these same signals. If you need billable hours or want to check estimates against reality, you need a time tracker.
Option 1: a web time tracker with a browser extension
Everhour, TrackingTime, Harvest and Toggl Track all offer a browser extension that adds a timer button to Linear issues in your browser. You open an issue, click start, and the time is logged in the tracker's own web app.
- Good for: teams that want shared reports, budgets and approvals.
- Trade-offs: the timer is tied to the browser tab, and most of these are priced per seat.
Option 2: automatic tracking that matches activity to issues
Timely, Timing and Rize record your computer activity in the background and connect to Linear over the API. They then suggest or draft time entries for your Linear work. Timing can also write a table of tracked time to each Linear issue as an attachment on its top plan.
- Good for: people who forget to start timers and are comfortable with activity logging.
- Trade-offs: a detailed record of your apps and sites, a review step, and higher-tier plans for Linear features.
Option 3: a native Mac timer that knows your Linear issues
Tiiiime is a menu-bar app for macOS that pulls in your Linear issues (read-only) and lets you start a timer on any of them with a global hotkey, from any app. Hours are tracked per issue, idle time is caught automatically, and you can export everything to CSV with the issue ID on each row.
- Good for: freelancers, developers and teams working on Macs.
- Trade-offs: Mac only.
A simple workflow that works with any tool
- Track at the issue level. One timer per Linear issue (
ENG-123), not per day or per project. - Separate the work around issues. Use activities like Meetings or Code review for time that doesn't belong to one issue, so issue hours stay honest.
- Compare at the end of each cycle. Put points next to hours for the closed issues. If a 2-point issue keeps taking eight hours, adjust your scale or split issues earlier.
- Export by issue for billing. An export with issue IDs lets a client match every line on the invoice to work they can see in Linear.
