Last.fm and Stats for Spotify track your music, but they stop at music and keep it in the cloud. Far fewer tools cover what you actually spend your attention on, because most of that is video and podcasts, not songs. Echo, which we make, is a $4.99 one-time Mac menu bar app that records everything you play across your apps and your browser and resumes any of it at the exact spot, with no account and nothing leaving your Mac.
Why do most trackers stop at music?
Last.fm and Stats for Spotify grew out of music scrobbling, so they are excellent at songs and blind to everything else. The YouTube tutorial, the conference talk, the podcast you played in the browser, none of it registers. They also work by logging to the cloud against an account, so the record of your taste lives on someone else's servers.
Beyond Last.fm: tracking video too
A real "everything" tracker has to treat a YouTube lecture the same as a Spotify album, and a web video the same as an Apple Music track. That means watching both your native apps and the browser, and storing audio and video side by side. That is a different design from a music scrobbler, and it is exactly what Echo is.
Best for: cloud scrobblers such as Last.fm and ListenBrainz, if music is all you track and you want public charts and a community around it.
Not for: video, podcasts or anything played in a browser tab. Scrobbling was built for music and has never covered the rest.
The trackers, compared
| Last.fm | Stats for Spotify | Echo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tracks music | Yes | Spotify only | Yes |
| Tracks video & podcasts | No | No | Yes |
| Covers the browser | Via scrobblers | No | Yes |
| Where it's stored | Cloud | Cloud | On your Mac |
| Resume, not just log | No | No | Yes |
Every song, podcast and video, right where you left off
Everything you play, back at the exact spot.
Get Echo
How Echo tracks everything
Echo records what you play across Spotify, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, YouTube and any web audio or video, into one searchable history on your Mac. You can scroll your whole day, search by title or artist, and, crucially, act on it: press ⌘⇧E and reopen anything at the exact spot you stopped. It is tracking you can use, not just a chart to admire.
Other trackers tell you what you played. Echo also takes you back to it, which is usually the thing you actually wanted.
Best for: one private record of music, podcasts and video across your apps and your browser, that you can search and resume from at the exact spot.
Not for: public stats, charts or a listening profile to share. Echo keeps everything on your Mac, which is the point of it, and means there is nothing to show off.
Privacy: yours, on your Mac
Because Echo is on-device with no account, your complete listening and watch history stays on your machine. You get the full picture of what you consume without that picture being uploaded, profiled or tied to a login, which is the opposite of how cloud trackers work.
Which should you choose?
If you only care about music stats and charts, Last.fm or Stats for Spotify do that well. If you want to track everything you listen to and watch, keep it private, and be able to jump back into any of it, Echo is the private, do-it-all alternative.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best app to track what you listen to and watch?
Does Last.fm track video?
Can I track what I watch without sending it to the cloud?
Can I resume the things I tracked, not just see them?
Track it all, privately
Music, podcasts and video in one on-device history, and any of it back at the exact spot with one keystroke.
One-time purchase, yours forever.