Getting Started

Choosing What Echo Remembers

By the Echo team · 18 June 2026 · 4 min read

Echo does not record everything by default. You decide which sources it watches, and you can change your mind at any time. Here is what each source covers and how to get the right things showing up in your history.

Echo splits its tracking into two layers: native Mac apps and the browser. Each layer has its own sources, and you control which ones are active. Nothing is tracked without your say-so, and everything stays on your Mac.

What Sources Does Echo Support?

Echo can watch the following sources:

Native app sources and browser sources work independently. You can enable one without the other, or run both together.

How Do You Turn Sources On or Off?

Open Echo from the menu bar -- the shortcut is ⌘⇧E -- and head into its preferences. You will find a sources panel where each source has its own toggle. Flip a source off and Echo stops logging anything from it immediately. Flip it back on and tracking resumes from that point forward.

No restart is needed. Changes take effect straight away.

Start with the sources you use daily

If you only listen through Spotify and occasionally watch YouTube, enable just those two. You can always add more sources later -- a focused history is easier to browse than one cluttered with sources you rarely touch.

Native Apps vs. the Browser

Native app capture and browser capture are handled differently under the hood. See how native and browser capture compare for a deeper look at the distinction -- but in practice, the result is the same: the track or video appears in your Echo history with its title, artist or channel, and the time you played it.

The browser side requires the Echo browser extension to be installed and active. If you want YouTube or Spotify Web in your history and they are not showing up, that is usually the first thing to check. The guide on setting up the browser extension walks through the process.

What About Sources You Do Not Want Tracked?

Some people use one music app for personal listening and another at work. Others would rather not log podcast episodes alongside their music. Turning off a source removes it from future history without deleting anything already recorded.

Your history stays private

Echo stores everything on your Mac. There is no account, no sync to a server, and no data leaving your machine. Choosing which sources to enable is purely about what you want to remember -- not about what anyone else can see.

Does Enabling More Sources Slow Things Down?

No. Echo is a lightweight menu-bar app. Watching additional sources does not noticeably affect performance. The tracking is passive -- Echo listens for what is already playing rather than polling your apps on a timer.

Can You Change Sources After the Fact?

You can change which sources are active at any point. Disabling a source does not remove past entries from that source -- it only stops new ones from being added. If you re-enable a source later, the gap in your history will simply reflect the time it was off.

Frequently asked

Do I need to enable sources before Echo starts tracking?
Echo comes with sensible defaults already enabled. You may want to review the sources panel to confirm the apps and browser tabs you care about are active, but you do not have to do anything before Echo can start building your history.
Why is a source I enabled not showing up in my history?
For native apps, make sure the app is running and something is actively playing. For browser sources, check that the Echo browser extension is installed and enabled for that browser. The extension is required for any browser-based tracking.
Does Echo track everything playing in my browser, even on sites I did not list?
When the general web audio/video source is enabled, Echo can detect media playing in browser tabs beyond the specifically named sites. If you want to limit browser tracking to named sources only, you can leave that option off.
Is there a limit to how many sources I can enable at once?
No. You can enable all available sources simultaneously. Each one tracks independently, and entries from different sources appear together in a single chronological history.
Written by the Echo team

We build Echo, a native macOS app that remembers everything you play across your apps and your browser, and brings any of it back at the exact spot with one keystroke.

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