Employee monitoring software without keylogging
Employee Desk measures work activity and, if you switch it on, captures screenshots — visibly, with a notification, and with the employee able to see everything their manager sees about them. What is typed is never recorded. There is no stealth mode.
- No keystroke content, ever
- Employee-visible by design
- Screenshots optional
- Self-hostable
The complete list
Most monitoring vendors publish what their product can do. This is the list of what it will not do, which is the part your team actually wants to read.
What is recorded
- Active and idle time, from real keyboard and mouse activity
- The application or window title in use, sampled through the day
- Keystroke and click counts — a number, never the characters
- Screenshots at a random interval you bound, tagged with the activity percentage, only if enabled
- Attendance marks, leave requests and daily work reports the employee submits
What is never recorded
- The content of what is typed — no keylogger exists in the product
- Camera or microphone, on any plan
- Personal files, browser history or the contents of messages
- Anything after the employee stops the tracker, or while the machine sleeps
- Anything invisibly — the tray icon is always shown while recording
- Location or GPS
Why transparency is the product decision, not the marketing
Covert monitoring produces one reliable outcome: the moment it is discovered, every subsequent management decision is read as surveillance. The data quality is not better either — people who suspect they are watched but cannot see what is recorded optimise for looking busy rather than for the work.
So the product is built the other way around. Every employee has the same view of their own record that their manager has. Screenshots trigger a notification at the moment of capture. The tray icon does not hide. Stopping the tracker stops the recording, immediately and completely.
What this costs you
It is worth being clear about the trade-off. If your requirement is to catch someone without them knowing, this is the wrong product and you should not buy it. If your requirement is to know how many hours went into a client project, whether a remote team is overloaded, or whether the attendance register matches reality, transparency costs you nothing and buys you a team that will actually keep the tracker running.
What employees are told
- Exactly which categories of data are collected, in the app itself.
- When a screenshot is taken, at the moment it happens.
- What their own activity and hours look like, in the same detail their manager sees.
- How long the data is kept, from your configured retention policy.
Monitoring levels, and picking the lowest one that answers your question
Most teams need less than they initially ask for. These are the four configurations customers actually run.
| Level | What is collected | Answers | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance only | Check-in and check-out, leave, holidays | Was the person at work? | Office-first teams, no tracker installed |
| Attendance + reported work | Adds daily work reports against projects | What did they work on? | Salaried teams on internal projects |
| Measured time | Adds active/idle time and app titles | How many hours, and on what? | Remote and hybrid teams, hourly billing |
| Measured time + screenshots | Adds periodic screen captures | What did the work look like? | Client contracts or audits that require it |
Employee monitoring and the law in India
The short version: monitoring company-owned devices for a legitimate business purpose is generally permissible in India, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act framework puts the weight on notice, purpose limitation, storage limitation and security. The practical checklist looks the same in almost every jurisdiction.
- Tell people. A written monitoring policy employees have actually seen, not a clause nobody read.
- Collect only what the purpose needs. If hours are the question, you do not need screenshots.
- Keep it only as long as you need it. Configure retention rather than keeping everything forever.
- Restrict who can look. Role-based access, plus an audit log of which manager opened whose screenshots.
- Do not monitor personal devices. Use the browser-based modules for a bring-your-own-device team.
This is general information and not legal advice. Confirm your own position with counsel, particularly if you employ people outside India.
Frequently asked questions about employee monitoring
Does Employee Desk log keystrokes?
No. Key presses and mouse clicks are counted as a measure of activity, but the content of what is typed is never captured, stored or transmitted. There is no keylogger in the product on any plan or deployment, and there is no setting that enables one.
Can employees see what is recorded about them?
Yes. Every employee can open their own tracked time, their activity percentages and their own screenshot gallery, and they are notified when a screenshot is captured. There is no manager view of an individual that the individual cannot see about themselves.
Can monitoring run invisibly?
No. The tray icon stays visible for as long as recording is active and screenshots trigger a notification. There is no stealth or silent mode, and one is not on the roadmap.
Can we turn screenshots off completely?
Yes, per team or company-wide. A large share of customers run time tracking with screenshots disabled and rely on active time and the activity percentage instead.
Is employee monitoring legal in India?
Monitoring company-owned devices for legitimate business purposes is generally permissible in India, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act framework makes notice and purpose limitation the important parts. The practical requirements are to tell employees what is collected, collect only what you need, keep it no longer than necessary and secure it. This is general information rather than legal advice, and you should confirm your position with your own counsel.
What about employees who work on personal devices?
Do not install the tracker on a personal machine. Attendance, leave and daily work reports all work in the browser and cover a bring-your-own-device team without putting a recording agent on somebody personal laptop.
Show your team the product before you install it
Open the live demo, or send them this page. Nothing on it changes once you become a customer.
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