How to See What You Were Working On Yesterday (Mac and Windows)

You close the laptop on Friday with twelve tabs, three files and a half-finished thought. On Monday it's a blank desktop and no memory of which tabs they were.

Here's how to see what you were working on yesterday (or last Friday at 3 PM) on Mac and Windows, from the built-in lists to reopening the whole moment in one click.

Mac: what's built in

• Recents in Finder. Click Recents in the sidebar and sort by Date Last Opened. This shows files only.
• Apple menu → Recent Items. The last few apps and documents.
• Safari and Chrome history by time. Open history (Cmd + Y) and scroll to the day. Chrome groups by day; Safari groups by day in the sidebar.
• Reopen closed windows. Safari: History → Reopen All Windows from Last Session. Chrome: Cmd + Shift + T reopens closed tabs one by one.

These give you pieces. Nothing puts the pieces together by time.

Windows: what's built in

• File Explorer → Home → Recent. Recently opened files.
• Activity history. Settings → Privacy & security → Activity history keeps a short list of apps and files, if it's turned on. Timeline, which used to show it as a scrollable day, was removed.
• Browser history by day. Ctrl + H in Chrome or Edge, scroll to the date.
• Reopen closed tabs. Ctrl + Shift + T.

Same problem: files in one place, pages in another, and nothing for "around 3 PM".

Reopen the whole moment with Trailback

Trailback keeps a timeline of what you did on your computer: the pages you had open, the files you worked on, the screenshots you took and the text you copied, in order. Open History, pick a moment, like "Yesterday afternoon" or "Last Friday, 3 PM", and you see everything from that time, grouped as a task ("Quarterly review prep · 4 pages, 2 files").

Click Reopen all, and the pages open in your browser, the files open in their apps, and you're back where you were.

You can also just ask: type "what was I doing tuesday afternoon" into the search box.

Privacy: all of this stays on your computer, encrypted. Nothing is uploaded, there's no account, and private browser windows are never recorded. It works on Mac and Windows for $19 one-time.

Habits that make Monday easier

• Leave a note for yourself. One line in a note: "Next: fix the pricing table." Trailback's copied text keeps it too.
• Close the day on purpose. Before you stop, note the three things you had open. Or let Trailback remember them.
• Keep one window per task. Then "reopen the window" is close to "reopen the task".
• Lost one specific thing instead? See how to find a file on Mac, on Windows, or a website you visited last week.

Written by Pavan GK

Pavan is the founder of Trailback, a private, offline app for Mac and Windows that helps you find anything on your computer by describing it. He builds it at Hara Infotech in Hyderabad.