Always in reach
No floating windows. Needlewatch lives in your menu bar, one click from starting a session — and nowhere else.
Native macOS Experience
Protect your vinyl.
Needlewatch
Protect your vinyl.
Track your stylus.
A worn stylus doesn't announce itself — it just quietly grinds your collection. Needlewatch counts the hours so you replace it in time.
Free · macOS 14 Sonoma or later
Needlewatch
AT-VMN95ML
192
/ 1,000 h
Good
0
800 h
1,000 h
608 h until you should replace it
Start Listening
Mar 26, 2026
192 h estimated + 0 h tracked
Professional Grade Utility
Everything you need to protect your sound
Built by audiophiles for the high-fidelity community.
Multi-stylus
Track different cartridges for mono, stereo, or 78rpm setups. Each keeps its own hours, and switching between them is explicit.
Smart thresholds
Set the manufacturer's rated life and your own "replace at" mark. The gauge turns amber before you reach the rating, not after.
One-click tracking
Start when the needle drops, stop when you're done. The elapsed time survives a quit or a restart, so a long session never disappears mid-record.
Private by design
Your listening history stays on your Mac. Needlewatch is sandboxed and makes no network calls — there is no account, and nothing to opt out of.
Native performance
Built with Swift, SwiftUI, and SwiftData for minimal resource use and instant response. No Electron, no bloat — just pure macOS.
How it Works
Protecting your collection in three steps
No setup, no account, no subscription.
1
Add your stylus
Enter the model, its rated life, and — if it already has miles on it — your best estimate of the hours played so far.
2
Track every session
Click Start when you drop the needle. The menu bar shows the running time, and Stop records the session.
3
Replace in time
The gauge moves green to amber to red as you pass your threshold and then the rating — so you swap the stylus before it bites.
Granular Control
Engineered for precision.
Needlewatch doesn't just count hours. It manages the lifecycle of your hardware: set the manufacturer's rated life, define a "replace at" threshold, and account for the wear a stylus had before you started tracking it.
- Live elapsed time The gauge grows while you listen, and the menu bar keeps count.
- Crash-safe sessions A session in progress survives quitting or restarting your Mac.
- Estimated prior hours Already own the cartridge? Start from your own figure, not zero.
Keep your collection safe.
A worn stylus is the fastest way to permanently damage your records. Get Needlewatch today and listen with peace of mind.
Requires macOS 14 or later · Free, no account, no subscription