REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac

REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac is a keylogger for OS X with functionality good for home monitoring. Because of nice and thought out interface is easy to use and requires no special knowledge for successful use.

Advantages:

• Multi-OS support
• Pleasant to look at, user friendly interface
• Grouping of the intercepted information and settings into categories
• Good stealthiness level

Disadvantages:

• Doesn't intercept both sides of chat conversations
• Very weak file activity monitoring

Today we are reviewing REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac!

Installation

Installation ScreenOnce we click the installation disk of REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac it shows us EULA. We click "Agree" and the application's disk image opens asking us either to launch the keylogger installation application or to read the Quick Start guide.

Once we launch the application, it opens and asks us whether we would like to install it to track activity of the computer. We click "Install", put in the administrator's password and read the message, informing us that the Monitoring Tool has been installed and all the events on this computer are being monitored now.

The next window that opens is "Settings" one, containing all the tools for configuration of REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac. There is not much information there, yet it is grouped into sections and is very easy to understand. Once we configure the keylogger, we close the "Settings" window and see the main window of the keystroke logger.

Interface

Main WindowThe main window of this macOS keylogger is divided into a few sections. The main controls are arranged horizontally on the top of the window. The intercepted information is grouped into sections, names of the which are shown in the left narrow column of the window, and the information itself is in the right one, occupying the rest of the window horizontally and approximately the half of it vertically. The rest of the place contains two windows: the left one, showing details about the logged information, and the right one, showing the corresponding screenshot, if any.

In general, the interface leaves an impression of a very nice and thought-out one, that is not only pleasant to look at, but also is very easy to use.

OS Support

The developer of the REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac declares its compatibility with:

• macOS 10.13 High Sierra, 10.12 Sierra;
• OS X 10.11 El Capitan, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.7 Lion;
• Mac OS X 10.5 - 10.7;

Security

As for the security of REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac, the application is greatly hidden, can be accessed by pressing a configurable hotkey combination and is protected with a password.

Unfortunately, the keylogger doesn't allow its user to set a keyword he should type to access it and can't be set to uninstall itself on a pre-specified date. It also doesn't have an option of showing the users a warning message, informing them about the fact they are being monitored.

Monitoring

ScreenshotsREFOG Personal Monitor for Mac perfectly logs typewriter and system keys, system log on/off time, logon password, clipboard content, started applications and opened documents. It also not only can make screenshots, but also allows its user to set their quality and frequency of making.

Unfortunately, this spy software doesn't log the rest of file activities, printed documents, mouse clicks and system inactivity time. The keylogger also cannot be configured to make screenshots of active window only, not of an entire screen and can't make screenshots every time the mouse button is clicked.

Online Monitoring

As for the "Online Monitoring" section, REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac records the URLs of sites visited in Safari, Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. You can also configure it to make a screenshot every time a new URL is visited.

Unfortunately, it doesn't log neither sent, not received emails and doesn't record both sides of chat conversations made in all the messengers taking part in our comparison.

Reports

Date FilterYou can configure REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac to monitor only the users of your Mac you are interested in. The user activity monitoring software also allows to perform a search in logs and configure a period of days you want to see the intercepted information for. Among the logs delivery options taking part in our testing, only the one option is present— the log files can be transferred by email.

Unfortunately, the keylogger also doesn't have any options for automatic logs' clearing and doesn't allow its user to choose which of the applications to monitor and which not to. You will also not find the duration of events in log files of REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac.

Other

Unfortunately, "Other" section is the one where REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac has little to show.

It doesn't allow its user to specify a list of important keywords it should react to, it can't block websites and applications and can't work on schedule. Good news is that the program is available in 6 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Dutch and Italian

The Bottom Line

Summing up, we can say that despite the absence of some of the widespread features, REFOG Personal Monitor for Mac is a solution with enough functionality to monitor your home Mac that is very easy to use because of its nice and thought-out interface.