Can My Employer See My Keystrokes? How to Tell and What Is Legal

Your employer can see your keystrokes only if a keylogging tool runs on the computer you type on. Some employee monitoring products can record every key: Teramind's knowledge base says its keystroke logger "captures all keyboard activity and every individual keystroke entered", and Veriato and InterGuard offer the same. Other common tools do not. Hubstaff, Time Doctor and ActivTrak count whether you are typing, not which keys you press. Slack and Microsoft Teams do not log keystrokes at all. On a company laptop, keystroke logging is legal in most US states. New York, Connecticut and Delaware require the employer to tell you in writing first.

What your employer can always see is the text you send through company accounts: email, Slack and Teams messages, and files. That needs no keylogger.

Which tools record your keystrokes

The vendors say this in their own help pages:

• • ActivTrak: "ActivTrak does not provide a keystroke-logging feature", to avoid capturing "banking information and passwords".
• • Time Doctor: it counts "mouse clicks and general keystrokes (without logging specific keys)" to detect idle time.
• • Hubstaff: the app "only records in binary (active=1, inactive=0) if there is activity and does not log individual keystrokes". What else it tracks is in can Hubstaff detect a mouse jiggler.
• • Teramind: keystroke logging is a listed feature, and it can also trigger rules on words you type.

Security software is a separate category. Endpoint tools such as Microsoft Defender or CrowdStrike watch for malware, not your typing. Data loss prevention (DLP) tools can scan text you paste or upload for things like card numbers. The difference between bossware and security tools is in what is bossware.

What your employer can see without a keylogger

Most "can my employer see what I type" worries are about text you send, and that is visible without any keystroke logging:

• • Email in your work account, including drafts saved to the server.
• • Slack and Teams messages, in public channels, private channels and DMs, subject to your plan and your company's export settings. Details are in can Slack be used to monitor employees.
• • Documents in company Google Drive, OneDrive or SharePoint, with their version history.
• • Websites you visit on the company network or a managed browser. See can my employer see my browsing history.
• • Prompts you type into a company AI account. See can my employer see my ChatGPT history.

Unsent text in Slack is saved as a draft

Text you type in Slack and never send still leaves your computer. We tested it on 4 October 2026 in our own workspace (Slack web app): we typed "kslog draft 1004 typed but never sent" into a direct message box, did not press Enter, and read our drafts with Slack's drafts.list method every few seconds.

typing ended   01:30:55Z
drafts.list    01:31:05Z  is_deleted: false  text: "kslog draft 1004 typed but never sent"
box cleared    01:31:32Z
drafts.list    01:31:37Z  is_deleted: true   text: "kslog draft 1004 typed but never sent"

• • Slack saved the unsent text on its servers about 10 seconds after we stopped typing.
• • Clearing the box did not remove the text. The draft was only marked is_deleted: true, with the full text still in it. A draft another tester cleared the day before still had its text 18 hours later.
• • We could not delete it for good. drafts.delete on the cleared draft returned draft_delete_invalid.

This is not keystroke logging: Slack keeps the box's content, not each key or the order you typed in, and drafts.list answers only to your own signed-in session. Still, do not treat a Slack message box as scratch paper for things you would not send.

How to tell if your employer is monitoring keystrokes

• Read the policy you signed. Acceptable use or monitoring policies usually name the software. In New York, Connecticut and Delaware the employer must give written notice before electronic monitoring.
• On a Mac, check Input Monitoring and Accessibility. Open System Settings, Privacy & Security. macOS makes any app that reads the keyboard ask for one of these permissions. A monitoring agent you do not recognize in either list is a strong sign.
• On Windows, check running programs. Open Task Manager, Processes and Services, and the installed apps list. You can also run this in PowerShell; it does not need admin rights:

# lists running processes whose names match common monitoring agents
Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.ProcessName -match 'teramind|tmagent|veriato|interguard|activtrak|hubstaff|timedoctor|insightful|controlio' } | Select-Object ProcessName, Path

No output means none of those names are running. Agents can use other process names, so this check can miss them.

• Look at the keyboard cable. A hardware keylogger is a small plug between the keyboard cable and the USB port. It needs no software, so no scan finds it.
• Ask. In the EU and UK you can file a data subject access request for the data held about you. In California, the CCPA gives employees a similar right to know.

A longer checklist, including network and browser signs, is in how to tell if you are being monitored at work.

Sign-in and unlock times are logged even when keystrokes are not. See can my employer see when I log into my computer for where those records live.

Is keystroke logging legal at work?

In the US, on a company computer, generally yes. The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act has a business-use exception, and most states add no extra rule. The main limits:

Outside the US, the bar is higher. Under GDPR, monitoring must be necessary and proportionate, and data protection authorities treat full keylogging as hard to justify. In 2017 Germany's Federal Labour Court ruled that keylogger evidence collected without a concrete suspicion could not be used to support a dismissal (case 2 AZR 681/16). The rules by state and country are in is it legal for my employer to monitor me.

This page is general information, not legal advice.

Do Slack and Teams track your typing?

No. The Slack desktop app reads only how long the computer has been idle, to decide whether you are active, and turns your dot grey after 10 minutes without input (Slack desktop 4.52.178 code, checked 7 Oct 2026). It does not record which keys you press, though it does save the text in an unsent message box as a draft (our test above). Teams reads keyboard and mouse input on the whole computer for the same purpose, and sets you Away after about 5 minutes without it. Neither app reports keystrokes to your employer. What each one does report is in does Teams track your activity and does Slack track mouse movement.

FAQ

Does Hubstaff or Time Doctor record keystrokes?

No. Both count keyboard activity to measure idle time. Neither records which keys you press.

Can my employer see my keystrokes on my personal computer?

Not unless monitoring software is installed on it, which in practice needs your consent.

Can my employer see passwords I type?

A full keylogger can capture them. ActivTrak says it avoids keylogging for exactly that reason.

Does Slack save messages I type but do not send?

Yes, as a draft on Slack's servers, about 10 seconds after you stop typing. Clearing the box marks the draft deleted but keeps its text.