Pilot logbook software for Windows: current, frozen and web

About two in three desktop computers online run Windows (StatCounter, August 2026). Yet the best-known pilot logbooks are built for the iPhone, the iPad and the Mac. Search for a logbook for your PC and you’ll find old forum threads, and products whose requirements still list Windows 95.

I build Aviator Archive, which runs on Windows, so I have an interest here. But I also went looking for what a PC pilot can use today, on each vendor’s own website, and this is what I found.

Does LogTen or Logger run on Windows?

No. LogTen runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac, and Logger runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Neither vendor offers a Windows version, so a download site offering “LogTen for PC” is not offering the vendor’s software. The Windows options are below.

Which pilot logbooks run natively on Windows?

These are the ones whose vendors list Windows (checked September 2026):

• Logbook Pro Desktop requires Windows and is sold as a “Lifetime license, not a subscription!” Its phone and tablet apps are a separate subscription, and they need the desktop app to pair with.
• Safelog runs on Windows, Mac, iPhone and iPad, Android and the web. It’s sold by term, from a year up to a lifetime option.
• CrewLounge PILOTLOG’s desktop app “requires Windows 7, 8 or 10”, according to its download page.
• SkyLog Pro lists “Full support for Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11.”

The long-running ones have their loyalists, and a lifetime licence is a fair deal. A complaint that comes up in pilot forums is the look and feel: one pilot in 2022 described the program they’d just updated as having a “Windows 95 user interface”.

Which Windows logbooks are no longer updated?

mccPILOTLOG is the best-known. Its FAQ says it “continues to run ‘as is’ in its last Version. We do no longer release new updates.” Its download page offers an installer for Windows 7, 8 and 10. Others still show up in search results: one lists compatibility from Windows 95 to Windows 7, and another “requires Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP or later”.

A logbook that stops being updated doesn’t stop working the next day. It stops working the day your computer outgrows it. One Canadian pilot kept their hours from 1980 to 2002 in a program that “could not run on anything more recent than Windows 98”, and in 2013 it still ran only on an old laptop. If you’re on one of these, export your data now, while the program still opens.

One-time licence or subscription?

Both exist on Windows, and so does free. What matters is what you’re paying for.

• A subscription rents the software. Before you sign up, find out what still works if you stop paying: adding flights, syncing, exporting.
• A one-time licence buys the version you have, for as long as it runs.
• A free web logbook such as MyFlightbook costs nothing, and your logbook lives on its servers.

My own view: a logbook should stay with you for your whole career, and renting one for 30 years is a cost you don’t need to carry. Whatever you pick, make sure that CSV export is free, that the software is still being updated, and that it works on your phone as well as your PC.

How do you install a pilot logbook on Windows?

Mine is Aviator Archive, and it installs from the Microsoft Store (the download page links to it). It’s a free download, and free up to 100 logged hours. It runs on 64-bit Windows 10 (version 1809) or later, on Intel and AMD PCs; I haven’t tried it on an Arm-based PC. I run it on Windows 11, on a clean machine, and a friend uses it on his everyday Windows 11 PC. Pro is bought once, in your browser; when you come back to the app it unlocks.

A few things are worth knowing on Windows:

• Windows Hello works. Where Windows Hello is set up, you can open a logbook with your face or fingerprint instead of its PIN.
• Paper pages come in as files. Scanning a paper logbook works from photos or PDF pages you pick from disk.
• Printing goes through a PDF. The app lays out your logbook as a PDF in your regulator’s format, and you print that.
• Back up before you uninstall. Store apps keep their files in a private folder that Windows removes when the app is uninstalled (Microsoft). Make a backup, or export to CSV, before you remove the app.

How do you move an Excel logbook into an app?

Many Windows pilots have kept their logbook in Excel for years. A friend of mine did, and moving it into an app took some preparation. What we learned:

• One field per column. A column holding “CYYZ-KORD” or “CYYZ/KORD” has to be split into departure and arrival first. So does any column holding two kinds of data.
• Complete rows. Each row needs everything you want in the new log. If crew names are on some rows and missing from others, the import has nothing to fill the gaps with.
• Consistent formats. Pick one date format and one way of writing times, decimal or hours and minutes, and use it throughout.
• A current file type. Apps import CSV or .xlsx. Save an old .xls workbook in one of those first.

An hour spent cleaning the spreadsheet saves many more fixing flights one at a time after the import.

Can you get your data out of a Windows logbook?

Ask before you commit. A logbook has to outlast the program it’s kept in.

In my app, CSV and Excel export are free whether you pay or not, and a PDF of the logbook in a regulator’s layout is part of the one-time purchase.

What I do, whatever the app: I keep two copies of my logbook, a backup in the app’s own format that can be restored, and a CSV export that any program can read. Both go to a cloud drive as well as my own disk.

A logbook kept on a computer is a real logbook, as long as it holds what the rules ask for. The Canadian answer is in Are electronic logbooks legal in Canada?, and the FAA’s in Can an FAA logbook be electronic?.

If you run Linux as well, the options there are thinner still: Is there a pilot logbook for Linux?