Apps/Unfocus
In alphamacOS · Universal · Apple Silicon native

Unfocus

Rest your eyes · keep your focus.

A gentle Mac companion that pulls your gaze from the screen at the right moments — twenty seconds, a glance to the horizon, one slow breath. Not a nag. A companion.

Unfocus — Quiet hoursv0.2.0 · alpha
Look away · 20 seconds

Find the furthest thing in the room.

A doorway. A window. The line where the wall meets the ceiling. Let your eyes settle there.

Next prompt in 18 minutes⌘ ⇧ USkipPause for an hour
Why your eyes need breaks

Hours of unbroken screen time quietly tire your eyes. Small, regular breaks are the fix.

There's a well-known guideline — every twenty minutes, look about twenty feet away for twenty seconds. Unfocus takes the idea and makes it yours: set your own interval, your own break length, and what you do with the pause. A patient reminder, never a nag.

How it works

Three quiet moves. In that order.

I

You set the rhythm.

Choose how often you'd like to pause — every twenty minutes, every hour, whatever your eyes prefer. Unfocus keeps a quiet timer running in the background.

Detail
A simple, reliable timer — no eye-tracking, no camera, nothing reading your screen. All on your Mac.
II

A soft prompt — never a wall.

When the timer's up, a gentle prompt fades in and invites you to look away. It never blocks your work — and if you're on a call or your mic is live, it simply waits.

Detail
Stays quiet during calls, screen sharing, and full-screen video, and respects macOS Focus modes.
III

Twenty seconds. Then back.

A breathing dot, an eye exercise, or just a pause — your pick. When the break ends, the overlay fades and your work returns exactly where it was.

Detail
Choose the break length and what fills it, including the optional eye exercises.
The library

Sixteen tiny exercises. All optional.

6 / 16 SHOWN

Distance gaze

20s

Find a point as far as you can see and let your focus rest there.

Slow blink

30s

Close gently, hold for a beat, open. Repeat five times.

Figure eight

45s

Trace a slow sideways 8 with your eyes. Reverses muscle fatigue.

Palm warm-up

60s

Cup your palms over closed eyes. Warm darkness, deep rest.

Two-finger track

30s

Follow your finger from arm's length to your nose, slowly.

Stand & roll

60s

Get up. Roll your shoulders back and neck side-to-side.

The spec sheet

Built like a Mac app should be.

Compatible
macOS 13 Ventura and later
Architecture
Apple Silicon native · Universal
Privacy
Runs entirely on your Mac — no account, no network needed.
Permissions
Notifications only. No camera or microphone access.
Languages
English at launch. More if you write to us.
Honest answers

The things you'll ask.

No. Unfocus has no camera or microphone access and never watches your screen. It's a simple timer: you pick the interval, and it reminds you to look away when the time is up — all on your Mac.
Only when you want it to. Unfocus stays quiet when you're on a call or your microphone is active, during screen sharing and full-screen video, and it respects macOS Focus modes.
Yes. Set your own interval and break length, and choose which eye exercises you'd like — keep the ones that suit you, skip the rest.
Not right now — Unfocus is built just for macOS. Doing one platform really well matters more to us than spreading it thin.
A built-in reminder just fires on a clock and leaves you to it. Unfocus is gentler: it stays out of the way when you're on a call or sharing your screen, lets you set your own rhythm, and gives you something to do with the pause — a breath, a distance gaze, or one of the eye exercises.
In alpha

Want a quiet first look at Unfocus?

It's early, and invites go out in small batches. Get in touch and we'll reach out when there's a build to try.

Get in touch