v1.5.3

You can now see when a call pauses Focus Timer and when it picks up again.

New

• A notice when a call pauses moves, in yellow: "On a call in Zoom. Moves are paused until the call ends."
• A notice when the call ends, in green: "Call ended. Moves are back on." It replaces the first one, so they don't pile up.
• Every notice has a Dismiss button and a countdown bar showing how long it stays. Hover over it to keep it up.

Fixed

• Pausing and resuming for a call happened without any notice since 1.5.2.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself.

Full Changelog: v1.5.2...v1.5.3

v1.5.2

Calls now just pause the session, and Focus Timer notices them in seconds.

Changed

• A call pauses moves and nothing else. The session keeps running through the call, with the same stop time, and moves pick up again when it ends. The prompt asking whether to end the session is gone. If you had it set to Ask, you're moved to Pause.
• Calls are noticed in about 2 seconds, and moves resume about 5 seconds after the call ends. Before, it took 10 to 15 seconds to notice a call and 30 seconds or more to notice it had ended.
• Lighter on your Mac. Focus Timer no longer checks the microphone on a timer. macOS tells it when an app starts or stops using the mic, so it does nothing while nothing changes.
• "On a call" is now a switch in Settings, under Pause when. The Notifications row moved to Auto-stop, since the stop notice is the only thing it covers now.

Fixed

• The Focus screen no longer jumps when you start a session. With Block system sleep on, the row of chips under the activity graph wrapped onto a second line for a moment, which shrank the dial and pushed the graph up.
• Right-clicking no longer shows Reload and Inspect Element.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself.

Full Changelog: v1.5.1...v1.5.2

v1.5.1

The call prompt now shows up even when macOS won't send notifications.

New

• A small panel in the top-right corner for the call prompt and other notices, when notifications can't show. It has the same End session and Keep running buttons, never takes focus from your call app, and shows over full-screen apps too. It follows your light or dark theme.

Fixed

• Settings → Notifications no longer gets stuck on "Waiting…". macOS only allows notifications from apps signed with an Apple Developer ID, and Focus Timer isn't, so macOS turned the request down without asking. The row now says so, and Send a test shows the panel instead.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself.

Full Changelog: v1.5.0...v1.5.1

v1.5.0

Calls are detected properly now, and sessions can stop at a time you pick.

New

• Asks before getting in the way of a call. When a call starts, moves pause right away and a notification asks whether to end the session. Press End session and it turns back on by itself when the call ends, keeping its stop time. Keep running leaves it on, paused until the call is over. The same choice shows in the window and the menu bar.
• Stop at a time. Auto-stop can now end a session at a clock time, like 6:30 PM, or after any number of minutes, not only 30m, 1h, 2h or 4h. The Focus screen shows when the session will stop. Click it to change it before or during a session.
• A notification when a session ends on its own, with how long it ran.

Changed

• Calls are now detected by microphone use, the same signal as the orange dot in the menu bar. That covers Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, Slack and calls in a browser like Google Meet. Before, Focus Timer paused whenever one of those apps was merely open, which kept it paused all day for anyone who leaves Teams running.
• Settings → Calls → When a call starts replaces the old "On a call" switch, with Ask, Pause or Off. Everyone starts on Ask, including people who had turned the old switch off because of the bug above.
• The window is smaller, 380 × 600, and the dial scales to fit.
• Lists in Settings and Insights fade softly under the title bar as you scroll.
• Squarer cards and simpler icons in Settings. The menu bar menu now says "Start session" and "End session".

Fixed

• "Stop at 6 PM" stops on time even if the Mac slept in between. Before, time spent asleep didn't count, so the stop could come late.
• No password prompt in the middle of a call when a session is ended for it. System sleep stays blocked until the call is over.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself. macOS asks to allow notifications the first time you start a session.

Full Changelog: v1.4.2...v1.5.0

v1.4.2

Restart to update now shows what it's doing.

Fixed

• Restart no longer looks like it did nothing. Installing an update takes a few seconds. The button used to sit there unchanged the whole time. Now it switches to "Installing…" the moment you click it, then "Restarting…" until the app reopens on the new version.
• Failed installs tell you. If an update can't be installed, the banner turns red with a "Try again" button. Hover it to see why. Before, it failed silently.

Changed

• The update banner has slightly squarer corners.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself. The new Restart feedback shows up from the next update after this one.

Full Changelog: v1.4.1...v1.4.2

v1.4.1

Opening the window after leaving a session running for an hour or more no longer lags.

Fixed

• No more lag when you come back. The app kept doing small jobs every second while its window was out of sight, then had to catch up when you opened it again. It now stays quiet in the background and picks up the current state the moment the window is visible.
• Moves run on time in the background. macOS App Nap no longer slows the app down, so waits between moves stay as long as you set them.

Changed

• Menu bar status shows the time of the next move (for example "Active · next move at 3:42 PM") instead of a countdown.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself.

Full Changelog: v1.4.0...v1.4.1

v1.4.0

Back to basics: the simple, predictable session engine from 1.1.1, inside the new design.

Changed

• The classic engine is back. Sessions use the four original actions again: ⌘-Tab (the default), Mouse only, Scroll and Shift tap, with a plain random wait between moves and a simple idle check.
• If you had Natural mode selected, it switches to ⌘-Tab for you.
• Insights keeps the totals, the heatmap of when it moved, and the action mix.
• Flatter cards in Insights and Settings: the drop shadow is gone, the thin outline stays.

Removed

• Natural mode, Learn my rhythm, app awareness, trackpad-style scrolling and short breaks.
• Pausing during calendar meetings. The app no longer asks for Calendar access.
• The Apple Intelligence session planner.
• The rhythm card and the "You" heatmap in Insights.

Still here

The 1.2 redesign, Block system sleep, the menu bar icon and automatic updates.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself.

Full Changelog: v1.3.0...v1.4.0

v1.3.0

Plan a session in plain words, and a brand new icon.

Heads up: the session planner was taken out again in 1.4.0. The Pixel Heat icon stays.

New

• Plan sessions with Apple Intelligence. Describe what you're working on, and the on-device model suggests a title, a length and a checklist of sub-goals. The session stops on its own when the plan ends, and wraps up before your next meeting when Calendar access is on. Everything runs on your Mac. The planner only shows up on Macs where Apple Intelligence is available.

Changed

• New app icon: Pixel Heat. A pixel-art cursor lit up like the Insights heatmap, drawn on Apple's icon grid so it sits at the right size in the Dock.

For developers

• Release builds now run on macOS 26, for the FoundationModels SDK.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself.

Full Changelog: v1.2.0...v1.3.0

v1.2.0

A big one: a rebuilt activity engine, a way to block system sleep, a new Insights tab, and a redesign from top to bottom.

Heads up: Natural mode, app awareness, Learn my rhythm and calendar pausing were taken out again in 1.4.0. The redesign, Block system sleep and Insights are still here.

New

• Natural mode. Cursor moves follow curved, human-timed paths with a little overshoot, scrolls look like reading, and app glances come back to where you were. Timing varies from session to session, and it backs off the moment you touch the mouse.
• App awareness. Actions fit the app in front and stay inside its window. It never ⌘-Tabs out of a terminal or editor, and never scrolls a terminal.
• Trackpad-style scrolling, with real scroll and momentum phases.
• Pause during calendar meetings. Asks for Calendar access the first time.
• Learn my rhythm. A lightweight sampler records the shape of your own moves, scrolls and pauses (never keystrokes, never screen content), and Natural mode replays them.
• Block system sleep. A session can keep the whole Mac awake, even with the lid closed, and puts sleep back when it ends. An optional helper skips the password prompt, and sleep is restored even if the app crashes mid-session.
• Insights. Today, last 7 days and all-time totals, a 7×24 heatmap of when it moved, the mix of actions, and your rhythm.

Changed

• A new look. Toolbar tabs in the title bar, a single mint accent, and light and dark themes.
• A new Focus dial with lit ticks, a progress comet, a slot-machine countdown, and a trace of the last 30 minutes.
• A face in the dial. Two glowing eyes react to whatever the app is doing.
• Springier buttons, sliding tab transitions, staggered entrances and count-up stats throughout.
• The idle check now tells the app's own input apart from yours.
• The keep-awake process is tied to the app, so it can't be left running after a quit.

For developers

• bun dev no longer exits silently on newer macOS: the Electrobun CLI is re-signed on install, dev and build.
• bun dev builds the view first, so it never runs a stale UI.

Install

Download stable-macos-arm64-FocusTimer.dmg below (Apple Silicon). Already have Focus Timer? It updates itself.

Full Changelog: v1.1.1...v1.2.0

v1.1.1

Full Changelog: v1.1.0...v1.1.1

Full Changelog: v1.1.0...v1.1.1