Time Out For Mac

Time Out is a discreet and practical macOS break scheduler utility that reminds you to take a break based on your work hours.

Thanks to this app, you’ll always know when it is time to pull yourself away from your Mac and do some stretching exercises before returning to your work. As we all know, our body is not designed to stand still in one position for endless hours with our hands on the keyboard and mouse.

Time Out offers two types of breaks that you can reschedule according to your needs and preferences. Hence, you can enjoy a “Normal” break, usually a 10 minutes break ever 50 minutes of work, to move around the office and relax.

There are also “Micro” breaks that last for 10 seconds and occur every 10 minutes, so you can remember to loosen up and avoid being tense for log periods of time. It goes without saying, that you can disable either type of break, postpone a break or skip it altogether.

The great thing about Time Out, is that it is able to automatically pause the break timer when you do not use your Mac for longer period of times, and you can reset the timer when you return to work. Moreover, you can set the length of each break and the time interval between them.

Every time you need to take a break, your Mac’s screen is slowly dimming as the related graphics appear on your display. Following the same pattern, the break screen slowly fades out when it is time to return to work.

Time Out allows you to personalize the fade in and fade out duration, change the background color and transparency level. During the break, a progress bar helps you keep track of the remaining time while the displayed buttons enable you to postpone or skip a break.

More experienced users can configure Time Out to run an Automator workflow, Python script, AppleScript or app at the start and/or end of a break. Thus, you can pause / resume iTunes or play a buzzer when the break time is over.

In a nutshell, Time Out is the perfect app to have on your Mac if you want to make sure at all times that you're taking all the breaks you should without having to stay with your eyes on the clock at all times and, instead, focusing on being productive.