Time Out

I’m pleased to announce a second TestFlight for version 4.1 of Time Out, my popular break reminder app for Mac. 🎉

This update includes several more big improvements:

• Renamed the Break Name page to Info and updated it.
• Added an Overview on each break’s Info page.
• Added Ask Apple Intelligence above the overview.
• Added Generate Text… to the Text theme editor, using Apple Intelligence on supported Macs.
• Added Generate Image… to the Images theme editor, using Image Playground where available.
• Added a nice custom color picker.

This pre-release build is available via Apple's TestFlight. Want to help…

I’m pleased to announce a pre-release TestFlight for version 4.1 of Time Out, my popular break reminder app for Mac. 🎉

This update was going to be version 4.0.1, but I added a couple of new features to address issues, so it graduated from a bug fix to a minor update. And some more coming in the next TestFlight.

This update includes:

• Replaced the Focus is active rule with a configurable Focus Filter rule.
• Added Show Time Out breaks using in Advanced; a useful workaround for Screen Time restrictions.
• Fixed Learn More links in Messages to reveal advanced Break Schedule and Break Controls settings…

I’m pleased to announce a pre-release TestFlight for version 4.0.1 of Time Out, my popular break reminder app for Mac. 🎉

This is a bug-fix update, which includes:

• Fixed the Focus is active rule not detecting Focus on macOS 27. Time Out now asks for permission to access Focus status when needed.
• Updated app names in Rules to use their localized names, matching skip reasons; for example, Screenshot instead of screencaptureui.
• Fixed a trial sometimes remaining active after subscribing.

This pre-release build is available via Apple's TestFlight. Want to help test it? Install the TestFlight. It is…

When I released Time Out 4.0 recently, and cross-posted the release post to Reddit as usual, the first comment was:

Nice! Long list of features. Did you use AI?

I replied:

Yes, of course. There's no way I could have done all that so quickly otherwise. Codex is a useful tool to accelerate development... but it isn't as simple as a prompt; I have extensive instructions on coding style and functionality, and do multiple iterations to refine each enhancement. I am managing and designing each change, with just the grunt work of typing code delegated to Codex. AI is disruptive, and has negatively…

I’m pleased to announce a pre-release TestFlight for version 4.0 of Time Out, my popular break reminder app for Mac. 🎉

This update includes several major improvements:

• New Manually, Once, and Randomly schedule choices alongside Every, with optional deletion after a one-time break and configurable ranges for random frequency and duration. The new schedule choices are rewards for recent supporters.
• Native Apple Shortcuts actions to start, pause, resume, postpone, skip, and reschedule breaks, or check their status, with support for Spotlight and Siri.
• New Run Shortcut break action to run an Apple…

I’m pleased to announce a pre-release TestFlight for version 3.2 of Time Out, my popular break reminder app for Mac. 🎉

In fact, this update is so big, I'm wondering if I should call it 4.0 instead of 3.2? What do you think?

This update includes several big improvements:

• New Break Themes page with thumbnails, descriptions, previews, and a catalog of themes you can download within Time Out.
• Choose multiple themes to rotate through in order or at random, and configure themes separately for each display.
• Added Random Hue and Blurred theme backgrounds, alongside Fixed Color. Theme rotation and the…

Hot on the heels of the previous TestFlight of Time Out 3.1, here’s another build, that adds a quick menu on the status item by holding down the Option key, plus a Make Due In submenu in that menu and in the break Options menu, to easily reschedule an upcoming break.

If you missed it, version 3.1 also includes:

• Added an option to keep a break displayed until you click a new End Break button, with an overtime counter showing how long the break has continued.
• Added several fun, appearance-aware menu bar icons, including symbols and activity shapes.
• Added Advanced options to hide or disable…

I have just released version 3.0.4 of Time Out to fix a few issues that may affect some people:

• Fixed the time of the first break of the day when using the From Fixed Time scheduling option.
• Fixed an issue where the Break for time could be longer than the Every interval, which doesn't make sense.
• Fixed a calendar-based break having a duration of zero instead of the duration of the calendar event.
• Fixed the Teams Meeting rule script, which stopped working due to Microsoft renaming the background process that handles an active meeting.
• Fixed a crash when changing the Label for a break to a…

Time Out version 3 was released recently. I just released version 3.0.3 to fix a couple more issues that may affect some people:

• Fixed the Full Countdown to Next Break status option not showing seconds when less than an hour.
• Fixed a possible crash when showing the Last Done Break Label in the status item.

It will be available from the Mac App Store and Setapp as soon as they approve it, and is immediately available direct from the Dejal website.

If you missed it, version 3 includes:

• macOS Tahoe support
• Exclusions are now Rules, and more powerful
• A new theme editor, and image and text theme…

Time Out version 3 was recently released. On the Support Time Out page in the app, I have a notice that the prices for the supporter options will be increasing soon. Time Out has an unusual payment model: most features are available to use completely free, but some features are available as rewards for people who support ongoing development. The prices haven’t changed since version 2 was released way back in 2016 (yes, a decade ago!), so I felt it was about time for a small adjustment. But I didn’t want to surprise people, so I announced it in the app, and now on the blog, so people can become…

Time Out version 3 was released recently. I just released version 3.0.2 to fix an important issue that could affect some people updating from version 2:

• Fixed unintentionally removing custom scripts from the scripts folder while introducing Rules scripts.

If you’ve already updated to version 3, and had added custom action scripts, my apologies; they will likely have been lost. Hopefully you can restore them from a backup. Most people won’t have added custom scripts, so this probably only affects a small percentage of people, but any data loss is a red alert for me.

It will be available from…

Time Out can perform actions before, during, or after a break. What if you want it to pause any media playing before a break?

A customer contributed a script that can be used with Break Actions to do just that.

It pauses any playing media when a break starts — Spotify, Plexamp, BBC Sounds, browser-based players, or anything else registered with macOS's Now Playing system. Apps that are already paused are unaffected.

In addition to the script that you can use with Time Out’s Break Actions, there is a brew dependency that requires installation.

See the Pause Media GitHub page for details.

Note…

Time Out includes the ability to detect when Zoom, Teams, or FaceTime is actively in a meeting, and postpone or skip breaks via the Rules feature. But if you have something else using the camera, is there a way to detect that?

A customer contributed a script that can be used with Rules to do just that.

It automatically skips or postpones Time Out breaks while your camera is active, so you are never interrupted mid-video call. More general than the built-in rules for specific apps.

In addition to the script that you can use with Time Out’s Rules, there is an app dependency, which is bundled…

Time Out version 3 was released recently. I just released version 3.0.1 to fix one important issue that could affect some people updating from version 2:

• Fixed a crash when upgrading the data from version 2 if the Statistics page was set to show certain values.

If you had a crash when updating, this fix is for you. If you didn’t, no urgency in updating. If you haven’t updated yet, now’s your chance.

It is available from the Mac App Store, Setapp, or direct from the Dejal website. On the Mac App Store, I’m slowly rolling out the release, in case any other important issues turn up, but so far so…