Breaks

What is Breaks?

Breaks is a macOS Pomodoro app that runs quietly in the menu bar. It helps you structure focus sessions, track what you did during them, and review your progress over time.

Beyond timers, Breaks includes a focus journal with streak tracking and a weekly summary generated locally using on-device Apple Foundation Models. The goal is to keep the workflow lightweight—no account, no servers, and no analytics—so your focus notes remain on your Mac.

Key Features

• Menu bar Pomodoro with popover controls: Uses a small menu-bar presence instead of a persistent main window, including a quiet countdown and a popover when you need it.
• Focus journal blocks (labeled and categorized): Let you pick a focus, label blocks, and mark them as good, messy, or skipped. You can also tag blocks with a project.
• Streaks and week-level recovery logic: Shows streak progress using ISO weeks along with a configurable pause-day budget so streaks don’t immediately decay on missed days. Includes idle-related prompts and recovery-oriented prompts.
• Templates for different session styles: Provides six cycle templates—Pomodoro, 52/17, Deep Work, Flowtime, Ultradian, and Quick—plus the option to adjust durations yourself.
• On-device “Breaks AI” weekly summary and journal chat: Generates a weekly summary and a chat that answers questions about your journal using Apple Foundation Models running locally.
• Calendar and Markdown export (optional): Optionally writes completed focus blocks to Calendar, or exports your full focus journal as a Markdown file you own.
• Settings for durations, sounds, and hotkeys: A single collapsible settings page includes options like durations, sounds, global hotkeys, idle threshold, and pause-day budget.

How to Use Breaks

1. Download and install: Download the latest zip from GitHub, move the app to /Applications, and open it (macOS may show an “unidentified developer” prompt on first launch).
2. Launch it normally: After the first successful open, the app should launch like a typical macOS app. If prompted, use the “Open” dialog; alternatively, remove the quarantine flag via Terminal using the provided xattr command.
3. Start a focus session from the menu bar: Use the menu bar icon to choose a cycle template (or configure durations) and begin a timed session.
4. Log what happened: As you complete sessions, record them in your focus journal by setting focus labels, marking outcomes (good/messy/skipped), and optionally associating them with projects.
5. Review streaks and review outputs: Check the streak view, weekly review, and (if enabled) use Calendar export or Markdown export to keep a copy of your journal.
6. Use Breaks AI locally (optional): If you enable Apple Intelligence on a compatible Apple Silicon Mac, use the weekly summary and chat to query your journal.

Use Cases

• Weekly focus review: After a week of sessions, use Breaks’ weekly summary to understand where your focus went and review the associated journal entries.
• Answering questions about past work: Use the Breaks AI chat to ask questions about your local focus journal without sending your data to a server.
• Project-based time tracking: Tag focus blocks with a project and use project views to see how your time adds up across week, month, or all-time.
• Recovering streaks during interruptions: When you miss days, rely on the ISO-week pause-day budget and streak decay behavior to avoid overly harsh streak loss.
• Session planning with different work modes: Switch between templates (e.g., Deep Work vs. Pomodoro vs. Ultradian) depending on the type of work you’re doing, or adjust durations to fit your routine.

FAQ

• Is Breaks free? Yes. Breaks is free and MIT-licensed, with no in-app purchases, no account, and no analytics.
• Does Breaks send my data anywhere? No. Breaks AI runs entirely on your Mac using Apple Foundation Models. The weekly summary and journal chat read your local focus journal and answer locally.
• What are the requirements for Breaks AI? The source indicates it requires macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence enabled and an Apple Silicon Mac that supports it.
• Will it work on Intel Macs? Yes. Releases are provided as a universal binary (arm64 + x86_64), and the same zip can run on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
• How does Breaks handle closing the laptop mid-session and idle time? It monitors sleep and wake notifications and reconciles the timer against an end-date to avoid drift. For idle time, if you’ve been away longer than the configured idle threshold, it asks whether the elapsed time should still count.

Alternatives

• Menu-bar timers and Pomodoro apps (general): Other apps provide Pomodoro timers with menu-bar or lightweight UI, but may not include a built-in focus journal with streak logic and local journal-based AI.
• Focus journaling tools with tagging and reviews: Standalone journaling or habit tools can track what you did and provide reviews, but may require switching away from a timer-centric workflow.
• Calendar + manual time logging: Some users log completed focus sessions directly to Calendar or as Markdown notes, trading automation (timers, streaks, and structured blocks) for a simpler setup.
• Local-first note and dashboard approaches: Apps that store notes locally can support exported summaries, but may not provide the same cycle templates, streak behavior, and on-device journal chat described for Breaks.