Introduction

What GazeKeeper is and what it does.

What GazeKeeper is

GazeKeeper is a break reminder for the Mac. It runs in the menu bar. Every 20 minutes it asks you to look away from the screen for 20 seconds. Both numbers are settings.

A reminder on a plain timer ignores what you are doing. GazeKeeper watches for the moments when a break would cost you something. It holds the break during a call, while you share your screen, and while a fullscreen app is in front. It then waits for a pause in your typing before the break starts.

Who it is for

Anyone who works at a screen for hours at a time. If you tried a break reminder and removed it because it fired in the middle of a meeting, GazeKeeper is built for that case.

What it does

  • Timed breaks. A work interval and a break length that you set (20 minutes and 20 seconds by default). A small heads-up pill appears 60 seconds before the break. The break covers every display.
  • Smart pause. Camera in use, microphone in use, screen sharing, a fullscreen app, and your own app rules freeze the countdown. See detectors.
  • A pause in typing. When a break is due, it waits until you have not touched the keyboard or pointer for 2 seconds. It never waits more than 30 seconds past the heads-up.
  • Calendar awareness. Optional. A break that would land in the last two minutes before a meeting is moved to three minutes before it.
  • Focus filter and Shortcuts. A Focus filter pauses breaks while a Focus is on. Shortcuts and Siri can start, pause, resume and snooze breaks, and read back the time to the next break and today’s stats.
  • Stats. Breaks taken, postponed, skipped and worked through. A Screen Score from 0 to 100, a streak, a weekly digest, and a CSV or JSON export.
  • Wellness nudges. Posture and blink reminders on their own timers, kept apart from the break rhythm.

What it does not do

GazeKeeper has no account and no analytics. Break history and settings stay on your Mac unless you export them yourself. The only network request the app makes is its update check. See the privacy policy.

To install it, read the installation guide.