Time Out

Posts about Dejal Time Out.

No Time Out break appears when I try to start one

If no break appears when you manually start one, or as scheduled, there are a few possibilities.

  1. Firstly, look in the sidebar; it should indicate why a break didn’t occur.
  2. You should restart your Mac. That often fixes wackiness.
  3. If that doesn’t help, make sure you don’t have more than one copy of Time Out.
  4. If still no luck, there may be a permissions issue.

To fix a permissions issue, try this:

Make sure Time Out is in your Applications folder.

Paste the following command into Terminal:

xattr -d -r -s com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Time\ Out.app

If this gives a permissions error (e.g. “xattr: [Errno 13] Permission denied”), try it again with sudo before the command, to elevate the privileges. You’ll need to enter your Administrator password. This command is safe to use with sudo:

sudo xattr -d -r -s com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Time\ Out.app

What are natural breaks in Time Out, and how do I configure them?

“Natural breaks” are when the Mac is not being used; idle.

By default, Time Out will wait briefly then count backwards when you are having a natural break, to give you credit for not using your computer.

If you do a lot of reading on-screen, that doesn’t cause keyboard or mouse activity, you can change the app to disable this behavior by choosing Continue Countdown from the popup menu on the Break Appearance page of the settings.

Or if you’d prefer to have it just pause the countdown, instead of counting backwards, or reset the timer, those are also options.

Are older versions of Time Out available for download?

Yes. I recommend that you always use the latest version of Time Out if you can, as it has the latest improvements and fixes. But if your Mac isn’t using a recent OS version, you’re curious what older versions were like, or you have some other reason to want an older version, they are still available. Just download the latest release that supports your OS version.

Time Out 2.9 released

[This post was recovered from the old blog, thanks to being cross-posted on Reddit.]

I’m pleased to announce the general release of an update of Time Out, my popular break reminder tool.

Version 2.9 includes several great enhancements, including a status message in the sidebar to indicate why a break was skipped etc, the ability to schedule and exclude breaks using calendar events, support for Monterey focus, an option to hide the Pause function, new break options to pause or reset an individual break, and much more.

Read on for details.

Added a status message to the breaks in the sidebar

  • The break items in the sidebar now display a status message, e.g. to indicate that the break has been postponed or skipped.

  • When a break is skipped or postponed due to an app exclusion, the app name is included.

  • So if you ever wonder why a break didn’t occur as expected, look at this status message.

Sidebar

Added the ability to schedule breaks using calendar events

  • A new Calendar option is now available in the From pop-up menu on the Break Schedule page.

  • If chosen, a pop-up menu of your calendars, and a field to filter on event text is displayed.

  • The first time this is chosen, the app will prompt for permission to access your calendars.

  • When using this option, Time Out will look at the specified calendar for events containing the specified text, and start a break at the start of the event, and finish at the end.

  • If the event text filter field is left blank, all events will be used; specify something else to use the same calendar for multiple breaks.

  • Multiple values can be entered in the filter field, separated by commas, e.g. “break, lunch, snack”.

  • A reload button is available to reset the due date, if you edit the events.

  • Since the calendar controls the duration, frequency, and availability of the break, those controls are disabled.

  • This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

Calendar schedule

Added an Exclusions option to skip breaks when busy on the calendar

  • A new Also skip breaks during calendar events option is now available on the Exclusionspage.

  • If chosen, a pop-up menu of your calendars, and a field to filter on event text is displayed.

  • The first time this is chosen, the app will prompt for permission to access your calendars.

  • When using this option, Time Out will look at the specified calendar for events containing the specified text, and skip a due break if it would fall within an event.

  • As with calendar scheduling, if the event text filter field is left blank, all events on that calendar will be used; specify something else to only skip some of the events.

  • Multiple values can be entered in the filter field, separated by commas, e.g. “meeting, 1-on-1, planning”.

  • This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

Calendar exclusion

Support for Monterey focus

  • Renamed the Exclusions option to skip breaks during Do Not Disturb to focus, Apple’s new name for it in Monterey.

  • The first time this option is enabled, the app will prompt to get permission to look at the focus state.

  • If declined, you can enable it via System Preferences ▸ Security & Privacy ▸ User Availability.

  • This feature will still work with the old Do Not Disturb state from previous macOS versions.

Focus exclusion

Added an Advanced option to hide the Pause function

  • Sometimes it can be very difficult to resist the temptation to pause Time Out to avoid breaks, even though you know you shouldn’t.

  • So for people who don’t want the Pause function, there is now an option on the Advanced page to hide it.

  • This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

Hide pause

New break options to pause or reset an individual break

  • Added a Pause Break or Resume Break command to the break options menus. So a break can be paused independent of other breaks.

  • The Pause Break menu item can be chosen to pause indefinitely, or choose a shorter time from the submenu.

  • This is of course not included if the new Advanced option to hide pause is active.

  • Also added a Reset Break command to these menus. This will start the work period again from now, just for this break.

Pause

But wait, there’s more!

  • Fixed the Flash Screen break action on Apple silicon Macs. It now uses the built-in screen flash, so doesn’t have color or duration options.

  • Fixed the Fadeout Sound break action not showing the fade out time interval field.

  • Updated the Stop Screensaver break action script.

  • Breaks due on future days are no longer adjusted when having a natural break (idle).

  • When resetting a From: Fixed Time break, the next due time now respects the fixed time.

  • Break names are now cleaned up to avoid invalid characters that can cause saving the break to fail.

  • Updated the Exclusions to remove DVD Player, and change FaceTime, Photo Booth, and QuickTime Player to include “System” in their paths.

  • For new folks, the exclusions for Zoom are now When Frontmost, to avoid a common support query. Existing data is not changed, in case you like them When Open.

  • The Pause All Breaks menu item can now be chosen to pause indefinitely, instead of needing to choose that from the submenu.

  • When paused indefinitely, the status item text now shows “–“.

  • Improved the highlighting of the status item rows.

  • Hidden a couple of rarely-used diagnostic logging options.

  • Fixed a performance issue where the app could use more CPU than it should in some unusual circumstances.

  • Time Out now requires a minimum of macOS Catalina (10.15).

Want to try it?

If you are using the Mac App Store edition, you can update via the App Store app.

Similarly, if you are using the Setapp edition, it will handle that update for you.

If you are using the direct edition, you can use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.

Otherwise, download Time Out 2.9 now!