Focus Pill is a small always-on-top app for macOS. It keeps the one thing you're working on in view over every window, stays quiet while you're actually working, and chimes you back the moment your attention wanders off.
Drag me anywhere
This is the real pill, not a screenshot. Drop it somewhere and it stays put, even while you scroll.
macOS 13+ · Intel & Apple silicon · updates itself
Three simple things, always running in the corner of your screen.
The pill sits above every window, even full-screen apps. Whatever you switch to, the thing you're meant to be doing stays right there in the corner.
Click the text and type what you're focusing on. It stays put, and a glance is all it takes to remember what you sat down to do.
On a quiet interval you choose, the pill plays a soft chime and a brief wiggle. Attention wanders; this brings it back, without ever nagging.
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Point Focus Pill at the apps that count as real work. While one of them is in front, it says nothing at all — no chime, no wiggle, no interruption.
Wander off to something else and, after a short grace period, the stone reddens and cracks under the strain, then chimes. It keeps chiming on your interval until you come back. Prefer the inverse? Switch to Distraction mode, name the few apps that pull you away, and everything else stays silent.
It only ever reads which app is in front, never what's inside it. No screen-recording permission, no accessibility permission, nothing leaves your Mac.
The core stays simple. These sit quietly underneath, for when a session calls for them.
Tap a length (5, 15, 25 or 45 minutes) and a ring drains around the button as the time passes. Hover it mid-session for a +5 or a clear. No typing, no setup, no seconds to fuss over.
Something pops into your head mid-task? Jot it into the pill's notepad and keep going, so you never break focus just to remember it later.
Plus six macOS classics (Blow, Glass, Tink, Submarine, Purr and Bottle) that play straight from your Mac.
You'll hear this every few minutes for months, so it had better be one you like. Eight bundled chimes and six macOS system sounds, with a volume you set. Or mute it completely and keep just the wiggle.
No dock icon, no window to manage. Play or pause, edit the task, pick your focus apps and open settings. All from one small glyph up top.
It checks for a new version when it launches and quietly in the background after that, then installs the update itself. You'll never download it twice.
No account, no sign-in, no streaks to protect and nothing to tend. Download it, type one thing, and forget it's there until it taps you on the shoulder.
Small, quiet, and always there. The one thing you keep coming back to.
Universal build for macOS 13+ — Intel and Apple silicon. Open the disk image and drag Focus Pill into Applications; it keeps itself up to date from then on.
The Windows build runs, but it hasn't been tested on real hardware yet and can't update itself the way the Mac does. It ships when it's actually good, not before.