Time Out - Break Reminders App Reviews

It is really useful and simple! The app reminds you to keep yourself moving and do not stay for prolonged period in front of your Mac. Taking more breaks allows you to be more productive. You will be more sharp for short period of time and keep yourself healthy for the whole day! And the interface is really user friendly. Great app! Recommended

The time out reminder should consider measureing how much time you really spend working on your computer. My experience with “Time Out”, I was actually finished a break and once I came back to the desk. The application ask me to take a break “again". Feel kind of silly using “Time Out" I hope to see the improvements: 1. Measure actual time spend working on the computer by keyboard typing, mouse movement 2. When no movement for 1 or 2 minutes, stop the clock counting down

The app *does* help schedule breaks. The setup page has side-scrolling, which can trigger my migraines. The preferences page has flashing, and doesnt make clear which preferences are functioning and which ones would require the subscription, and doesnt show any way to check actual current preferences, or revert to default preferences.

Downloaded this app on my iMac running El Capitan, and it’s a little buggy. The icon in the status bar disappears periodlically, and the settings seem to reset themselves. Functional, but a little off.

It’s okay, but it behaves oddly unless you pay. I ended up having to delete it because it would do funky things unless you paid to be a supporter.

Perfect for eye strain relief! Works simply and when I had issues the developer helped me solve them. This is the app I’d been looking for to force me to take a break!!

It’s great for reminding you to get up and look away from your screen, but it breaks copy/paste functionality. After running Time Out for a while, my computer can’t handle copying new text. It can only paste whatever was in the buffer earlier. Would give it 5 stars if it didn’t break such an essential computer function.

I just had lasik and my physician said to make sure I take a break from the computer every 20 minutes. Hard to set that up on your calendar to work all day long … Time Out was the perfect solution for me. I can now do this with ease. I also have added another break to it so that I work for every 25 minutes and then take a 5 min break so that I can be more productive. This isn’t only a health app, it’s a productivity app. I’ve told 5 people about it and they all love it. Developer is very responsive: Because I’m on OS Sierra I had a minor issue where the app wasn’t recognizing my support purchase. The Developer worked with me to ensure I had exactly what I needed and the system was recognizing everything (even though I’m on a Beta OS!!) Don’t expect it to cook breakfast or make you smarter, expect it to do what it says and you’ll be delighted. I would definitely recommend to others.

Time Out came through where other apps could not. Since I have a bad habit of not taking regular breaks, I tried reminders and Pomodoro timers but would just hit “snooze” or “pause", and even Time Out didnt work for me initially since I could still see through the transparency and/or click the button/s to postpone. But once I disabled the buttons and set the opacity to 100%, I was finally able to force myself to get away from the computer since, with buttons disabled, the only way to hide the Time Out screen is to basically restart your computer, or just wait it out (which is the whole point, ha). For anyone who faces similar obsessive work habits and feels the physical results (dry eyes, RSI, carpal tunnel) or just an unhealthy, unbalanced feeling of burnout in their work day, Time Out might be your answer. And I highly recommend the Pro version as the hourly settings reset of the free version is incredibly annoying! Also want to give a shoutout to David at customer support who responded to and resolved my help request in... 13 minutes. Keep up the good work, you guys rock!

Ive used this for years. If you want something to force you to take a break at regular interfals, this is awesome. A full-screen, semi-transparent window appearas at the intervals you specify. If you’re in the middle of something, you can continue typing (if you don’t click), or you can postpone the break if needed. If that’s too obtrusive, you can have a small break window appear (the None theme) that you can ignore until you’re ready. This app is very full-featured and customizable. Love it!

It says “free”, but if you don’T subscribe you cannot make changes stick. I don’t want the app in the dock. Have to subscribe. I want to change the short term break (every 10 minutes), can’t do it. Fo rthe price of the “subscription The Clock is a much better alternative

Agree that it shouldnt take place on dock. And it should check if some video players (like vlc) are running, because its very annoying when it starts making breaks while Im atching video. EDIT: Sorry, just found out I can add exclusion to whatever app I want, so it will skip breaks while this app is working! Changing my rating to 5 stars!

This application is good, but the main things that annoys me about it - that it sits in your dock and takes useful space. Whats the reason of having it in the dock? It autostarts and I dont change any settings when I use it on daily basis. It should have an option to hide it from dock. It belongs to tray notification icons area.

Useful app, but I have a couple suggestions: A) Menu bar icon would be great as some recommended. Maybe when you click on it it would tell you how much time is left until the next break - when I switch over to the program its not easy to tell whether its on or not just by looking at it. B) Maybe give us the option to pick a photo for the break background? Not necessary, but it might be nice. C) Make it so theres no minimum time to set. Id like to work 50 seconds, then have 10 seconds of break for my microbreaks, but the "work" time isnt divisible by seconds so the shortest work time I can do is 1 minute. D) Have the ability to see a running total of how many breaks have occurred since the start of the session. Overall this app is very neat, though, and Im glad its free.

This app is brilliant. I am the least disciplined person ever, and this app is doing wonders to save my eyes from strain when I read on the computer. The app is easy to use & allows for simple modifications to make it suit your needs. Give it a try!

This is the perfect app for someone who needs to take breaks. My eye doctor told me to take a 20 second break every 20 minutes but I was never paying attention to how long I was on the computer. I like this because it inturupts you and forces you to take a break. A perfect app. Thanks so much.

I got this because I homeschool my daughter through an online school. We both have ADHD and breaks are easy to forget. Not with this app. It has been great to lower her stress with the micro breaks and we both get up and move every 50 minutes. I love though that if we are working on something that we need to keep working on for just a few more minutes, we can delay a break. It took me awhile to find the "reset" for when we start working on the lesson later than the break. I kinda wish there was a way to keep working a bit through a break (just a minute or two), so that I can finish up closing a lesson and set up the next one, but I know that goes against the app and frankly, it is good for me too to take a break.

As someone with computer vision syndrome, I need to take small breaks from the screen every 20 minutes and longer breaks every 2 hours to rest my eyes. This app is great for reminding me of those times, especially since I can get caught up with any work Im doing on the computer and not keep track of the time. Its also pretty easy to use, with hover-over explanations for the settings. However, like a few others have said, Id appreciate if there was a menu bar only option. Hopefully that will come with a future update… Otherwise, this is a great way to encourage breaks for your eyes, back, legs, wrists, etc.

I dont normally write reviews, but I feel like this app could make a lot of people feel better. Taking regular breaks is one of those bits of advice that we all hear about over and over, but - if youre anything like me - never remember to do. This app just makes you remember. I love that it plays a relaxing song and makes what Ive been working on disappear. Ive been using it for two days and I absolutely love it.

This is a great tool to use if youre at your computer a lot. I cant tell you how many times Ive been so absorbed in something that hours and hours has passed by with me sitting and staring at my screen, but now anymore thanks to Time Out. I can easily be alerted that I need to get up and move around, or move on the the next task. I recommend this for ANYONE who owns a computer!