Screen time and breaks

Both halves of this are off until you turn them on in Settings › Extras. Counting what you do all day is something to opt into, even when it never leaves the machine.

What gets counted

Seconds per app per local day, and nothing else. No window titles, no websites, no keystrokes. The number goes into the same SQLite file as your clipboard history and usage counts, and Forget Screen Time in Settings empties it.

Time only counts while you are actually there. Two minutes without a keystroke or a click stops the clock; so does the lock screen, and so does sleep. Cleat itself is never counted.

Reading it

Type usage and a space. The first row is today’s total with a seven-bar row underneath for the week. Below that, each app with its time and its share of the day, biggest first, and the app’s icon; Return opens the app. Type a name to filter.

Websites are not broken out. That would need a browser extension or reading the address bar through Accessibility, and neither fits an app whose whole promise is that it reads nothing it does not need to.

Breaks

Turn on Remind me to take breaks and set two numbers: how many minutes of active use between breaks, and how long a break lasts. Walking away resets the clock, so the reminder only ever arrives when you have genuinely been at it that long.

Gentle, the default, is a small card in the corner of the main screen with a countdown, a Done button and one for ten minutes later. Strict covers every screen until the countdown ends and offers no way out; pick it if you know a dismiss button will always get pressed.

Take a break now sits in the usage list for when you want one early, and open "cleat://break?q=5" starts a five-minute one from a script.

The detail pane

Select an app in the usage list and the pane on the right shows its last fourteen days as a sparkline, with today’s share, the daily average, the longest day and how many days it was used at all. The summary row shows the same for the whole Mac.

Pictures behind a strict break

Settings › Extras › Screen time and breaks, with strict breaks on, takes a folder of pictures; one is chosen at random for each break and sits dimmed behind the countdown. What is next on your calendar and your top two tasks are shown over it, so a forced pause never hides a meeting.