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A cross-platform break reminder that actually makes you rest: after each work session, a full-screen overlay forces you to take a break, and it can't be closed until the countdown ends.
Built with Rust + Tauri 2 + Svelte. Successor to the Windows-only C# app ProtectEyes.
- Forces a 10-minute break after every 60 minutes of work (both durations adjustable)
- Multi-monitor: every screen is covered
- The overlay can't be closed during a break (Alt+F4 does nothing), and you can't quit from the tray
- Postpone for 5 minutes, up to 3 times; the count resets after a full break
- Urgent mode: something can't wait? Shrink the overlay for a moment to save your work while the countdown keeps running
| High | Medium (default) | Low | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Strict discipline, beating "just five more minutes" | Everyday work | A gentle nudge |
| Postpones | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Urgent mode (shrink overlay) | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Meeting-app detection | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Close / skip this break | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Screen coverage | 100% | 100% | 80% |
| Draggable overlay | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
When the built-ins don't fit, choose New custom… in Settings to start from any profile, give it a name (rename or delete it later), and tune each option:
- Number of postpones, whether exiting is allowed, whether skipping this break is allowed
- Whether urgent mode is available, and how small the overlay shrinks
- How much of each screen the overlay covers (10% ~ 100%), and whether it can be dragged within its screen
- Whether to detect meeting apps
Keep as many custom profiles as you like and switch any time. Work, break, postpone and idle durations are shared across profiles. If you prefer editing files by hand, config.toml works too.
- Meeting detection (Windows, macOS): while Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex or Tencent Meeting is in the foreground (or, on Windows, using the microphone), the break waits until the meeting is over; during a break you can also click "I'm in a meeting" to be reminded in 15 minutes
- Idle detection: after 5 minutes without keyboard or mouse input you count as away and the work countdown pauses; being away as long as a break counts as a full break, so you aren't sent to rest right after coming back
- Built with Rust + Tauri 2 on the system WebView, with no bundled browser engine, so it barely uses any resources while running in the background
- Tiny: downloads are just 2.5 ~ 4.6 MB (Windows 4.6 MB, macOS 4.0 MB, Linux 2.5 MB)
- Portable: a single exe on Windows, an unzip-and-run
.appon macOS; delete it to uninstall
- Cross-platform: Windows, macOS and Linux, installable and updatable through WinGet, Scoop, Homebrew and APT (see Install)
- Tray menu: time remaining, rest now, settings, start at login
- Single instance
- Free and open source under the permissive MIT / Apache-2.0 dual license (see License)
- Available in Simplified Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Arabic, French, Bengali, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Italian, Korean and Indonesian. The UI language follows the system by default (English if the system language isn't supported); switch it any time from the tray menu's "语言 / Language" submenu
Install with WinGet:
winget install HansTanzi.RestGuardOr with Scoop:
scoop bucket add hanstanzi https://github.com/HansTanzi/scoop-bucket
scoop install hanstanzi/restguardRequires the WebView2 runtime (preinstalled on Windows 11).
Install with Homebrew (universal build for Apple Silicon and Intel):
brew install --cask hanstanzi/tap/restguardIf you tapped this repository before (brew tap hanstanzi/restguard https://github.com/HansTanzi/RestGuard), switch to the new tap to keep getting updates: brew untap hanstanzi/restguard && brew install --cask hanstanzi/tap/restguard.
RestGuard lives in the menu bar and has no Dock icon. The app isn't notarized by Apple; the cask removes the quarantine flag on install. If you download the zip from Releases by hand, run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/RestGuard.app before first launch.
On Debian/Ubuntu (x86_64), add the APT repository, then install and update with apt:
sudo install -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://hanstanzi.github.io/apt/hanstanzi.gpg | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/hanstanzi.gpg > /dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/hanstanzi.gpg] https://hanstanzi.github.io/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hanstanzi.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install rest-guardLater versions arrive with sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade. You can also install the .deb from Releases directly (sudo apt install ./RestGuard_*_amd64.deb), but then it won't update.
For other distros, download from Releases. On Fedora/openSUSE, install the .rpm:
sudo dnf install ./RestGuard_*_x86_64.rpm # Fedora
sudo zypper install ./RestGuard_*_x86_64.rpm # openSUSEOn Arch, install the .pkg.tar.zst:
sudo pacman -U ./RestGuard_*_x86_64.pkg.tar.zstThe overlay needs X11 (see Platform limitations).
Open Settings… from the tray menu to change durations, the enforcement level, overlay coverage, language and start-at-login. Changes apply immediately (settings are locked during a break). Changing the work duration restarts the current work countdown.
Settings are stored in config.toml, created on first run. You can also edit it by hand; restart the app afterwards.
| OS | Path |
|---|---|
| Windows | %APPDATA%\io.github.restguard\config.toml |
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/io.github.restguard/config.toml |
| Linux | ~/.config/io.github.restguard/config.toml |
work_minutes = 60.0 # how long to work before a forced break
rest_minutes = 10.0 # how long each break lasts
postpone_minutes = 5.0 # how long each postpone lasts
idle_minutes = 5.0 # no input for this long counts as away, 0 = off
level = "medium" # "high", "medium", "low", or the name of a custom profile
[[profiles]] # a custom profile; add one [[profiles]] per profile
name = "Focus"
max_postpones = 1 # max postpones before a full break is required
urgent_mode = false # allow shrinking the overlay
meeting_detection = true # hold breaks while Zoom, Teams etc. are in use
force_rest = true # false = the overlay can be closed
allow_skip = false # still offer "Skip this break" when breaks are forced
overlay_coverage = 1.0 # fraction of each screen covered, 0.1 ~ 1.0
urgent_scale = 0.5 # urgent mode (shrunk overlay) scale relative to the above, 0.1 ~ 0.9
movable = false # allow dragging the overlay within its own screen when it isn't full screen- macOS: system-level actions such as Force Quit (
Cmd+Option+Esc) can't be blocked - Linux: idle detection needs GNOME or a desktop implementing
org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver(e.g. KDE Plasma), plusgdbus; otherwise it's off - Linux Wayland: the protocol doesn't let apps keep themselves on top or position their own windows, so the overlay may not work; X11 is fine
Requires Rust, Node.js, pnpm, and Tauri's system dependencies.
pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev # run in development
pnpm tauri build # build installers
cd src-tauri && cargo testDev builds read config.dev.toml and language.dev (same directory as config.toml), so you can use short durations or switch languages without touching the installed app. Press Esc on the overlay to end a break immediately. Quit the installed RestGuard first, otherwise the single-instance check makes the dev build exit right away.
To release, run pnpm release <version> (e.g. pnpm release 0.2.0) on a clean dev branch. It bumps the version in package.json, tauri.conf.json, Cargo.toml and Cargo.lock, commits, and pushes a v<version> tag. GitHub Actions then builds the exe, a universal macOS .app, and the Linux .deb, .rpm and Arch .pkg.tar.zst (repackaged from the .deb with src-tauri/arch/PKGBUILD), creates the Release, and pushes the updated bucket/restguard.json to HansTanzi/scoop-bucket and Casks/restguard.rb to HansTanzi/homebrew-tap. This needs the repository secrets SCOOP_BUCKET_DEPLOY_KEY and HOMEBREW_TAP_DEPLOY_KEY: the private halves of deploy keys with write access on those repos. For stable versions it also triggers HansTanzi/apt to rebuild the APT repository from the latest releases; this needs an APT_DISPATCH_TOKEN repository secret (a fine-grained PAT limited to that repo with only Actions read and write). The signing key and setup are described in that repo. For stable versions it also opens a PR to microsoft/winget-pkgs via winget-releaser; this needs a WINGET_TOKEN repository secret (a classic PAT with public_repo scope) and a fork of winget-pkgs under the token owner's account. The very first WinGet version must be submitted by hand, e.g. komac new HansTanzi.RestGuard --version <version> --urls <exe release URL> with Komac (pick the portable installer type and add Microsoft.EdgeWebView2Runtime as a package dependency).
The Store build is an MSIX package; the Store signs it, so no code-signing certificate is needed. Run pnpm msix to build src-tauri/target/msix/RestGuard_<version>_x64.msix locally (needs the Windows SDK); the release workflow also builds it for stable versions and attaches it to the workflow run as the msix artifact. Upload it to a new submission in Partner Center.
One-time setup: reserve the app name in Partner Center, then copy Package/Identity/Name, Package/Identity/Publisher and Package/Properties/PublisherDisplayName from the app's Product identity page into src-tauri/msix/AppxManifest.xml. The package declares the restricted runFullTrust capability (required for desktop apps), so the submission asks for a justification, e.g. "Desktop app built with Tauri; needs full trust to show always-on-top break overlays on every screen".
Inside the package, start-at-login uses the manifest's StartupTask instead of the registry, since registry writes are virtualized there. To try the package without the Store, enable Developer Mode and run Add-AppxPackage -Register src-tauri/target/msix/layout/AppxManifest.xml.
For debugging, set work_minutes to 0.1 (6 seconds) to trigger a break quickly.
Licensed under either of MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option.