A small, native macOS app for taking a moment away from your screen.
A little notice. Room to rest. Back to your day.

Download for Mac   ·   How it works   ·   Build from source   ·   Report an issue

A break that fits your day

Far lives in your menu bar. When a break is due, a quiet countdown gives you time to finish a thought. A centered prompt then invites you to look away while your displays dim. Your desktop stays usable, and Postpone and Skip stay within reach.

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Made for everyday use	What you get
Two kinds of rest	A short look-away break and a longer step-away break, with adjustable intervals and durations.
Your pace	A visible countdown, separate Postpone and Skip actions, and a pause control.
Meeting awareness	Reminders hold during likely calls. Manual Meeting mode covers calls automatic detection misses.
Credit for stepping away	Locking your Mac, sleep, screen saver, and displays turning off can count toward rest.
A native Mac feel	SwiftUI and AppKit, light and dark appearances, reduced-motion and reduced-transparency support, and Liquid Glass on macOS 26.
Local by design	No account, analytics, subscription, or network service. Preferences and daily totals stay on your Mac.

Install

Requires macOS 13 Ventura or later. The universal download supports Apple Silicon and Intel.

1. Download Far-0.4.0-macOS-universal.zip from the latest release.
2. Unzip it and move Far.app into Applications.
3. Open Far, then look for its Soft pause icon in the menu bar. Far does not add a Dock icon.
4. Optionally enable Launch at login in Settings after moving the app to Applications.

First-release signing: This download is ad-hoc signed and not notarized by Apple. macOS may block its first launch. After trying to open it, use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway if you trust this release. See Apple’s instructions. You can also build from source below.

Each release includes SHA256SUMS.txt to check the downloaded archive. Quit Far before replacing it with a newer version. To uninstall, quit Far and remove it from Applications.

How it works

With the defaults, Far offers 30 seconds of rest after 20 counted screen minutes, and a five-minute step-away break after 60 minutes. The longer break takes priority when both are due. A 15-second countdown precedes each break.

• Postpone retries after five more counted minutes by default. Skip starts a fresh interval for that break type. Neither is recorded as a completed rest.
• Sustained typing can defer a due reminder for up to two minutes. During rest, sustained work interrupts and postpones the break; simply moving the pointer does not.
• Screen time includes reading and meetings while your Mac is awake and unlocked. An unattended unlocked Mac can count too; Far does not track your gaze.
• Thirty continuous seconds away earns short-rest credit; five minutes earns recovery credit. Ordinary keyboard or mouse inactivity does not count as rest.
• Change the timings, choose a completion sound, or enable Meeting mode from the menu and Settings.

Automatic call detection is best effort: unrelated microphone use may hold reminders, while muted or listen-only calls may be missed. The behavior guide documents the precise rules and settings.

Privacy

Far stores preferences, scheduling progress, and daily aggregate totals locally in macOS UserDefaults. It does not record audio or typed characters, use a camera, inspect your windows or browser tabs, or transmit activity. No third-party Swift packages are required.

Build and run

Use full Xcode 16.4 or later with its first-launch setup completed and selected as the active developer directory. Standalone Command Line Tools are insufficient for the app bundle.

git clone https://github.com/theablemo/Far.git
cd Far
./scripts/test.sh
./scripts/build-app.sh
open dist/Far.app

Or open Far.xcodeproj and run its shared Far scheme. The build script creates a universal, ad-hoc-signed app in dist/. Quit an older running copy before launching it.

./scripts/format.sh --check  # Check Swift formatting
./scripts/test.sh            # Core and app integration tests
./scripts/build-app.sh       # Build and verify the application
./scripts/release.sh 0.4.0    # Build and package an archive with its checksum

In environments that cannot start SwiftPM’s nested sandbox, use ./scripts/test.sh --disable-sandbox.

Contribute

Bug reports and focused pull requests are welcome. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md, the architecture guide, and behavior details.

Directory	Purpose
Sources/FarCore/	Deterministic scheduling, accounting, input classification, and geometry
Sources/Far/	macOS services, app model, native windows, and SwiftUI views
Tests/	Core behavior and native controller regression tests
Resources/	Bundle metadata and original Soft pause icon assets
scripts/	Formatting, testing, building, icon export, and release packaging

This is Far’s first public release. Automated tests cover scheduling, persistence, signal classification, and window geometry. Physical desktop focus, accessibility, display transitions, and live material rendering still need broader testing. See validation evidence, the changelog, and release guide.

License

MIT © 2026 Mohammad Abolnejadian. The project’s original Soft pause artwork is included under the same license; icon provenance describes how it is made.