A menu-bar app for macOS

Six healthy breaks, backed by science.

Water, walking, wrists, eyes, posture, breath. Each on the interval the research supports, and it pauses itself the moment you're on a call.

Buy for $15 or try free for 14 days
One-time purchase · No account, no card · macOS 14+
Two breaks coming due close together, coalesced into a single pause: wrist stretches and an eye break shown side by side.
Coalesced break
A
Six habits, six studies.
Water, walking, wrists, eyes, posture, breath. Each on the interval the research supports, not a round number.
B
Out of your way.
Pauses for calls, screen sharing, fullscreen, and focus. Picks up exactly where it left off.
C
Yours, forever.
One-time purchase. No account, no telemetry, no subscription.
What it reminds you to do

Six small things your body wants.

Every interval comes from a study, not a round number. Drink, move, and rest your eyes on the cadence your body actually needs. Turn any off, retune any, or change how it shows up.

Water · every 45 min

Time to drink.

A glass. Coffee and tea count. Past 60, don't wait for thirst.

per Ganio, 2011 · EFSA, 2010

Read the evidence →
Walk · every 60 min

Stand up. Move.

Two to five minutes. A lap around the office, the stairs, anywhere. Walking is what matters; standing alone barely helps.

per Diaz, 2023 · Buffey, 2022

Read the evidence →
Wrists · every 30 min

Roll your wrists.

The pause from typing is what helps most. Four short stretches on top, ten seconds each.

per Van den Heuvel, 2003

Read the evidence →
Eyes · every 20 min

Look far away.

20 feet away, 20 seconds. Blink a few times on purpose.

per Rosenfield, 2011 · Talens-Estarelles, 2023

Read the evidence →
Posture · every 30 min

Shift, don't sit up straight.

Move into a new position. Ears roughly over shoulders, feet flat. The best posture is the next one.

per Slater & O'Sullivan, 2019

Read the evidence →
Breathing · every 90 min

Four in. Six out.

Three cycles. Through the nose if you can. A guide bar paces you.

per Russo, 2017

Read the evidence →
Each one off-able · interval per break · overlay or banner per break
Respects your flow

It waits when you're busy.

Caesura watches your camera, screen sharing, calendar, and which app owns the screen. When any of those are active, every timer freezes and picks up where it left off. If you had 12 minutes until water, you still have 12 minutes after the call. And if two breaks come due within a minute of each other, you get one prompt, not two.

Video calls Screen sharing Fullscreen apps Do Not Disturb Calendar events Games
Convinced? Or want to try first?
One-time purchase · No card on file
Buy for $15 or try free for 14 days
How a break appears

Loud when you need it. Quiet the rest of the time.

Three prompt styles, pickable per break. Water might need a full overlay because you'll ignore anything smaller. Eyes are fine as a banner. Posture can be a silent notification. Your call.

A full-screen water break overlay: a large heading reads Drink some water, with a tinted droplet glyph and a Thanks, done button.
Style 01 · Overlay
A full pause.
Takes over your screen until you press Return. For the breaks you'd otherwise ignore.
●CodeFileEdit14:30
Style 02 · Banner
A gentle nudge.
Slides in from under the menu bar, auto-dismisses in 30 seconds.
Caesura
Breath · four in, six out
now
Style 03 · Notification
A whisper.
A standard macOS notification. The lightest possible touch.
Breathe in…
Cycle 2 of 3
Detail · Breathing guide
Paced, not policed.
A soft orb expands and a progress bar paces your inhale, hold, and exhale. Three cycles. Done.
20s
Detail · Cursor countdown
Twenty seconds, then back to work.
For the eye break: a small pill follows your cursor with a 20-second ring. Look up. It empties. Carry on.
The wrist-stretch overlay: heading Roll your wrists, slowly, with four illustrated stretches: wrist circles, prayer, reverse prayer, finger fan.
Detail · Wrist stretches
Four moves. Forty seconds.
When the wrist break fires, four illustrated stretches sit on top of the overlay. Do them or don't, they're optional.
Built for the Mac

Native, the whole way down.

Written in Swift, lives in your menu bar, follows your appearance. Eight megabytes. No Electron, no web view. Open the dropdown, see all six clocks, snooze the one that's bugging you.

Swift & SwiftUI
Eight megabytes.
Not three hundred. Cold-launches in under a second. Idle RAM in the low single-digit MBs.
Menu-bar icon
Three styles.
A caesura mark, a live countdown to the next break, or a quiet dot. Hide it entirely if you want.
Global hotkeys
⌘⌥B to pause.
In-overlay shortcuts for accept and snooze. Caesura ships with sensible defaults; you can rebind everything.
Appearance
Light, dark, auto.
Matches your system. Per-break tints stay readable in both. Reduces transparency and motion when you do.
Universal binary
Apple Silicon & Intel.
Signed, notarized, no install scripts. Drop it in /Applications, you're done.
Localized
Thirty-plus languages.
Including the prompts themselves, which are short on purpose. Translations checked by humans, not Google Translate.
Why it exists

My girlfriend Sanne kept reminding me to drink water while I coded. One day she joked that my screen should just lock me out until I drank something. So I built that.

Then I started taking walking breaks, so I added those. Then I got diagnosed with bilateral elbow tendinopathy from too much typing, so I added wrist stretches. Then breathing, posture, eye breaks.

People who saw it on my Mac asked if they could have it. I spent a few days making it pretty.

That's the whole story.

Thomas · Nijmegen, NL · 2026
One price · one time

Buy it once. Keep it forever.

Caesura · macOS
$15
One-time purchase
  • All six reminders, every detail
  • Overlay, banner and notification styles
  • Smart coalescing & auto-pause
  • Free updates forever
  • No subscription, no account, no telemetry
  • 14-day free trial, no credit card
  • 30-day refund, no questions
Buy for $15
macOS 14+ · 8 MB · Apple Silicon & Intel
Questions

A few honest answers.

Is this based on actual science?
Yes. Every default interval comes from a specific study: hydration, walking, stretching, eye rest, posture, breathing. The Evidence page has the full list, including the things this app won't promise: it won't prevent carpal tunnel, blue-blocking glasses are useless for eye strain, and "sitting is the new smoking" is overstated by about 10x.
Will it interrupt me during meetings?
No. Caesura watches your camera, screen sharing, fullscreen apps, Do Not Disturb, and (optionally) your local calendar. When any of these are active, every timer pauses and picks up where it left off.
What happens when the 14-day trial ends?
There's no card on file, because the trial never asks for one. When it ends, the reminders stop until you buy. Your settings stay saved, so buying any time later just picks up where you left off.
What macOS versions are supported?
macOS 14 Sonoma and later. Universal binary, signed and notarized.
Why no subscription?
Because it's a break reminder, not a service. You buy it, you keep it. Updates are free forever.
Can I customize the intervals?
Yes. Every break has its own interval, its own on/off, and its own presentation style. The defaults come from the literature but they're starting points, not commandments.
How does Caesura compare to Time Out, LookAway, or Stretchly?
Short version: every other app fires reminders independently, so a heavy day means six interruptions piled on top of each other. Caesura merges anything that lands inside a two-minute window into one prompt. See the LookAway comparison for the full breakdown.
Does it sync to my iPhone?
Not yet. Caesura is Mac-only. An iOS companion is on the list but not promised.
Refunds?
30 days, no questions, email me.
Who made this?
One person. Me. Thomas. I'm a Dutch developer living in Nijmegen, NL. You can reach me at [email protected] or @HonestDevIO on X.

Break reminders that don't pile up.

Six clocks for the six things your body keeps asking you to do. They combine when they overlap, pause when you're in a meeting, and stay out of the way otherwise.

Buy for $15or try free for 14 days →
One-time purchase · No card on file · 30-day refund