Dot

A small red light in the corner of your screen. When it’s on, you’re focusing. When it’s off, it’s gone.

That’s it, top right. Press ⌃⌥⌘F or , just as you would in the app.

Get Dot for Mac Free. For macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.

Why a dot

No countdown to watch

A countdown turns every glance into a deadline. Dot only counts up: a small clock beside the dot shows how long you’ve been at it, and the color tells you which mode you’re in.

A light that keeps you honest

When a camera’s recording light is on, you don’t wander off. The red dot works the same way: a quiet signal that this time is set aside.

Breaks on their own

After 25 minutes the dot blinks, chimes softly and turns green. Five minutes later it turns red again. You never have to start or stop anything.

A lock for weak moments

One shortcut pins you to the app you’re working in. ⌘Tab stops working until you let yourself out.

What you’ll see

12:34
FocusRed and pulsing, for 25 minutes. The clock counts up from when you started.
27:10
BreakGreen and breathing slowly, for 5 minutes. Every fourth break lasts 15.
08:12
LockedA ring around the dot. You stay in the app you’re in.

Everything Dot does

FeatureWhat it doesKeysCategory

Your focus, on file

Dot writes every session, phase and lock to a plain file on your Mac, one line per event. Build a dashboard from it, open it in a spreadsheet, or ignore it. It never leaves your computer.

Saved to ~/Library/Application Support/Dot/events.jsonl

{"event":"session_start","time":"2026-09-11T09:00:02-04:00"}
{"event":"phase_end","phase":"focus","seconds":1500,"completed":true}
{"event":"lock_end","app":"Figma","blocked_shortcuts":7,"refocuses":2}
{"event":"session_end","focus_seconds":3000,"pomodoros_completed":2}

Shortened. Each line also includes a session ID, timestamps and more detail.

Download

Install from Terminal

Paste this into Terminal. It puts Dot in your Applications folder and opens it, with no security prompts.

mkdir -p ~/Applications && curl -fsSL https://…/downloads/Dot.tar.gz | tar -xz -C ~/Applications && open ~/Applications/Dot.app

Download the app

Dot isn’t notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open it macOS will stop it. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. You only do this once.

Download Dot 1.1
⌃⌥⌘F
Start or stop a focus session
⌃⌥⌘L
Lock to the app in front, or unlock
⌃⌥⌘⇧F
Quit Dot