Best Screen Time alternative for Mac

Where Screen Time wins

Screen Time is already on every Mac, iPhone and iPad signed into your Apple ID, and it costs nothing. You set App Limits for an app or a category, schedule Downtime for the hours you want the device quiet, and the same limits follow you across devices through iCloud. With Family Sharing it becomes a parental control: a parent holds the passcode, the child gets the limits, and the usage reports show where the hours went. Those reports are genuinely good. Per-app and per-category breakdowns, daily averages, pickup counts, all without installing anything. If what you want is built-in Apple ecosystem limits that span your phone and your Mac, recurring schedules that run on their own, or controls for a device that belongs to someone else, Screen Time is the right tool and Focuh is not built for any of that.

Where Focuh wins

Focuh is an ADHD todo list for Mac and web. Today sits next to Google Calendar. Week is the week. Loops are standing to-dos with no date: you pull a copy onto today and the loop stays. Goals are the one win for the horizon. Screen Time has no list, no calendar and no timer, so it can tell you that you spent three hours in a browser but it cannot tell you what today was supposed to be. The Focuh focus timer starts from a task, so the session already knows what it is for, and the blocklist is part of that session rather than a limit that resets at midnight. On Mac the blocklist is enforced at the system level, so it covers Safari, Firefox, Arc and Chrome at once, where the Screen Time website limits hold reliably in Safari and leak the moment you open the same site in another browser. Apps are covered too, so Slack, Discord and Messages go quiet for the length of the session, with no One More Minute prompt to tap through. Focuh also syncs the same list between the Mac app and the web app, so the plan is there on any machine even where the Mac blocker is not.

Price: Screen Time is built into macOS at no cost. Focuh is free. Early beta. No subscription. Neither one asks for a card, so the choice is about what you need, not what you pay.

Who should pick which

Pick Screen Time if you want limits that live inside the Apple ecosystem: App Limits and Downtime on a schedule, the same rules on your iPhone and your Mac, usage reports, and parental controls for a family Apple ID. Pick Focuh if you are on Mac and the leak is the day itself: you need Today next to GCal, a week view, loops that wait until you pull them, and a blocker that holds across every browser and app on the machine while the timer runs, with the same list waiting in the web app. They cover different problems, so many people run both. Screen Time on the phone for the evenings and the kids, Focuh on the Mac for the hours you actually need to get work done.

Want the full side-by-side, with the feature table and FAQ? Read Focuh vs Screen Time.