Truly automated focus
The focus app for Mac and Windows that watches when you work and keeps you on task by itself.
You lose 553 hours of working time every year to distractions. It’s time to fix that.
Non-managers lose 553 hours a year, managers 683. Economist Impact for Dropbox, 2023
All automatic.
Other focus apps make you set things to block, manually start or schedule sessions, and hard block your apps. Focen adapts to you, and starts sessions by itself based on how you work.
Session starts in
2:58
Visual Studio Code
The session starts by itself
You don’t set any timers, and don’t have to start or schedule sessions yourself. Focen watches as you work, and starts the sessions for you.
Currently on
figma.com
AI handles the sites you’ve never visited
Since you’re always going to new sites, a pre-set blocklist doesn’t work. Focen solves this, using AI to classify sites as distracting or not.
History
Focen learns from your past sessions
Focen learns how long you usually work before you stop, so it knows when to end the session.
Currently on
youtube.com
Breathing room during your session
When you open a distraction, Focen pulses and gives you some time before bringing you back.
All your devices
Focen runs on your Mac or Windows PC and carries the session to your iPhone, so you can’t switch devices to get away when you drift.
Open a work app and Focen starts a session on its own after 5 minutes of active work.
Private by design.
No page contents read
Focen reads the name of the window in front of you and the address of the tab you are on, and never what is on the page.
What AI classification sends
What leaves your machine is the address and title of a page Focen has not classified before, and the kind of work you do if you set it. You can switch it off in Settings, and everything else is on-device.
figma.com
work
Local first
Almost everything that decides what happens runs on your machine.
FAQ
Why would this work when nothing else has?
Because it does not ask you to decide anything. By the time you would have to choose to stop, Focen has already started the session, already knows the tab is a distraction, and parks it for you. There is nothing to remember at the one moment you will not.
How is Focen different from Cold Turkey, Freedom, or SelfControl?
Those wait for you. You build the blocklist, you set the timer, you press start. Focen works out what is work and what is not while you are working, and acts in the moment. Tell it once when it gets a site wrong and it remembers.
What happens when I open something distracting?
Nothing, at first. The dot goes amber and you get a moment, because a ten second glance is not the problem. Stay there and it flashes red, then parks the tab and puts you back where you were. The tab comes back when the session ends.
Who is it for?
Students, people with ADHD, and anyone whose work happens in the same window as everything that interrupts it. It was written by a student who could not focus.
What is the best focus app for students?
The hard part is not picking one, it is turning it on. Focen starts itself when you start working, so nothing depends on you remembering. It runs on Mac and Windows, with an iPhone app, and starts with a 7-day free trial.
Is Focen free?
Focen is a subscription at $2.88 a week ($149.99 a year) or $19.99 a month, and one subscription covers Mac, Windows and iPhone. Every new account starts with a 7-day free trial. On a computer you start it in the app after signing in; a card is entered then and nothing is charged until the trial ends. On iPhone the trial runs through the App Store.
Does Focen work on Windows?
Yes. A menu-bar app on macOS, a tray app on Windows. The same behaviour on both.
Does Focen block YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok?
Yes, and whatever else you drift to during a session. Focen also sorts sites nobody ever put on a list, which are usually the ones you would not have thought to add. YouTube is judged one video at a time, so a lecture you need stays open.
Is Focen private?
Focen is local-first. What you do on your computer is processed and stored on your device. To label a page it has not seen before, Focen sends the site address, page title, and the kind of work you do (if you set it) to the classifier; you can switch that off in Settings. Your browsing history and the contents of a page never leave your device. On our servers we keep your email, plan, and trial status.
Focen is on 0.8.18, released 27 September 2026.
Read the changelog