Sane Break

Sane Break is a cross-platform break reminder designed to help you take meaningful breaks without disrupting your workflow.

   

🤔 Why another break reminder?

Most break reminder apps send notifications before the break is scheduled, but that merely informs me that a break is going to happen, rather than telling me it's happening right now. Even with a warning, when the break actually happens I'm too often deeply focused on a task. Then, the program either forces the break, interrupting my work, or I can use a "skip" or "postpone" button. Accepting abrupt interruption is too harsh, so I tend to click "skip" or "postpone". Then, that becomes an almost instinctive habit, and before I know it, hours have passed without a single break.

In contrast, Sane Break allows me to take ownership of when to stop and break. It starts by providing a gentle, non-intrusive reminder through a flashing window. The break officially begins as soon as I naturally pause after finishing my current task. This way, Sane Break offers the flexibility to wrap up my work and take a break on my terms, rather than forcing an abrupt interruption.

Sane Break aims to strike a balance between respecting your workflow and ensuring you take the breaks you need.

For more details about the motivation behind Sane Break, you can refer to No break reminder works (for me).

Two phase system

Sane Break uses a two-phase system:

• Phase 1: A small, unobtrusive reminder that encourages you to find a good stopping point.
• Phase 2: The reminder grows to full screen during the actual break.

Transition to phase 2 happens when you stop working on your computer, or when you ignore the reminder and keep working for too long (configurable).

This design was inspired by RSIBreak and has similarities to WorkRave. Sane Break has some other improvements:

• No big buttons for skipping or postponing to avoid mindless dismissals.
• Cross-platform support
• modern framework and UI style built with Qt6

🎬 Demo video

sane-break-demo.mp4

📷 Screenshots

Installation

macOS

Download macOS .dmg file from the release page. It is a universal bundle and both x86 and ARM version of macOS 12 or newer are supported.

Windows

Download Windows .exe executable from the release page. x86 version of Windows 10 or newer is supported. Older versions may work too.

Linux

Sane Break requires Qt>=6.4 for X11 support and Qt>=6.6 for Wayland support. It works best on KDE Wayland, and X11 is also fully supported. Sane Break will also work with Wayland compositors with wlr layer shell and idle notify protocols support. Although GNOME Wayland does not support these protocols, some special workaround are made so that Sane Break will work with GNOME.

Precompiled packages

Flatpak

Sane Break can be installed from Flathub with

flatpak install flathub io.github.AllanChain.sane-break

Note that if you are using GNOME, please download the GNOME shell extension for Sane Break from the release page and run:

gnome-extensions install sane-break-gnome-extension.zip
gnome-extensions enable [email protected]

You may need to logout and login from the Wayland session to make the extension work.

.deb packages

If you are using Ubuntu 24.10 (and above) or Debian Trixie (and above), you can install the .deb package directly from the release page since v0.6.0. And make sure to enable the GNOME shell extension with:

gnome-extensions enable [email protected]

The difference between Wayland Ubuntu Oracular build and Debian Trixie build is the layer shell support. If you are using a Debian-based distro and a Wayland compositor with layer shell protocol support (e.g. KDE Neon), you probably need the Debian Trixie build. Otherwise, the Ubuntu Oracular build is good to go.

Compiling from source

Assume all required packages described below is installed, you can use the following commands to compile and install Sane Break.

git clone https://github.com/AllanChain/sane-break
cd sane-break
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --parallel
sudo cmake --install .

The above command will automatically enable X11 or Wayland support based on libraries found. You can disable X11 or Wayland support using the option -DAUTO_ENABLE_X11=OFF or -DAUTO_ENABLE_WAYLAND=OFF during cmake.

To build with translations, add -DWITH_TRANSLATIONS=1 and install qt6-tools package (name may vary across distros).

Arch-based distros

For Arch-based distros, it's recommended to directly install the AUR package:

yay -S sane-break

If you want to build it manually, make sure the following packages are installed:

yay -S qt6-base qt6-multimedia
yay -S libxss # X support
yay -S layer-shell-qt # Wayland support

If you want to enable just X11 or Wayland support, you are strongly encouraged to install Sane Break by compiling from source.

Debian-based distros

For KDE users (e.g. KDE Neon), just install

apt install qt6-base-dev qt6-multimedia-dev
apt install libxss-dev # X support
apt install qt6-wayland-dev liblayershellqtinterface-dev # Wayland support

For GNOME users, liblayershellqtinterface-dev is optional, and please make sure to enable the GNOME shell extension [email protected] after building and installing Sane Break.

Others

For Guix (see also #23):

guix shell --container make cmake gcc-toolchain pkg-config vulkan-headers \
  qtbase@6 qtmultimedia \
  libxkbcommon libxscrnsaver libx11 \  # X support
  layer-shell-qt qtwayland@6 wayland   # Wayland support

FAQ

How to exit?

Right-click the menu icon and hover over the "Postpone" menu. The "Quit" menu is there. This design is intended to make users think twice about whether they want to postpone breaks or really quit the software.

How to start Sane Break on startup?

• Linux: Whatever way you like
• macOS: Open "System Preferences" and search for "Login Items". Click "+" and add Sane Break to login items
• Windows: Use Win + R and type shell:startup. Put sane-break.exe or its shortcut there

Will Sane Break pause when I'm away?

Yes, Sane Break will automatically pause and stop prompting breaks if there is no user input for a configurable amount of time, determined by the "Pause if idle for" setting. Additionally, if the idle time extends beyond a certain threshold, Sane Break will reset the break timer and break cycle, starting from a small break. These thresholds can be configured using the "Reset break after paused for" and "Reset cycle after paused for" settings.

Note for Wayland (and possibly other platforms): Some applications, such as mpv, simulate user inputs to prevent the computer from sleeping automatically. Sane Break cannot distinguish between simulated and real inputs, so it will treat these simulations as active use. This means breaks can still occur while watching videos.

Where are settings stored?

The default locations for settings are:

• On Linux and macOS: ~/.config/SaneBreak/SaneBreak.ini
• On Windows: %APPDATA%\SaneBreak\SaneBreak.ini

Beside default locations, Qt also supports reading settings from other locations.

If you want to make Sane Break portable, especially on Windows, you can put an empty file named SaneBreak.ini next to the .exe file and Sane Break will automatically pick that file for settings.

What if I really want to skip a break?

You can postpone or quit via tray icon within a short time even after the break starts.

However, if you really want to quit when Sane Break is set to fullscreen, you can kill the app via system command line. For example:

• KDE: Enable KRunner with Alt + Space and run killall sane-break
• macOS: Enable Spotlight with Cmd + Space, open Terminal, and run killall sane-break
• Windows: Press Win + R and run taskkill /IM sane-break /F