Free Chrome extension

“Ten more minutes”
turns into an hour.

Cat Break watches the clock so you don’t have to. Hit your limit and a cat walks onto the page, pauses whatever’s playing, and hangs around until you’ve actually taken a break.

Add to Chrome — it’s free
  • No account
  • No ads
  • Nothing leaves your device
  • Open source

↑ This is the real thing, running right here.

You don’t have a willpower problem.

You have a nothing-interrupts-you problem. Notifications get swiped away in half a second. Hard blockers get uninstalled by Wednesday. What actually works is something you can’t scroll past — and don’t want to.

🔕

A toast notification

Gone before you read it. You dismissed it with your thumb already moving.

🚫

A hard blocker

Feels like punishment. You disable it “just this once” and never turn it back on.

🐈

A cat on your screen

Impossible to ignore, impossible to resent. You look at it, you smile, you get up.

How it works

Three steps, then forget about it.

  1. 1

    Pick your limit

    15, 30, 45, 60, 90 minutes — or anything up to 600. One default for everything, and per-site rules when you want them.

  2. 2

    Browse like normal

    The timer only runs while the tab is actually focused. Switch tabs or apps and it pauses. Background tabs never eat your limit.

  3. 3

    The cat arrives

    Full screen, video paused, countdown running. When your break is up it leaves on its own — or shoo it away early.

Features

Softer than a blocker.
Harder to ignore than a reminder.

Honest timing

It only counts the time you were really there.

Most trackers count a tab as "open." Cat Break counts a tab as focused. Alt-tab to your editor, take a call, walk away — the clock stops. The 45 minutes it reports are 45 minutes you actually spent.

  • Pauses when the tab loses focus
  • Pauses when the whole window loses focus
  • Totals reset at midnight
reddit.com52m
x.com31m
youtube.com18m
Timer paused — tab not focused
Per-site rules

Strict where you need it. Invisible everywhere else.

Give the feeds a 20-minute leash and leave your docs, mail and dashboards alone. Or flip it around: track only the handful of sites that actually get you, and ignore the rest of the internet entirely.

  • Limit by site — per-domain minutes that beat the default
  • Excluded sites — never tracked, never interrupted
  • List-only mode — only the domains you name are timed
instagram.com20 min
news.ycombinator.com30 min
youtube.com45 min
github.comexcluded
mail.google.comexcluded
It handles the video

Your autoplay doesn’t get to keep going.

A break you can hear isn’t a break. When the cat lands, Cat Break pauses what’s playing — including players buried in shadow DOM, like YouTube’s. If a page refuses to pause, it mutes the tab instead. When you’re done, playback picks back up.

Paused for your break — resumes after

You stay in control

The break ends itself. No willpower required.

Set how long the cat stays — a 2-minute stretch or a proper 10. A countdown runs in the corner and the overlay clears on its own. Need out early? Press Esc or shoo it from the popup. It’s a nudge, not a cage.

4:58until it clears

The roster

Nine cats. One shows up.

Pick your favourite, or leave Random cat on and let the break surprise you. Hover any of them to say hello.

Don’t take our word for it.

Trigger a real break, right here on this page. It works exactly like this in your browser.

Press Esc to shoo it away.

Questions

The usual ones.

Is it really free?

Yes. No account, no ads, no paid tier, no upsell. It’s MIT-licensed and the source is on GitHub.

What data do you collect?

None. Settings and daily totals live in chrome.storage on your own machine. There’s no server, no analytics, and no sync. The only thing your browser fetches from us is the cat video itself.

Does it work on every site?

Any normal http or https page. Chrome’s internal pages (chrome://, the Web Store) are off-limits to every extension, including this one.

Do background tabs count against me?

No. The timer only runs while that tab is the active, focused one. Leave twelve tabs open — only the one you’re looking at counts.

Can I limit just one or two sites?

Yes. Add them under Limit by site and turn on Only limit sites on the list below. Everything else is then ignored completely.

What if I genuinely need to keep working?

Press Esc or hit Shoo in the popup and it’s gone. Cat Break is a speed bump, not a lock. That’s the whole point.

Does the timer reset?

Every day at midnight. After a break finishes, that site’s clock also starts fresh.

Go outside. The cat insists.

Two clicks to install. Roughly forty seconds to set up. Then it just lives there, quietly counting.

Add to Chrome — it’s free

Free forever · No account · Works on any site