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

Platform support

Linux

KDE 6 (on Arch-based distros) support is prioritized. Others may work too.

Sane break uses Qt6, wlr layer shell, and idle notify protocols. In theory it supports:

• X11: all.
• Wayland: compositors supporting wlr layer shell and idle notify protocols, and distros with layer-shell-qt version 6.

Although GNOME does not support these protocols, some special workaround are made so that Sane Break will work with GNOME. 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 (download from the release page if installed from Flathub) with:

gnome-extensions show [email protected]

See Compiling from source for more details about Linux support.

macOS

Both x86 and ARM version of macOS 12 or newer are supported.

Windows

x86 version of Windows 10 or newer is supported. Older versions may work too.

Compiling from source

Sane Break requires Qt>=6.4 for X11 support and Qt>=6.6 for Wayland support. If you are having problems compiling on Linux, please open an issue and attach the version of Qt and other relevant packages used.

Requirements on Arch-based distros

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

yay -S sane-break

If you want to enable just X11 or Wayland support, you are strongly encouraged to install Sane Break by compiling from source. It will automatically enable X11 or Wayland support based on libraries found. For Wayland support, make sure you have layer-shell-qt for Qt6 installed and a compositor supporting wlr layer shell protocol is running.

Required packages for Arch Linux:

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

Requirements on Debian-based distros

Since Sane Break works bes on KDE, it is easy to compile and use it on 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 installing.

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

Use CMake to compile

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

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