Focusmaxxing
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Get focusmaxxing

Three parts. Take the ones you want — the extension and the Windows app talk to each other, and the phone stands on its own.

Chrome extension

Blocks sites and single features inside them, blocks ads, and blocks adult sites. Needs Chrome 116 or newer. It is not on the Chrome Web Store yet, so it goes on by hand — four steps, and you only do them once.

Download the extension
  1. Unzip the file you just downloaded. Keep the folder somewhere you will not delete it.
  2. Open a new tab and go to chrome://extensions.
  3. Turn on Developer mode, top right.
  4. Click Load unpacked and pick the folder you unzipped.
  5. Pin the icon to your toolbar.

Windows app

The same switches as the extension and it owns them — change one here and the extension follows. It also blocks programs on the computer, runs a pomodoro of up to 999 days, and has a clock with a stopwatch, a timer and alarms.

Windows 10 or 11. It installs for you alone, with no administrator step, and a newer one run over it updates in place. The file is 310 MB, so it is kept on GitHub. The installer is not signed yet, so Windows may say it protected your PC: click More info, then Run anyway.

Download for Windows (0.14.0)

iPhone

You get Instagram and YouTube with the switches built in, and an app that holds the switches. Everything starts blocked. Turning a block off works the same as everywhere else: open the app, sit through the wait.

You need a Windows computer once, and your own Apple ID. Apple only lets an app installed this way run for seven days at a time, so the app on your phone renews itself in the background — it needs a free helper from the App Store to do that, and it walks you through getting it.

More than two custom blocked apps need your own paid Apple Developer account, bought from Apple. Focusmaxxing does not provide one.

Download Focusmaxxing Setup
  1. On your computer, open Focusmaxxing Setup and plug in your phone.
  2. Sign in with your Apple ID. Focusmaxxing appears on your phone.
  3. On your phone, open Focusmaxxing and sign in with the same Apple ID.
  4. Tap Get the helper. The App Store opens; tap Get, come back, tap Allow.
  5. Tap Install on Instagram and YouTube. Done.

Two extra files

Neither is needed to use focusmaxxing. They are here because the instructions ask for them.

Family DNS profile (iPhone) Extension lock (Mac)

The DNS profile points your phone at Cloudflare's family resolver, which is the second half of the adult-websites block. Open it in Safari, not Chrome — only Safari offers to install it. The lock file stops the extension being removed from Chrome on a Mac; on Windows that is a registry line instead.