Stoiq for Mac
A witness, not a judge.
Stoiq is an accountability app with the punishment removed: a small companion on your Mac who knows what you planned today, keeps you company while you do it, and comes to get you when you drift.
No fines. No streaks. No disappointed robot. What you said you’d do is remembered; what you didn’t do is never held against you.
free to start · no stakes, no shame · macOS 14 or later
what are we doing today?
The landscape
Accountability comes in three shapes.
A person watching (Focusmate, Flow Club — real, social, scheduled). Money on the line (Beeminder, Forfeit — effective if fear moves you). Or a streak that breaks. All three work by making failure expensive.
Stoiq is a fourth shape: make returningcheap instead of making failure expensive. A witness who’s glad you’re back is one you’ll actually come back to — which is the whole game, because accountability apps don’t fail in week one, they fail in week three, when opening them starts to feel like a court date. If the human version is your shape, here’s the honest comparison.
What the witness does
Seen, planned, kept — daily.
The morning question.
“What are we doing today?” — you answer once, and the pile becomes an ordered day with one clear first thing.
Presence through the block.
He sits with you for the length you choose. Your distracting sites are held quietly out of the way until it ends — company, not surveillance: he can’t read your screen.
The comeback, witnessed.
Drift, and he appears in the tab with the way back. Returns are what the app actually records — the stat it keeps is comebacks, not crimes.
Progress you can point at.
Kept sessions grow the plant in his corner and fill a week you can look at without flinching. Nothing decays while you’re gone.
Questions
Asked plainly.
What is an accountability partner app?
An app that gives your intentions a witness. Some match you with a real person over video (Focusmate, Flow Club), some put money on the line (Beeminder, Forfeit), some use streaks. Stoiq's version is a companion on your Mac who knows what you planned today, is present while you work, and interrupts kindly when a distracting site takes over.
How does Stoiq hold you accountable without punishment?
Two ingredients: a witness and a return path. Each morning he asks what you're doing today; during a block he's there; when you drift to a listed site he appears in the tab and offers the way back. There is no fine, no streak to lose, and no guilt message — the record of your day is kept, never weaponized.
Isn't accountability without stakes toothless?
Stakes work for some people, and Beeminder-style apps do that well. Stoiq's design bet is different: that being seen — by something you like — changes the moment more reliably than being fined, and that punishment is why most accountability apps get deleted in week three. The product never shames you, so there's no reason to avoid opening it after a bad day.
Is it a to-do app or a focus app?
Both halves exist because accountability needs both: a morning check-in that turns the pile into an ordered day, and focus blocks where the companion keeps you company and your listed distractions are held out of the way. Progress is recorded when you actually keep your place, not when time merely passes.
What if I prefer a real human?
Then book one — Focusmate is a genuinely good service, and we compare it with Stoiq honestly. The human version brings social pressure at a scheduled time; Stoiq brings company at every unscheduled time, which is where most of the week actually happens.
Keep reading
Try it
Tell someone what today is for.
Stoiq doesn’t assess you and never tells you what kind of person you are. It can’t read your screen, and everything it knows stays on your Mac.