Stoiq for Mac
The scroll ends when someone shows up.
Stoiq is a Mac app that interrupts doomscrolling without shame: a small companion climbs into the tab, says something kind, and offers the way back to the thing you sat down to do.
No screen-time report. No streak to lose. No red numbers about your week. Just company, arriving at the exact moment the feed took over.
free to start · no shame mechanics · macOS 14 or later
that was a good one honestly. okay — back?
The moment
You know the moment.
You opened it for one thing. The thumb kept moving. It’s been forty minutes, the document is still behind the feed, and the feeling arriving now isn’t rest — it’s the specific heaviness of time you didn’t choose to spend.
Every app in this category knows that moment. Most of them respond with a wall and a lecture. Stoiq’s answer is different in kind: somebody small shows up inside the scroll, glad to see you, holding your place.
How it works
An interruption, not a prison.
You name the feeds.
Tell Stoiq which sites eat your hours — the list is yours, edited anytime, and it syncs to the Chrome extension automatically.
First visits bring him, not a wall.
Drift mid-block and the companion climbs into the tab itself — a line, a face, and a button that takes you back to exactly what you were doing.
The wall comes later, and politely.
Keep returning and the page is held back until the block ends — with your task and its next step named on the screen instead of a lecture.
There’s always a door.
A timed pass, a real break, or choosing to stay — allowed, every time. Leaving the feed becomes the easy path, not the forbidden one.
Outside work hours, it’s optional.
A workday setting can check in on listed sites after a few minutes — snoozable, capped per day, and off by default outside the hours you choose.
Nothing is counted against you.
No streaks, no guilt math, no weekly report card. Come back after a bad week and nothing is lost — the plant in his corner only ever grows.
On your phone instead? one sec and ScreenZen are genuinely good at the pocket half of this problem. Stoiq is the desktop half — the machine the essay is due on — with company instead of a countdown.
Questions
Asked plainly.
How does Stoiq stop doomscrolling?
You tell Stoiq which sites eat your time. During a focus block, the first couple of visits bring the companion instead of a wall — he climbs into the tab, says something kind, and offers to take you back to what you were doing. Keep going and the page itself is held back until the block ends. Outside focus hours, an optional workday setting checks in on listed sites after a few minutes, gently.
Does it shame you or show scary screen-time numbers?
No. There are no streaks, no guilt messages, no tally of wasted minutes, and the companion never scolds. The app's position is that you already know how the scroll feels — what's missing at that moment is company and a way back, not a report.
Can I still open the sites I've listed?
Yes. Stoiq is an interruption, not a prison: there's always a way through — a timed pass, a break, or simply choosing to stay. The point is that leaving the feed becomes the easy path, not the forbidden one.
Is this for phones or computers?
Stoiq is a native Mac app with a Chrome extension; the doomscrolling it interrupts is the desktop kind — the tab that swallows the work hour. For phone-first interruption, one sec and ScreenZen are genuinely good; Stoiq is the one where somebody keeps you company on the machine you work on.
What is doomscrolling, exactly?
Doomscrolling is continuing to scroll a feed long past the point of enjoying it — usually news or short video, usually while something else was supposed to be happening. The word arrived around 2020; the experience is older than the word.
Keep reading
Try it
Next time, someone comes to get you.
Stoiq can’t read your screen — no keystrokes, no screenshots, no content. It knows the sites you listed and nothing else, and everything it knows stays on your Mac.