selfcontrolapp / selfcontrol

:skull: Mac app to block your own access to distracting websites etc for a predetermined period of time. It can not be undone by the app or by a restart – you must wait for the timer to run out.

SelfControl

About

SelfControl is a free and open-source application for macOS that lets you block your own access to distracting websites, your mail servers, or anything else on the Internet. Just set a period of time to block for, add sites to your blocklist, and click "Start Block". Until that timer expires, you will be unable to access those sites—even if you restart your computer or delete the application.

Credits

Developed by Charlie Stigler, Steve Lambert, and others. Your contributions very welcome!

SelfControl is now available in 12 languages thanks to the fine translators credited here.

License

SelfControl is free software under the GPL. See this file for more details.

Building For Development

Users should always download the latest version of SelfControl from our website. If you want to contribute to SelfControl, you'll need to learn to build it for development. This can only be done on a Mac running a modern version of macOS.

1. Clone the SelfControl repo from GitHub.
2. Make sure you have a recent version of Xcode and the Xcode command-line tools installed.
3. Install CocoaPods: sudo gem install cocoapods
4. Install the SelfControl dependencies using CocoaPods: pod install
5. Open the selfcontrol.xcworkspace file (NOT selfcontrol.xcodeproj)
6. Build and run (you may need to update/remove code signing settings to make it build properly)

selfcontrol's Issues

Tutorial/popup guide on first run

Some users have trouble figuring out how to use SelfControl at first, we probably should have some sort of popup window or tutorial telling users how to use it on their first run.

Blacklisting a domain doesn't block subdomains

If I block twitter.com then api.twitter.com and userstream.twitter.com are still accessible.
Is this the intended behavior?
If so, is it possible to support wildcards on the blacklist like *.twitter.com?

I blocked youtube and can't access my thesis on docs.google.com

So, I recently added youtube to my blacklist, and now I can't access google docs. This wouldn't be too big of an issue, but my thesis (which is due tomorrow) is solely on google.docs and I really need to finish it! Is there any way to override this issue? Even if there's a way to bypass self-control altogether. I'm quite desperate, so any info would be greatly appreciated!

Capability to blacklist folders

It would be nice to have a way of blacklisting offline distractions.. like for example the tvshows folder :)

Blocking a lot of unintented sites

I'm not sure how this brilliant app works, but it tends to block a lot of sites that I have not blacklisted. It seems if I block youtube.com, then many other google-sites wont work, including blogspot.com. Is it because they reside on the same ip?

Now some site on my list is blocking istockphoto.com, even though I have never blocked that one.

Posting here since the other ticket-system is unavailable.

Add block scheduling and/or "Pomodoro Mode"

Would be good to have a way to schedule a block in the future (with no ability to unset them, obviously).

Does not work with IPv6

Should not allow visiting blacklisted sites if you're on IPv6.

Blocking any google subdomain blocks all of google

I added plus.google.com, along with facebook.com and twitter.com to my block list, and now cannot access

google.com, code.google.com, or docs.google.com. Oddly this behavior began part way through a block period( so I'm not sure why it's not working) and I have no clue how to restore access to these applications.

selfcontrol not setting time more then 4 min?

hi, i am using self control for few days, now facing one problem its not setting timer more then 4 min for first time i set time for 9 hours for testing and shutdown my mac, but now every time i have to reset it again and again may be its bug or something wrong with application any suggestion how i can increase time

Error -204

I have this problem when click start : Error -204: Could not write launchd plist file to LaunchDaemons folder.
How can i fix? Thanks

selfcontrol extended its own time

I have no clue how it happened, but SelfControl just extended its blocking time from 1 hour to 240 hours. I'm ind of freaking out here. Is there any way to decrease the time or something?

Improve the slider or add another method to set the amount of time [feature request]

The slider looks nice and works, but if one wants to use SelfControl for a very short time span, it's unuable. The shortest amount I was able to determine was 15 minutes. But what if I just want to write a mail for 10 minutes and still make sure I don't visit any sites or get stuck clicking on twitter links and the like?

Not sure how to solve this.
a) Change the slider, so that in the beginning the time span is shorter (make it unlinear).
b) add a field to enter the minutes that SelfControl shall be active

Thanks for this great tool :)

self control upgrade 'not supported on this architecture'

Love Self Control. Installed the latest upgrade and now it won't work anymore. Am very sad. My computer is ancient but still within the window of viable operating systems. Help?

Error -204

I've been getting this message for a while and have tried everything I possibly know (I don't know computer code). I saw the issue simonini posted earlier this month but his solution still didn't help me. Any help would be much appreciated

Let 'Add to Blacklist' button added sites not take effect until next session

At least on my old PowerPC, then using the 'Add to Blacklist' button while a SelfControl session is up an running, will cause all the blockings to be lifted for some minutes. Steps to reproduce.

1. Start a SelfControl blacklist session
2. Visit www.timeconsumingwebsite.example.com
3. Click the Add to Blacklist button and add www.timeconsumingwebsite.example.com

ACTUAL RESULT: One gets asked to enter one's administrative password, upon which SelfControl lifs the blocking, adds the new site to the blacklist and then restarts its blocking process. On my computer, the restarting process takes considerable table, and it opens a small window of time - which is not so small on my slow computer - when it is possible visit any site on the blacklist.

EXPECTED RESULT: That SelfControl simply stores the sites I had and actually use them for blacklisting in the next session. At least, this behaviour should be a possible option in SelfControl's preference.

BTW, as is, SelfControl's behaviour has had me use these loopholes ... which isn't how it was meant to work.

Counter display does not count down

Regularly, the counter display fails to count down: it gets stuck at pretty much the time it comes up.

The actual blocking does expire, presumably after the time specified.

OS X Lion, SelfControl 1.4.

Breaks page styling in Firefox

Something I've noticed is that when I start SelfControl, some sites (Google, for example) look messed up and are missing images, CSS styling, etc. I figured that this was due to IPs being shared, but I just tried Safari and Chrome, and this issue is non existent in either.

Post New Build for Download?

Hey team. The most recent published build is from 2010. Are there plans to release a more recent build with new bugfixes and features? I just spent an hour trying to build from d0069a0 on 10.7 with Xcode4 without any luck.

FYI, I needed to switch to LLVM-GCC and 10.5, but I got hung up on a build script error about needing to be building in Release mode when everything indicated that I was indeed building a release. Unfortunately I just deleted the repository, so I have no more info than that.

Feature request: Pomodoro mode

As described here:

http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

Problem in Lion

I am trying to run Self Control under Lion. It worked beautifully until I upgraded to Lion.

When I open the program, I get a small window that almost looks like an Adobe Air window rather than the window I had previously gotten. The timer is at zero. There are no buttons, sliders, etc., to set a session, except an "add to blacklist" button. This is the only window I am getting. I am not getting the one where I set the session length, etc. Looked at the FAQ and through this forum in the hopes that this problem has occurred to others and that maybe there was a fix. Any help you can provide would be deeply appreciated. This program is critical for my productivity.

Long time start

Migrating from here:
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/selfcontrol-app/ticket/459

Basically folks are saying that with 10.6.4 SelfControl is taking a long time after hitting the start button.

ability to add time to current timer

I would like to add more time to the timer instead of waiting for the timer to finish.

Timer stuck at 00:00

THIS IS A KNOWN ISSUE - see the FAQ in the wiki for a fix
https://github.com/slambert/selfcontrol/wiki/FAQ

Ticket migrated from here (check link for history)
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/selfcontrol-app/ticket/340

Add keyboard shortcut for +, or make it obvious there exists one.

See title.

new to this---can't find the application on mac running leopard

I've had to download this 4 times and start it from there inorder to pull up the timer...How do I fix this?

add a new site to blacklist, able to access blocked adress for <5 minutes

migrated ticket:
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/selfcontrol-app/ticket/471

Johannes Länström adds:
only a few of the sites on my blacklist goes back to being blocked the rest remains unblocked for the remaining time.

selfcontrol not setting time more then 4 min?

have looking on my 4 timer issue

http://gyazo.com/0f911a3f2f8b5a3c486c53dd1de29951

Error -201: Helper Tool must be run as root.

I'm not the most skilled programmer, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make the helper tools run as root. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

Changing date/time can bypass block / cause it to end early

Changing the computer clock totally eliminates selfcontrol blocks. Any way to have this not happen?

Thanks

Countdown hangs on OS X 10.7 Lion

The blocking itself is working fine, but the countdown always stops a few seconds after it was initiated. By quitting and starting the application again the counter starts working.

blocks google things like translate feature etc without being on blacklist

Hi! Firstly let me say thank you so much for this app, it's amazing! Uni students everywhere owe you a great deal. When I actually get a decent degree instead of being proficient at the art of youtube I will donate tonnes of money from my really good job. (fingers crossed). However, I was just wondering - when SelfControl is on it seems I can't access certain google-related features. Like google books or google translate etc - without anything google-related being on the blacklist. However, I think -think mind you- that if running it without anything on blacklist this doesn't happen.
Is it possible at all that because youtube is on my blacklist (and I know the two are related) this happens? Is there any way around it? Annoyingly it doesn't seem to happen all the time so I can't be all Poirot about it.
Also - is Growl to do with you guys?
I'm not sure what version I'm running though - can only do time in 15mins blocks so older I think. I should upgrade but selfcontrol is running ha.
Thanks
J

YouTube page disrupted even when not blacklisted and when timer is up.

This happens regularly for me. It's not usually a problem, although if I'm really craving YouTube, it's irritating to have to wait for it to return to normal.

I set my Self Control for six hours today, that ended a little over an hour ago. My target was, of course, Facebook. Even after the timer has finished, I am unable to access YouTube, which was not blacklisted along with FB earlier today. The way this happens is, the normal YT layout is... I want to say broken or old-school, as in before advanced coding. It kind of looks like the fancy features or appearances don't apply throughout the entire site, and all of the videos have a "Watch Later Error" button displayed beneath them. If items or links are usually displayed horizontally, they're now listed down the left side of the page vertically. And if you can imagine that the links usually have the appearance of fancy buttons, they now simply look like blue links with a blue underline that changes color to a lighter blue when scrolled over. It's very old-school looking. This happens every time the app ends (after the set time ends) and lasts for a few hours. Sometimes it happens to Facebook as well.

It's not a big deal, but it is something I would appreciate acquiring a fix to in the future.

Banning news.google.com (reader.google.com) adds the the IP of www.google.com to ipfw.

Losing the search engine is annoying, but my main problem is that gmail also uses www.google.com for authentication, and as a consequence, I can't access my mail anymore (I know, I could set up a mail client, but I really like the web interface).

Is there anything I can do to prevent this?

Unable to edit blacklist

I just downloaded the application, but when I click the "Edit Blacklist" button, select it from the drop-down, or press ⌘D nothing happens.

SelfControl uses loopback address for 'blocking' domains

ATM domains blocked by SelfControl are directed to the loopback address 127.0.0.1 - this is a problem if you have something listening on 127.0.0.1 and expects sane (non http) requests. It is better to use 0.0.0.0 or some other blackhole address than doesn't direct to a possibly used IP. Instead of using /etc/hosts to block sites it would be worthwhile to use Berkley Packet Filter (pf) to block sites. This works on a lower level and is harder for people to undo ;)

Pages Take A While To Load, Even After Timer Ends

The timer for Self-Control has ended, but sometimes I'll be unable to access sites I've blocked as well as other sites I haven't blocked. Now it's possible that this is just an internet issue, so I was wondering if there was some sure fire-way to make sure SelfControl isn't blocking my internet anymore.

SelfControl is polluting system.log

Hi, I'm seeing this in my system.log:

Aug  9 11:27:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5358]: INFO: Checkup ran, no action needed.
Aug  9 11:27:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5358]: INFO: Checkup ran, no action needed.
Aug  9 11:27:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5358]: 0
Aug  9 11:28:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5367]: INFO: Checkup ran, no action needed.
Aug  9 11:28:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5367]: INFO: Checkup ran, no action needed.
Aug  9 11:28:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5367]: 0
Aug  9 11:29:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5370]: INFO: Checkup ran, no action needed.
Aug  9 11:29:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5370]: INFO: Checkup ran, no action needed.
Aug  9 11:29:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5370]: 0
Aug  9 11:30:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5382]: INFO: Checkup ran, no action needed.
Aug  9 11:30:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5382]: INFO: Checkup ran, no action needed.
Aug  9 11:30:45 laptop3 org.eyebeam.SelfControl[5382]: 0

Essentially, every minute SelfControl writes 3 lines... Is there a way to quiet it down?

doesn't work well behind a proxy

(Title was: Doesn't seem to work under Mac OS 10.6.8)

After populating the blacklist and starting the application for 15 minutes, I seem to be able to access the sites on the list with 3 different browsers (safari, firefox, chrome).

I also tried entering various types of urls of the same page like (gizmodo.com , *.gizmodo.com , http://gizmodo.com , www.gizmodo.com etc etc)

When I open the hosts file i can see the selfcontrol urls like

BEGIN SELFCONTROL BLOCK

127.0.0.1 gizmodo.com
127.0.0.1 www.gizmodo.com
127.0.0.1 blog.gizmodo.com
127.0.0.1 www.blog.gizmodo.com
127.0.0.1 google.com
127.0.0.1 www.google.com

END SELFCONTROL BLOCK

Any suggestions ?

Edit : I found out that my /etc/hosts file is ignored by all my browsers. Ping and traceroute seems to honor it but no luck with browsers. So I guess its not SelfControl's problem. Sorry for the ticket.

Error -208

I installed Self Control on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.6.8. However every time I try to run I receive the error: "Error -208 Could not copy Selfcontrol's helper binary to PriviledgedHelperTools directory".

How do I fix this?

Thanks.

Capability to blacklist applications

Would be nice to have a way of blacklisting offline distractions... like video players or games

Panic button to block everything

When you need to completely cut the cord for a while, would be nice to be able to hit the button and be forced to do so :)

Some pages still blocked after timer ends

Hi guys,

Loving the app. Thanks very much!

One thing I noticed last night that a few of the sites in my blacklist were still blocked after the timer had ended. Its OS X 10.6.

Thanks!

Christian

multiple timers and blacklists

Yeah, this probably sounds unreasonable. What I experience though is that there are sites which I find more disruptive than others and for different reasons. It'd be great if I could run two timers, eg. a 24 hour block for the sites which hurt me most, and a 1 hour block for sites that I just need to block for a short while.

Probably goes against the simplicity of the Self-Control UI though

Self Control for iPhone

I was wondering who I should talk to about trying to get an iPhone version of this app. It is extremely useful on a Mac, but with an iPhone readily available it loses quite a bit of its impact. My blockage must be COMPLETE. I know Steve Lambert is not interested in modifying or porting the program, I was wondering if I could find people who are. (In the interest of full disclosure, I know absolutely nothing about coding, programming or anything of the sort.)

Also, is there a way to disable websites for longer than a day? (Like, say, a week?)

Error -60031

I keep on receiving the message: "Error -60031 received from the Security Server" when attempting to start SelfControl.
I put the software into the application folder. I am not a coder so I eon't be able to tweak much manually. Any suggestions, as concrete as possible, on what I can do to make it work? Thanks!

Swedish translation contains German

Reported to me via email. Looks like some German slipped into the Swedish translation, making it a horrible hodgepodge of three languages.

people want a Windows Version

No one I know is motivated to make it, but if someone else did that would be fine.

migrated this ticket from here - read link for history.
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/selfcontrol-app/ticket/242

Growl notifications when Self Control Period ends

http://growl.info/about.php

I 'think' it should be an easy thing to add though I am unfamiliar with objC code. My thought is that you would only need to implement the bit that fires the message when the self control period ends.

You probably would not even need to add a checkbox to the preferences if you didn't want to, since you could disable the notifications from the Growl panel
http://growl.info/images/PreferencesWindow.png

http://growl.info/documentation/developer/introduction.php

adding rss feeds in safari to a block

Blocking URLs does not block their associated RSS feeds in Safari. That’d be helpful.

Migrating from old ticket system http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/selfcontrol-app/ticket/451

grayed-out start button?

Just bought a new MacBook Pro, running 10.6.7, installed SelfControl and can't seem to start it. Text on start button is gray, can't click it. Feel like I'm missing something really obvious here.... Help?