Kiri is a gentle timer for the apps you lose time in. When your daily time is up, mist covers the screen. Wipe it away, take one breath, and decide what's next.
A demo of Kiri on Android, where the timer hangs over the app.
Choose the app you open without thinking, and how long it gets each day. Fifteen minutes is a good start.
Kiri counts only while you're in the app. Leave, and the timer stops. Come back, and it picks up where it was.
When the time is up, mist covers the screen. Wipe it away, breathe once, and choose: done, or two more minutes.
Every day you stay within your time, a pebble lands in your garden. Seven make a stone. You never lose one.
Because the block is the first thing you learn to get around.
One tap and the limit is gone. After a week your thumb does it before you've read the words.
It works until the day you really need the app. Then you switch the blocker off, and it tends to stay off.
Nothing is locked. Clearing the mist takes a few seconds of your attention, which is often enough to ask whether you still want to be here. If you do, keep going.
Some people do need a hard block. Kiri is the wrong app for that, and we say which apps do it well.
Screenshots from Kiri for Android.
Each system allows different things, so Kiri looks a little different on each. Here is exactly what you get.
Kiri uses Apple's Screen Time. When your time is up, a soft shield covers the app. Tap “Clear the mist”, then the notification, and you wipe and breathe inside Kiri. The timer can sit in the Dynamic Island and on a home screen widget. iPhone apps can't draw over other apps, so there is no hanging hourglass here.
A small hourglass hangs at the top of the app you picked, and the sand falls while you use it. The mist arrives right there, over the app, and you wipe it with your finger.
The timer hangs on the app's own window. With the Kiri extension for Safari, Chrome, Brave, Edge or Arc it works for websites too, so youtube.com can have fifteen minutes while the rest of your browser has all day.
You never sign up. There is no email to give and no password to forget.
Your apps, times, pauses and pebbles are stored on your phone or Mac and are never uploaded.
Kiri knows which app is open. It never sees your messages, photos or anything you do inside an app.
No subscription. Kiri Pro is $7.99 on iPhone and Mac, one purchase for both.
