How it works
What Blink Blink counts, when it steps in, what each break asks of you, and what it keeps.
On this page
Scheduling
It counts screen time, not the clock
- Windows: active time at the computer. Two minutes or more without keyboard or mouse input counts as rest, unless something like a video is keeping the display on.
- Android: screen-on time, or only time in the apps you pick.
- iOS: time in the apps you set up with Shortcuts.
Resting counts. A rest of 5 minutes or more starts the eye-break count over; 15 minutes or more starts every count over. Locking the computer, sleep and a screen that's off all count as rest. Nothing is counted while a break is on screen or while you've paused.
A heads-up, then the break
- On Windows a pill appears 10 seconds before each break: "Eye break in 10 s" or "Rest break in 10 s". Postpone moves it 5 minutes. If you're typing, the pill waits until you pause, by up to a minute.
- Rest breaks also get a notice one minute ahead, for example "5-minute rest break in 1 minute."
- Phones show the break directly, with no pill.
- After a break ends, no new break comes for at least a minute. If a finished break is left alone, it completes on its own after a minute.
It waits when you're busy
| Platform | A due break waits while… | Then comes |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | a fullscreen app, presentation mode, a fullscreen game or video, or another app using your microphone or camera (a call) | 2 min after it ends |
| Android | a call, the phone is in landscape, or one of your "Hold breaks in" apps is open | 30 s after it ends |
| iOS | iOS doesn't report any of these to apps |
If several breaks are due at once, the longest one wins: longer rest, then hourly rest, then eye break.
Eye breaks
Every 20 minutes by default, 40 seconds on Windows and 20 on phones. Each break is one routine from a rotation, with one instruction at a time:
- Look far away: "Rest your eyes. Find something far away." then "Now look away from the screen." A caption gives you something to find, like "Look at a roof line, a treetop, or the horizon." The cat gazes at a far tree with you.
- Blink and look far: the far look with slow closes and opens.
- Rest your eyes: "Close your eyes and rest." On Windows a rising tone tells you to open.
- Eye stretch: "Follow the dot. Left." Then right, up and down, and "Back to centre. One full blink." It's marked "Optional. Slow and easy. Stop if it feels off."
- Blink and rest: gentle closes and opens with your eyes resting.
Most routines end with two full blinks: "Two full blinks. Close all the way.", "Close gently, lids touching.", "Squeeze, gentle but firm.", "Open. Soft eyes." The break finishes on a happy cat and "Nice. Back to it."
Three times a day (10:00, 14:00, 18:00) there's a 90-second full blink set: "Slow and complete. Gentle but firm." At night, or with No far view on, far looks become "Look across the room, as far as you can." or eyes-closed rests.
On Windows each step has its own soft sound, so you can follow with your eyes closed. Phones use a soft buzz.
Rest breaks
The hourly rest (5 minutes by default) and, on Windows, the longer rest every 2 hours (10 minutes). With the rest scene, a break runs in three phases:
- Arrive, the first 20 s: a painted scene with soft nature sound fills the screen. "Look out a window, or close your eyes. The sound will tell you when." Your first rest break ever says "This is a rest break. Let your eyes wander."
- Rest: the screen dims to about 18 % so your eyes rest too. The sound keeps going.
- Return, the last 15 s: the scene comes back up with a chime and "Nice. Back to it."
Pressing Done early (Gentle or Balanced) skips to Return. On phones, the scene plays for the first 20 seconds, then a dark screen says "Phone down. Close your eyes." with the sound, and the scene comes back for the last 15 seconds.
The Lawn nap scene is a 24-second painted loop. On Windows it plays as video over its still picture; with reduced motion turned on, in a remote desktop session, or without the H.264 decoder, you get the still instead.
Stats
- Today: eye, hourly and longer breaks offered, taken, snoozed and skipped.
- Full blink sets: how many of 3 today. "Most people manage about 2 of 3 blink sets a day. Benefits fade within 1–2 weeks of stopping."
- Time: the longest unbroken stretch and far-look time.
- Last 7 days: a chart, "Outline: offered. Filled: taken."
There are no streaks, no scores and no blink counts.
Privacy and storage
There are no accounts, no analytics and no ads. Settings and history are stored only on your device:
| Platform | Settings | Break history |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | %APPDATA%\com.blinkblink\blink_blink\shared_preferences.json | %APPDATA%\com.blinkblink\blink_blink\history\ |
| Android | The app's private preferences (blink_blink_shared) | history/ in the app's private storage |
| iOS | The app group group.com.blinkblink.shared, shared with the Shortcuts actions | history/ in the app's Application Support folder |
History is one JSON Lines file per month (2026-07.jsonl, for example), and the last 13 months are kept. Each line is one break: its kind, when, and how it ended (completed, skipped, snoozed, and so on). Uninstalling on a phone removes everything; on Windows, delete the folder above.
The research behind the timings
The intervals and exercises come from the research notes written while designing the app. In short:
- On screens we blink less often and less completely.
- Close, squeeze and open exercises help more than simply blinking more often.
- The focusing muscle relaxes when you look at something 6 m or more away.
- 20-second breaks alone showed no benefit in one trial, which is why desktop eye breaks are 40 seconds.
A comfort tool, not a medical device
The 20-20-20 rhythm is a habit cue, not a cure. Blink Blink doesn't diagnose or treat any condition. If you have eye pain, redness, blurry vision that doesn't clear, or flashes, see an optometrist or ophthalmologist.
Licences and credits
- Type: Nunito, SIL Open Font License 1.1 (licence text).
- The cat and the far-look landscape are painted in code with p5.brush by Alejandro Campos, using the ClaudeAnimationBase kit by John Heibel.
- Rest-scene sound: "Summer insects" by soul_serenity_sounds, Pixabay (Pixabay Content License).
- The Lawn nap painting is based on an illustration by @muukip and is for private use only.