Choose distractions
Add individual domains or use presets for News, Social Media, and Entertainment.
A strict website blocker for macOS
Stop opening it.
Hotblock closes distracting browser tabs the moment you open them, then tells you exactly what you should be doing instead.
Free GitHub beta · Apple Silicon + Intel · macOS 14+
Download not starting? Open the GitHub release in Safari or Chrome.
Hotblock
instagram.com
Blocked Websites
instagram.com−
reddit.com−
tiktok.com−
youtube.com−
!
Blocking active. Back to work.
Built for your browser
Safari
Chrome
Brave
Arc
How it works
A tiny app with
a very firm opinion.
Start strict mode
Choose a 1 to 300 word unlock challenge before Hotblock lets you stop.
Try to procrastinate
Hotblock closes the tab and delivers an increasingly direct spoken reminder.
“Seriously?
Close it and get back to work.”
The voice now pauses, pushes, and sounds far less robotic.
Not another silent blocker
It talks back.
Hotblock now uses more natural system voices with sentence-aware pacing, sharper emphasis, and increasingly irritated reminders when you keep testing it.
The latest build also cleans up the controls with smoother sliders for both voice volume and the unlock challenge.
Install from GitHub
Free, open,
and built in public.
Every release is built from the public source by GitHub Actions. Hotblock is not Apple-notarized yet, so macOS asks you to approve it once.
-
1
Download Hotblock.dmg
Get the latest Mac disk image from GitHub Releases.
-
2
Move Hotblock to Applications
Open the disk image, then drag Hotblock into your Applications folder.
-
3
Approve the GitHub beta once
Right-click Hotblock and choose Open. If blocked, use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.
-
4
Allow browser permissions
Enable Automation for your browsers. Notifications are optional.