Add an option for "session length" enforcement (inspired by Hacker News)

Hacker News has a feature they call “noprocrast”, which works like this: The first time you visit the site, it starts a timer. The duration of this timer is configurable (the setting is called “maxvisit”). You’re allowed to use the site unrestricted until this timer is up. The timer keeps ticking even when you’re not using the site. After that hour is up, it locks you out of the site and starts another timer. The duration of this timer is also configurable (called “minaway”). It only unlocks the site after this second timer is up. It’s simple, but I’ve found it’s the most effective tool I’ve ever found for controlling usage of this kind of site. It is so useful that I deliberately created a custom iOS Shortcut (using the Global Variables feature from Toolbox Pro) that mimics its behaviour, and haven’t yet bought one sec pro largely because one sec will conflict with it. Why is it so useful? Makes you think before you open Because the timer starts right when you first access the site, it forces you to think hard before you access it: “I’ve budgeted only an hour per day for this, am I sure I want to blow that hour now, or am I just opening this out of habit/impulse?” This strikes me as exactly the kind of response one sec is aiming for. “Defragmenting” of time The fact that the timer keeps going even when you’re not using the app/site makes you use those apps/sites differently. If you open the app and then go off to do something else, too bad, your time limit is going to be over anyway. This shifts your usage pattern of the app. It goes from something you might check semi-randomly for 5 minutes at a time, to something that you intentionally choose to access and spend dedicated time on. And if it’s not worth spending dedicated time on? Then why are you using it in the first place? Flexibility Lastly, it’s flexible. If you want to limit it so that you’re accessing the site an hour a day, set “maxvisit” to an hour and “minaway” to 12-20 hours. If you want to allow yourself to have a longer period twice a day, set “maxvisit” to 2-3 hours, and “minaway” to something like 8 hours. This is a lot more flexible than blocking sites/apps at specific times of the day. It lets you adapt your usage to whatever you need that day, and still lets you be somewhat spontaneous, but in a less-damaging way. How might this feature look like within one sec? I picture this as an app/site-specific setting that lets you define a “session length” and “gap between sessions”. The intervention would then have a “start session” button that starts the timer. Once the session timer is up, the app would be blocked until the “gap” timer runs out, either by graying it out or by presenting you with an intervention that cannot be bypassed. This would also pair really well with one sec pro’s existing features like re-interventions. Re-interventions could help enforce the session timer, kicking in when it’s over. I think this could be a really great addition to the app overall, and would likely push me over the edge towards buying a lifetime subscription.

Add Healthy Alternatives to all Interventions

From Customer Support perspective, I noticed over the time that several users want the Healthy Alternatives addable to all Intervention types. Up to now they are not addable to Interventions like Breathwork (Paced Breathing, Box Breathing, etc.), more Interactive ones (like Follow the Dot) or the Lengo Intervention. For example, this could be done by making the Healthy Alternatives an (optional) Extra Shield like the Intention Picker or the Re-Intervention Time Wheel, that opens before the Initial Intervention or after it. See also this post: https://feedback.one-sec.app/p/healthy-alternatives-after-box-breathing

Show what time it will be when you leave the app

When I am selecting how long I want to use an app for, it would be great if the UI showed me what time it would be when I leave the app. When I am doing multiple re-interventions 10 more minutes seems meaningless to me, but if I am forced to see how time is getting away from me or how late it is I think that would help. So when I move the slider to “10 minutes”, the UI would say: “By the time you leave this app, it will be 9:46 PM”, etc

Fix Bug Bypassing Interruption with the Control Center

DONT READ IF YOU DONT WANT TO ABUSE THIS BUG I’ve been loving one sec and have saved myself a lot of time off of Instagram, but I’ve discovered a bug and have been abusing it for quite a while. If you slide down the control center in the app switcher, close it, open Instagram quickly, then quickly open the control center again, you completely bypass the interruption from one sec closing the control center; you are free to scroll without interruption or anything. I was hoping there’d be a fix, but if not, I would love recommendations to fix the settings in a way to avoid this habit I’ve developed abusing this. **A video recreating the bug is below**

Intervention only triggers when phone is vertical

Most of the time, I find myself stuck doom-scrolling through YouTube Shorts. However, when I watch a full YouTube video, the intervention ends up being more annoying than helpful. One way I find this issue resolvable is by detecting whether the phone’s orientation is horizontal or vertical, since Shorts are always viewed vertically. Current solution is shown below, but it has its limitations:

Apps to add

I love this app, but the manual app adding is such a pain in the butt. It’s too bad you can’t just auto-import all apps (is there a technical reason why not?) on iOS I need the following added: Freeform (built in iOS drawing app) The following games: Doodle Jump, Cut the Rope, Magic Tiles 3

Add a time buffer after changing Full immersion

I use different intervention strategies depending on the Focus Mode (e.g. blocking Instagram during Work Focus, short interventions during Do Not Disturb), but I find it too easy and quick to simply switch Focus Modes and bypass the blocks. It would be helpful to extend the concept of the Morning Countdown (but shorter, like 5–10 minutes) to account this kind of situation.

Change Intention During Intervention

Sometimes when I choose my intention, I realize that it was the wrong one (for example “search info” when I’m really on the “toilet”. In order to change this, I need to reject it and try again, loading the intervention all over again and showing an additional block. Could you add a back button on all those pages? Mostly I need to be able to choose a different intention, but it might be nice as well to go back to healthy alternatives.

More math problem intervention customization

I want to be able to select harder math problems and different types of problems.

Let notifications still come through while active block

If you have an ongoing block, your notifications for a blocked app will also be blocked. Users should be able to choose if they still want to get notifications of blocked apps. How a user put it: “I sometimes feel the urge to open the app anyway just to check if I might be missing something important. That small doubt ends up pulling me back in more than I’d like. It would really help if there were a way to still receive notifications while the app stays blocked. That way I could stay aware of anything important without needing to open the app just to check.”

Daily App Budget / Daily Limit for App Opens

I sometimes find myself doing re-intervention after re-intervention. It would be great if users could set a daily app budget, limiting how many times an app can be opened per day. This would encourage more mindful app usage, making users think twice before opening an app to avoid wasting their limited sessions on mindless scrolling.

Custom Flash Card intervention

Love the app, it’s super annoying but I can already see the value it’s adding to my day and headspace. I quite like the LENGO integration and thought some sort of flash card for re enforcement learning would be a neat feature I would use.

Some sort of reward or incentive to not clicking continue

Like maybe a message at the end of the day that says, you clipped Instagram this many times, but after pausing you realized you only had to use it __- many times. Maybe have a leaderboard or highscore that is based off of overall percentage. idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Make “increase usage within 24 hours” customizable for each app

I noticed that the “increase usage within 24 hours” for the breathing exercises applies the same time increase to every single app, and it would be nice if it was customizable for each app (the same way the breathing duration is customizable in each app’s settings on one sec) because I don’t use all apps with equal frequency, and some apps are quite important for me to access quickly, so having them be customizable would be great.

Show a specific site when intervening

I use onesec a lot and have a webpage with all my books. It would be really nice to choose that webpage as the intervention. I know you have specific apps already but showing a webpage of interest would be great too.

Block after X minutes.

An option to go into a strict block after using an app for a set amount of time. When one-sec intervenes and asks me how long i want to use the app, i would like an option where i can not just ask for a re-intervention after (lets say) ten minutes, but the option to full block the app after those ten minutes.

Re-enter only after a given time

I think it would be great that if I enter an app too often in a short period of time, that I get completely locked out for a moment. So for example if I check instagram 5 times in 5 minutes, I’d get strictly locked out for 30 minutes. Maybe the suggestion “Daily App Budget / Daily Limit for App Opens” would achieve a similar effect in an easier to understand fashion. But wanted to post the idea anyway.

"Touch Grass" as an intervention

As seen on Hacker News: https://touchgrass.now/ Would be cool to add something like this to one sec as well! Don’t unlock the apps unless you take a photo of yourself touching grass (or dirt, depending on the season). Seems to be popular! I saw this on the chyron of a waiting room TV:

Deeper, Bi-Directional Lengo Integration count Progress

Issue The current Lengo integration is mostly manual Words/phrases in the intervention are hard-coded or manually imported Progress made in the intervention does not sync back to Lengo Lengo statistics and learning progress are therefore incomplete The intervention does not use Lengo’s spaced-repetition algorithm Goal A seamless, automatic integration with Lengo One shared learning progress and statistics Consistent spaced repetition across Lengo and the intervention Suggested Direction Treat Lengo as the single source of truth for: Vocabulary Progress Spaced-repetition logic Automatically sync: Words and phrases Progress in both directions Question Are there plans to support full auto-sync, shared progress tracking, and reuse of Lengo’s spaced-repetition algorithm in the intervention?

Intervention idea: set x amount of steps

^ intervention to set x amount of steps before opening app

Live activity broken UI

Whenever I activate the manual block using the lock screen toggle, it’s always displayed with a wrong background. I sometimes get it to correctly use the dark version, but I have yet to figure out why it works some of the time. See attached screenshot.

Average Time Between Sessions

What I want Add a new statistic showing the average time between sessions for apps with an intervention enabled. A session would be each time the user opens an app and triggers the intervention. Re-interventions during the same usage period should not count as a new session. Example If I open an app at 10:00, 12:00, 15:00 and 19:00, One Sec could show: “Average time between sessions: 3h” General benefits: Shows how frequently I feel the urge to open an app, not just how much time I spend on it. Makes it possible to notice improvements even when total usage time doesn't decrease. Helps visualize longer periods spent away from an app. Provides a simple indicator of habit change over time. This feedback was summarized and organized with the help of AI.

Daily usage visible during intervention

I love this app, and I feel like it would be even more compelling for me if it showed me how much time I spent on whatever app I’m trying to access over the course of that specific day. Like I would love to log onto Instagram and have it tell me I that I’ve spent 42mins on Instagram already that day during the intervention. Thanks for considering and thanks for doing what you do!

Please Re-Interventions possible for websites!

You can only add Apps to the re-intervention feature, not websites. It would be so useful to be able to add websites to the re-intervention feature too.

Use Re-Intervention without initial intervention

Reminder of intent

A certain time (customisable) after sharing your intent and entering the app, you get a reminder of your intent. E.g. “Your initial intent was to post something, is this still true?” Could be accompanied with a breathing moment as a pause.

one sec isn’t really bullet-proof w/ iOS 26.4

I know this isn’t really a one sec issue, but since a feature page was created titled “Making one sec truly bullet-proof with iOS 26.4” and it stated y’all worked with Apple on the feature, I figured I post here and maybe y’all can work with them again. While the toggle for Apps with Screen Time Access is locked behind the Screen Time passcode in Settings Screen Time, if you go to Settings Apps one sec, you can just turn off Screen Time Restrictions which just needs your iPhone passcode/Face ID (not the Screen Time passcode). I hate that I found it but hopefully y’all can work with Apple and they can fix soon.

Block Web Proxy/ VPN with Adult Content Detox

Idea: Expand the irreversible Adult Content Detox feature by integrating an optional block for online web proxy services (excluding VPNs). This aims to close one of the most accessible loopholes users might use to bypass content filters. Why: Web proxies are often the easiest workaround, especially for less tech-savvy users. Blocking them strengthens the integrity of the irreversible detox feature and helps users stay committed to their goals without easily falling back. How: Start by collecting and maintaining a list of the most popular free and paid online web proxy domains (e.g. Hide.me, CroxyProxy, KProxy, etc.). These domains can be included in the blocklist applied during detox mode. Ideally, this list would be updated regularly — e.g. manually, via user suggestions.

X Minutes Left Notification

I’m proposing another option to the ‘don’t get lost’ notification setting, to allow a notification X minutes before the app will be blocked (aka before intervention or whatever else). This could be nice as a ‘You have X minutes left in APP, wrap things up!’

Option to create personal journaling prompts

I would love to add my individual prompts to the journal feature. So that I can also choose my own prompts as pre-configured prompts as journaling questions in the morning and evening.

Additional Websites in Adult Content Detox

When adding additional websites to the Adult Content Detox, an easy bypass is simply removing the website from the list, so maybe make added websites unremovable?

Add Maths to interventions

If we had an intention screen you had to think about, just a simple maths question to answer correctly (+-*/), would force you to think about something else and break that doom scroll zombie effect. In my experience, Setting an intention for an app is good but it doesn’t break you from what you are thinking about in the app. When I am hyper focused on scrolling i will just write what I am wanting to continue watching or random letters without really having to think about it. Thank you!