A free Pomodoro timer for the Mac menu bar. When it's break time, a cat sits on your window until you stop.
ProductivitySwift · HTMLGitHub @kkratterfOnlineOwner unconfirmed
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A native macOS menu bar Pomodoro timer where cats make you take the break. Free and open source.
Taken from the repository README
Loading the full README.
Read the full README ↗The Pomodoro timer that stops you with cats
A native macOS menu bar app for the Pomodoro technique. Work for 25 minutes, then a cat makes sure you actually take the break. Written in Swift with SwiftUI and AppKit.
The app speaks Italian and English and follows the language of your Mac. This README uses the English labels; where it helps, the Italian one follows in parentheses.
Website: maramao.kkratter.com
Install (macOS 13+, free, no special permissions):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kkratterf/maramao/main/install.sh | sh
or download the DMG from the latest release, or use Homebrew. Maramao is not notarized yet: see first launch if macOS blocks it.
Pick one from Mode (Modalità) in the menu, or let Surprise (Sorpresa) choose a different one every break. Try mode (Prova la modalità), right under the list, plays the one you picked for 30 seconds.
| Mode | What happens | |
|---|---|---|
| 🔴 | Laser chase (Caccia al laser) | Your mouse pointer turns into a red laser dot and a cat chases it all over the screen, pouncing when it stops. Leave the mouse alone and the cat sits down to groom. |
| 🐾 | Cat invasion (Invasione di gatti) | Cats rain from the top of the screen and pile up until everything is buried. |
| 😴 | Don't wake the cat (Non svegliare il gatto) | A full-screen photo of a sleeping cat. Touch the mouse or the keyboard and an angry cat glares at you, a different one every time. Leave everything alone and it falls asleep again. |
During a break the only thing on screen besides the cats is a small pill: a paw, the countdown and Close (Chiudi), which shows up once the break may be skipped (after a minute). Not to be confused with Pause for… (Pausa per) in the menu, which puts the whole app to sleep for a while.
Switching rhythm takes one click: Rhythm (Ritmo) in the menu offers Classic 25/5, Long 50/10 (long break 30) and Deep 90/20 (long break 30). The session on screen keeps its length; the new rhythm starts with the next phase.
A cat on your Zoom call is not funny. When the microphone or the camera is in use, or Keynote, PowerPoint, a video or a call app is fullscreen, the break waits one minute at a time (up to 10 minutes by default, or as long as it takes) and a little cat tells you "I'll wait until your call is over". No permission needed.
Lunch, a meeting, the Mac asleep or locked: Maramao notices (no permission needed). By default the work timer stops while you are away, and if you were gone at least as long as a short break you come back to a fresh start, because you already rested. Either way, a break never starts while the screen is locked or asleep, and never in the first seconds after you are back.
If a break ever gets stuck, or you really have to stop it, press ⌃⌥⌘⌫ (Control-Option-Command-Delete) to end it right away, strict mode included. No shortcut at hand? Click five times quickly in the top-left corner of any screen. Neither needs any permission.
As a safety net, Maramao also closes every cat window by force if a break is still on screen 30 seconds after it should have ended.
They work from any app and need no special permission.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| ⇧⌘M | Start a pomodoro, or pause / resume it |
| ⌃⌥⌘B | Take the cat break now |
| ⌃⌥⌘S | Skip the current phase (a break only once skipping is allowed) |
| ⌃⌥⌘R | Snooze the break that just started: the cat comes back a few minutes later (up to 3 times a day) |
A global shortcut wins over the app in front, so while Maramao runs ⇧⌘M no longer reaches Teams (mute), Slack or VS Code.
Maramao answers to maramao:// URLs, so Shortcuts ("Open URLs"), Raycast, Alfred, a Stream Deck or the terminal can drive it:
open maramao://start
| URL | What it does |
|---|---|
maramao://start | Start a pomodoro (or resume a paused one) |
maramao://pause | Pause the running pomodoro |
maramao://resume | Resume a paused pomodoro |
maramao://toggle | Start, pause or resume, like the main button |
maramao://break | Take the cat break now |
maramao://skip | Skip the current phase |
maramao://reset | Stop and go back to idle |
maramao://mode/<id> | Choose the break mode for the next breaks |
maramao://longmode/<id> | Choose the break mode of the long break (same follows the short break) |
maramao://preview/<id> | Try a break mode for 30 seconds |
maramao://preset/<id> | Choose the rhythm: classic, long, deep or custom |
Mode ids: laserChase, catPile, sleepyCat, or random (Surprise). URLs that would end a break early (start, skip, reset) only work once the break may be skipped, so strict mode still wins.
The Shortcuts app also lists Maramao actions: Start a pomodoro, Pause or resume, Cat break now, Choose the break mode, Choose the rhythm, Choose the long-break cat and Maramao status (returns the phase, the time left and today's pomodori as text). Siri and Spotlight know phrases like "Start a pomodoro with Maramao" (in Italian: "Inizia un pomodoro con Maramao"). They show up once Maramao.app has been opened from Applications.
A Raycast script command, for example:
#!/bin/bash
# @raycast.schemaVersion 1
# @raycast.title Maramao: start / pause
# @raycast.mode silent
open "maramao://toggle"
A cat pack adds your own cats without touching the code: fur colours for the drawn cats in Laser chase and Cat invasion. Packs are plain folders in ~/Library/Application Support/Maramao/Cats/, loaded when Maramao starts. To start, copy packs/example there. The format also has cat names, meme captions, pictures and tips: they are still accepted, but no mode shows them any more.
Cats/
my-cats/
pack.json
images/micio.png
pack.json (only schemaVersion, id, name and license are required):
{
"schemaVersion": 1,
"id": "my-cats",
"name": "My cats",
"author": "Your name",
"license": "CC0-1.0",
"description": "Optional, up to 300 characters.",
"palettes": [
{ "name": "Micio", "fur": "#F0963C", "stripes": "#C8641E", "belly": "#FAE6C8", "eyes": "#6EBE50", "nose": "#F28C99" }
],
"catNames": ["Micio"],
"captions": [{ "top": "WHEN THE TIMER RINGS", "bottom": "AND THE CAT SMILES" }],
"images": ["images/micio.png"],
"tips": { "short": ["Look away for twenty seconds."], "long": ["Go for a short walk."] }
}
Rules, checked when the pack loads (a pack that breaks one is skipped; it never stops a break):
license is CC0-1.0 or CC-BY-4.0; CC-BY needs an author. Only art you made or that is under one of these licenses.id: lower-case letters, digits and dashes, up to 40 characters. Colours are #RRGGBB; stripes and nose are optional.images are PNG, GIF or JPEG files inside the pack folder: no web addresses, no .., at most 5 MB each, 50 images and 30 MB per pack.pack.json up to 256 KB.Maramao needs macOS 13 Ventura or later and no special permissions. Pick one of the three ways below.
Maramao-x.y.z.dmg from the latest release.Every release also ships a plain Maramao-x.y.z.zip and a SHA256SUMS.txt to check the downloads (shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing).
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kkratterf/maramao/main/install.sh | sh
The script downloads the latest release, checks its SHA-256, quits Maramao if it is running, installs Maramao.app in /Applications (or ~/Applications if /Applications is not writable), clears the quarantine flag and offers to open it. Read it first if you like: it is short.
| Variable | Effect |
|---|---|
MARAMAO_VERSION=v0.1.0 | install a specific release instead of the latest |
MARAMAO_INSTALL_DIR=~/Apps | install somewhere else |
MARAMAO_NO_OPEN=1 | do not offer to open Maramao at the end |
Variables go after the pipe: curl -fsSL .../install.sh | MARAMAO_VERSION=v0.1.0 sh.
brew tap kkratterf/maramao https://github.com/kkratterf/maramao
brew install --cask maramao
The tap lives in this repository (Casks/maramao.rb) and is updated by every release. The cask installs the DMG from GitHub Releases into /Applications; the Gatekeeper note below applies to it too.
Maramao is not notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open a copy from the DMG or the zip macOS says it cannot verify the developer and offers only Done or the Bin. To open it anyway:
On macOS 13 and 14 the old shortcut also works: right-click Maramao.app in Applications → Open → Open again. macOS 15 Sequoia removed it.
Or skip all that and clear the quarantine flag in Terminal:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Maramao.app
The install script does this for you. You only need to do it once per version.
Maramao lives in the menu bar, top right: look for the 🐱 (it turns into 🍅 and a countdown while you work). There is no Dock icon. The first time you open it, a cat welcomes you in a small window: it sets the timer, lets you pick a cat, shows a 10-second trial break and the emergency exit, and can turn on Open Maramao at login. If the menu bar is too full and the notch hides the cat, open Maramao again from Applications or Spotlight and its menu opens where your pointer is.
The menu is a plain macOS menu: start or pause (⇧⌘M), pick and try a mode, change the rhythm, pause Maramao for a while, check for updates and Quit Maramao (Esci da Maramao).
Maramao updates itself: it checks once a day and asks before installing. To check right now, choose Check for Updates… (Controlla aggiornamenti…) in the menu. You can also install a new version by hand the same way as the first time: drag the new DMG's app over the old one (choose Replace), or run the one-liner again. Your settings are kept.
With Homebrew: brew update && brew upgrade --cask --greedy maramao (the cask is marked auto_updates, so a plain brew upgrade leaves Maramao alone and lets the app update itself).
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kkratterf/maramao/main/install.sh | sh -s -- --uninstall
With Homebrew: brew uninstall --cask maramao, or brew uninstall --zap --cask maramao to remove the settings too.
The script quits Maramao, deletes Maramao.app and its settings (defaults delete com.kkratterf.maramao). By hand: quit Maramao from its menu, move Maramao.app to the Bin, and optionally run that defaults delete command. The login item, if you turned it on, goes away with the app.
Needs Xcode 15 or later.
git clone https://github.com/kkratterf/maramao
cd maramao
swift test # unit tests
scripts/build-app.sh release # builds dist/Maramao.app
open dist/Maramao.app
swift run Maramao also works for a quick try, without the app bundle.
Contributions are welcome, from a new cat to a timer fix.
BreakMode in Sources/Maramao/Modes/. The shared CatView draws the cat, OverlayWindow and BreakHUD do the rest.packs/<id>/ (the folder name must match the id) with a pack.json that declares CC0-1.0 or CC-BY-4.0 and only art you have the right to share under it. swift test validates every pack in packs/, so CI tells you if something is off.AGENTS.md: it lists the checks to run, the commit format and the rules for break modes. It is written for AI agents and humans alike.The cats in Laser chase and Cat invasion are drawn in code (Sources/Maramao/Shared/CatView.swift).
Don't wake the cat shows photos from the WordPress Photo Directory, all released under CC0. They are not committed: scripts/build-app.sh downloads them, shrinks them and copies them into the app. The list, with each photo's page and author, is Resources/cat-photos.tsv. Thanks to Brandon Zhang, Julia Golomb, mdburnette, 渡邉厚夫, Taco Verdonschot, Sakib MD Nazmush, Midhun P, Noelia Segura and Yam B Chhetri.
The website shows short clips of real cats from Wikimedia Commons, trimmed and re-encoded in site/media/. They are not part of the app. The CC BY-SA clips are shared under the same license:
The pictures in packs/example/images were drawn for this repository by a small script and are CC0, like the rest of that pack. Community packs declare their own license (CC0 or CC-BY) in pack.json.
MIT