Yes. Hush is free and open-source under the GPLv3 licence (same as the upstream MagicQuit project it's forked from). There is no paid tier, no trial expiry, and no in-app purchases. You can support development via Buy Me a Coffee, but it's optional.

Does Hush track me or collect data?

No. Hush has no telemetry, no analytics, no account, and no servers. Everything runs locally on your Mac. The website itself also has no cookies, no third-party scripts, and no visitor tracking.

Will Hush kill an app I'm actively working in?

No. Hush only quits apps after they have been idle (no input, no foreground time) for a configurable timeout. Apps you launch during a Focus session are auto-exempted, so the tool you just opened is never the one that gets closed.

What macOS version do I need?

As of May 2026, Hush requires macOS 13 (Ventura) or later, on Apple Silicon. The app is roughly 1.8 MB. Install via Homebrew with `brew install adis-b/hush/hush`, or grab the .dmg from GitHub Releases. The build is ad-hoc signed (not notarised), so the first launch needs an Open Anyway in System Settings or one `xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Hush.app` in Terminal.

How is Hush different from a Pomodoro timer?

Pomodoro timers count down. Hush also closes the apps that compete for your attention while the timer runs — Slack, Mail, Twitter, Music — and reopens nothing automatically. The default 25-minute session is Pomodoro-compatible; 50 and 90 minute options match Deep Work and ultradian cycles.

The brand sits at the intersection of Pomodoro, ultradian rhythm research, and the everyday science of working without being interrupted. The .science TLD signals that the timer choices (25, 50, 90 minutes) are grounded in actual studies on attention, not arbitrary numbers.

a quiet macOS app

Hush the noise.
Reclaim your focus.

Name: Hush
Author: Adis

Hush waits in your menu bar and quietly closes the apps you stopped using. Your Mac stays cool. Your battery lasts longer.¹² Your attention stays put.³

Download for Mac 1.0 · 2.2 MB View source

how it works

Four small habits, on autopilot.

Focus sessions

25 (Pomodoro), 50 (Deep Work), or 90 minutes (one ultradian cycle). Hush kills the noise the second you press start. Trigger from anywhere with ⌥⌘H.

Idle quitting

Pick a timeout. Untouched apps quit themselves. No more 47 windows you meant to close last Tuesday.

Battery aware

Drop below your threshold and Hush halves the idle time. Your battery stretches noticeably further.

Sleep & Focus mirror

Lid closes? Display sleeps? macOS Focus turns on? Hush takes the cue and tidies up for you.

why hush

Less noise, by design.

RAMLess memory. Background apps you forgot are quietly retired.¹
batteryLess drain. No rogue processes burning cycles overnight.²
focusFewer distractions. Open what you need. Hush handles cleanup.
privacyNo telemetry. No accounts, no servers, no data leaves your Mac.

the science of focus

Why short blocks actually work.

Hush's defaults aren’t arbitrary — they line up with four decades of research on attention, interruption, and ultradian alertness. The 25/50/90 minute sessions map cleanly onto the literature.

23 min 15 sec
average time to fully refocus after a single interruption.
Mark, Gudith & Klocke — The Cost of Interrupted Work, CHI 2008
25 + 5
the original Pomodoro cadence: a focused block, then a short break. Hush’s 25-minute session is one Pomodoro.
Francesco Cirillo — The Pomodoro Technique, 1987
attention residue
switching tasks leaves “leftover” attention on the previous one, measurably degrading what you do next.
Sophie Leroy — Why Is It So Hard to Do My Work?, 2009
~90 min cycle
human alertness rises and falls in roughly 90-minute ultradian rhythms — the basic rest-activity cycle.
Nathaniel Kleitman — basic rest-activity cycle, 1960s

Ready for a quieter Mac?

Download Hush 1.0 2.2 MB · macOS 13+

Memory. macOS exposes per-process resident memory through proc_pidinfo(PROC_PIDTASKINFO) (field pti_resident_size) and task_info(TASK_VM_INFO) (phys_footprint). Hush samples the former directly; Activity Monitor’s “Memory” column reads the latter.
Energy. Per-task energy and idle wakeups are accounted in the Mach kernel via task_power_info_v2 and proc_pid_rusage(RUSAGE_INFO_V4) (ri_pkg_idle_wkups, ri_billed_energy). Activity Monitor’s “Energy Impact” is a derived view of these counters. Apple acknowledged background-app battery drain explicitly when shipping App Nap in OS X 10.9 (2013); see Energy Efficiency Guide for Mac Apps, Apple Developer Documentation.
Attention. Mark, G., Gudith, D. & Klocke, U. (2008). The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress. CHI ’08. Leroy, S. (2009). Why Is It So Hard to Do My Work? The Challenge of Attention Residue When Switching Between Work Tasks. Org. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 109(2), 168–181. Cirillo, F. (1987/2018). The Pomodoro Technique.

a note on the first stable version

Two ways to install. Either the DMG from above, or via Homebrew:

Homebrew

brew install adis-b/hush/hush

Hush 1.0 is ad-hoc signed (not notarised), so first launch is blocked by Gatekeeper. Either go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway, or in Terminal:

Terminal (after downloading DMG)

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Hush.app
open -a Hush

Source is on GitHub, GPLv3-licensed. Found something off? open an issue.

Made solo, in spare evenings. If Hush has earned a place in your menu bar, buy me a coffee →

Occasional field notes on focus and quietly making your Mac better live over at blog.hush.science.

Hush is on Product Hunt. If it’s your kind of thing, back it there →.

Hush the noise. Reclaim your focus.