When you spend working hours in front of a computer, a Mac can actually turn into an enemy. It makes you slouch. Kills your productivity. Distracts with endless notifications. Time Out is a break scheduling app that will make you friends again. Computer reminder apps For Windows. Awareness Cost: Free Awareness is an app that sets a timer in your menu bar, counting the time you’ve been active in your computer. Once you reach a specific period of time without taking a break, the sound of a bowl will play, reminding you that it’s time to step away for a while.
Below are some apps that can be downloaded to your phone, computer, or other device to remind you to take breaks from sitting at a desk too long. The descriptions of the apps come from their website and give some examples of their features. Take a look. See which works best for you!
Mobile device reminder appsFor iPhones and iPads
Move - Daily Activity to Stay Healthy
Cost: Free Get reminded every so often to stand up and do a tiny exercise. Kinetic typography app mac. Over 300 random workouts keep it exciting (more added every day). Create a healthy habit through occasional reminders. Pick when you do workouts and how often. Choose your reminder sound. Create your own exercises to be absolutely anything you want.
Stand Up! The Work Break Timer
Cost: Free Completely customizable to your work schedule. Set it and forget it. Set your reminder interval to any five-minute increment between five minutes and two hours. The header shows you at a glance how you're doing, and how long to your next alarm. Limit alarms to your office location so it doesn't bug you when you go out to lunch.
StandApp
Cost: $.99 StandApp promotes healthy living by providing an alarm reminder to stand up and take a break from your desk. StandApp includes 15 easy exercises anyone can perform at their desk during their standing breaks. You can set the reminder interval to a custom time. For Android phones and tablets
Randomly RemindMe
Cost: Free Do you have trouble drinking enough water during the day? Maybe you want a reminder to step away from the computer for a bit. How about a reminder to stop and do push-ups? Trying to make a habit? Or break one? This app will let you set any number of custom reminders that will remind you throughout the day for that and a whole lot more.
Stretching & Eye Exercises
Cost: $1.99 and Free Version TakeBreak is a stretching and eye exercises app which notifies you when you need to take a break. Taking breaks at least every 45 minutes is very important to your health. The stretch exercises will help you to lower or even eliminate your neck, back, waist or shoulder pains and eye exercises will make your eyes stronger and your vision better. The program has 15 exercises and takes approximately 3-4 minutes to finish.
Office Exercise & Stretch
Cost: $1.49 Just pick a stretch or exercise, set a reminder (e.g., Monday and Tuesday at 2pm), and you are done. Strides app for mac. Your phone will make sure you get up from that chair and move! With the office exercise & stretch you can choose between 30 exercises and stretches and 5 'workout' sequences. You can set up multiple reminders that match your schedule and needs. Computer reminder appsFor Windows
Awareness
Cost: Free Awareness is an app that sets a timer in your menu bar, counting the time you’ve been active in your computer. Once you reach a specific period of time without taking a break, the sound of a bowl will play, reminding you that it’s time to step away for a while. If the app doesn’t detect activity in your computer after a set period of time, the timer will reset; however, if you keep working without taking a break, the next time the timer goes off, the sound of the bowl will be played twice, and so forth. The app even includes a link to a website where you can find some useful ideas on how to take advantage of your breaks.
Big Stretch Reminder
Cost: Free Big Stretch is a simple reminder tool that prompts you to take regular breaks and helps prevent the symptoms that come from sitting too long. Alternatively it can be a simple reminder program to tell you when it’s your coffee break!
Workrave
Cost:Free Workrave is a program that reminds you to take microbreaks throughout the day and can also help you limit your computer usage while at home. It has settings that let you configure it in a way that works best for you including when to take breaks and how long they should be. This program also gives you examples of exercises that you can do while on a break.
PC Work Break
Cost: $39.99 for single computer license with lifetime upgrades PC Work Break is another program that reminds you to take breaks and includes stretches, eye breaks, and various exercises. It is customizable and works with your computer to help find breaks that work well for you. For Mac
Awareness
Cost:Free Awareness helps you become more aware of time spent on the computer by playing the sound of a Tibetan singing bowl to mark every hour of continuous computer use. It also displays how long you’ve been using your computer without a break in the menu bar. Awareness will never nag you or force you to stop using the computer. Just take a five-minute break whenever you are ready, and Awareness will sense it.
Time Out
Cost: Free Time Out has two kinds of breaks: a 'Normal' break and a 'Micro' break. You can disable either kind of break if desired, and the breaks are automatically paused when you go away from your computer, and can be reset when you come back. You can configure how long each kind of break lasts, and how long between breaks. Each Time Out is announced via the screen slowly dimming, with related graphics materializing, and when the break is complete, it fades out again.
Healthier: Break Reminder
Cost:$3.99 Healthier periodically reminds you to take a break from your computer, and suggests HealthierTips, which are hand-picked, office-suitable exercises for both eyes and body that you can follow during the breaks.
Reviewed 2019-08-23
From neck pain to eye strain or even RSI, a sedentary lifestyle at work can lead to a lot of health problems. But reminding yourself to get up from your seat and take a break, isn’t that easy either. One way to fix this problem is to get a smartwatch like Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch or even a cheap fitness band like Mi Band. these are programmed to automatically remind you, to get up and start moving, if you are sitting in one place for too long.
But guess what, even if you don’t own a fitness band or a smartwatch, you can still download a third-party app on your computer or smartphone, that will remind you to take 5-10 minutes to break, every hour or so. That being said, let’s check out the best apps to remind you to move at work.
Taking Break isn’t Enough![]()
There are three major factors which lead to body strain from a desk job
So, to fix this, we’ll suggest apps that not only give you a reminder to take a break at work but also suggest some light exercise and block the blue light coming out of your devices. Let’s begin.
Also read: 8 Best Workout Apps to use without Gym Equipments
Apps to Remind You to Move At WorkMac Break Reminder Apps Download1. WorkRave for Windows
WorkRave is a simple application that reminds you to take a break on your computer. Once installed, the application shows you a notification every few minutes reminding you to take a short breather of 30 seconds. It is called a microbreak. After every 45 minutes, the application reminds you to take a longer break of 10 minutes. This combination of breaks ensures you get sufficient time to stretch your body without moving away from your desk. It shows a popup with the exercise animations so that you can follow the steps properly.
Of course, you can customize the ‘break time’ from the Settings. There are different modes like the quiet mode, reading mode, etc, you can choose a preference in the options. If you tend to ignore subtle notifications, there is also a strict mode that would block you from working and force you to take a break. WorkRave is available for Windows and Linux for free.
If you have Windows 10, you can simply activate Night Light by following these steps. Press the “Start” button, go to settings and click on System. Look for Display option and click, Turn Night Light On, and adjust settings.
Get WorkRave (Windows)
2. Stretchly for macOS
If you have a computer running on macOS, use Stretchly. It’s an open-source cross-platform app i.e. it’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Like the previous app, it reminds you to take micro and short breaks after set time intervals. It runs in the system tray by default and only notifies you when its time for a break.
The interface is rather minimal, 30 seconds before a break starts, Stretchly sends a notification to prepare you for the upcoming break. You can also choose an audio notification when the break ends. Stretchy also comes with a unique feature called Strict Mode, which once enabled won’t let you skip breaks.
The most important feature of this application is that it monitors your computer usage, and if it detects an idle time more than the break time, it automatically resets the break time. It makes the application efficient and won’t bug you unnecessarily when you’re concentrating on your work. Stretchly is completely free and opensource, you can get it on GitHub.
Like Windows, macOS also comes with Night Shift feature built-in, which automatically changes the color of a display to a warmer temperature at night. To activate this, simply, Go to System Preferences and click on Displays option. Night Sight has its own section, you can turn it On or Off, and adjust settings.
Get Stretchly (macOS)
3. Stand Up for iOS
Even if you don’t sit in front of a computer all day, you still should stretch every once in a while. Stand Up is a great iOS app that sends a break reminder on your iPhone. You can set a time slot in which the app would send you a notification after every few minutes urging you to stand up. You can select days, break timing, location, and notification sound in the settings.
Another great reminder app for iOS is Desk job. Unlike Stand Up, Desk Job sends you a reminder to exercises. You can set a time interval for breaks in which you can get up from your desk to exercise.
Finally, to prevent eye strain from the blue light coming from your iPhone, you can use the native Night Shift feature. Just like macOS, all iOS device has included this feature since iOS 9.3. To enable this, go to Settings, tap Display and Brightness, and select Night Shift. Here you can turn it on, adjust the schedule automatically, or set a custom schedule.
Get Stand Up and Desk Job (iOS) Can you password protect photos on mac.
4. Randomly Remindme for AndroidBest Reminder App For Windows
Randomly Remindme is a custom reminder app which not only reminds you to step away from your computer, but you can also set a reminder for anything. The biggest advantage of this app over other apps is that it can be triggered through a variety of options. You can choose random which would send notifications at random time intervals during the day so that it doesn’t get predictable. You can set triggers based on location, time, or interval based. The app is free on the Play Store.
This next Android app, Office Stretch Exercise will teach you how to make the most of the short office break and stretch effectively. Office Stretch Exercise app has a collection of exercises that you can do right from your desk. There are 8 exercises in total which aims at your shoulders and neck muscles, you can follow the instructions to complete each set. If you follow the routine regularly, it can alleviate back, shoulders, and neck strain. The app is free on the Play Store.
Like Windows and Mac, most Android smartphone also comes with a blue light filter called Night Mode. To activate it, just go to Settings > Display > Night Light. This would reduce the strain on your eyes and help you focus better. If your phone doesn’t have the feature, you can download Twilight from the Play Store.
Get Randomly Remindme and Office Stretch Exercise (Android)
![]() Best Apps to Remind You to Move at Work
These were my picks for every platform, all of these apps help you take a break and prevent you from sitting too long. Eye strain is a very common problem and most OEMs have built-in solutions for it like the Night Shift in iOS and macOS, Night Light in Windows, and Blue Light Filter in Android. For Neck, shoulders, and back problems, apps like Office Stretch Exercise, WorkRave, and Deskjob work great. Tell us how do you keep the strain away while at work in the comments down below.
Read: Best Weight Tracker Apps to stay fit and Healthy
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