Set a daily time limit for YouTube or any site

Set the limit

1. Open Plainware Focus’s Settings and make a list. Add youtube.com or any other site.

2. Choose After a daily limit.

3. Type the minutes allowed per day, from 1 to 720. The limit applies to each site in the list.

4. When Chrome asks, allow Plainware Focus on the site. It needs this to tell when you’re on it. If you say no, the limit can’t be measured, and it tells you.

5. Optionally tick Only count time inside chosen windows to limit, for example, just working hours.

How time is counted

• Time counts for every visible window with the site open, not just the one you’re focused on, so switching windows doesn’t pause the clock.
• It stops counting while you’re away from the computer, unless sound is playing.
• When the allowance is used up, the block page says so and tells you when it resets.
• Counts and history stay on your computer. Time spent in Incognito counts toward today’s limit but isn’t saved in your history.

Good to know

• One allowance across several sites (“30 minutes a day across these sites”) is the Pro tool Shared daily limits. Per-site limits are free.
• The one-minute grace: when a block starts, tabs you already have open get a minute before they move to the block page, so you can finish what you’re typing. You can turn that off.
• Unblocking: the block page offers a short unblock after a wait. For a harder limit, Pro’s strict mode makes weakening a block wait up to an hour.
• If you travel across time zones, a budget used before you travelled stays used until the local day catches up.