Small utility to schedule start and stop times of SelfControl.
Auto-SelfControl helps you to create a weekly schedule for SelfControl. You can plan for every weekday if and when SelfControl should start and stop.
:warning: Auto-SelfControl is not compatible SelfControl 4. We are currently working on resolving this issue. However, as of now, Auto-SelfControl cannot schedule blocks due to this problem. You might want to consider using Hammer Control, which employs a different approach to address this issue.
The easiest way to install Auto-SelfControl is with Homebrew. Install Auto-SelfControl by running the following command in the Terminal:
brew tap andreasgrill/utils
brew install auto-selfcontrol
If you already have SelfControl, start it and backup your blacklist as it might get overridden by Auto-SelfControl.
If you do not have SelfControl already installed on your system, you can install it with Homebrew Cask:
brew install --cask selfcontrol
Download this repository to a directory on your system (e.g., ~/auto-selfcontrol/
).
chmod +x auto-selfcontrol
Run from this specific repository
./auto-selfcontrol <config|activate|help>
Optionally create a symlink in your /usr/local/bin
folder to access it from anywhere:
sudo ln -s ./auto-selfcontrol /usr/local/bin/auto-selfcontrol
Edit the time configuration (see Configuration) first:
auto-selfcontrol config
When your block-schedule in config.json is ready, activate it by running:
auto-selfcontrol activate
Important: If you change config.json later, you have to call the auto-selfcontrol activate
command again or Auto-SelfControl will not take the modifications into account!
To remove the application (if installed with Homebrew):
brew uninstall auto-selfcontrol
Or, manually, by removing the directory where you installed the files.
sudo unlink /usr/local/bin/auto-selfcontrol
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/etc/auto-selfcontrol
rm -rf ~/auto-selfcontrol
You also need to remove the automatic schedule by executing the following command in the Terminal:
sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.parrot-bytes.auto-selfcontrol.plist
The following listing shows an example config.json file that blocks every Monday from 9am to 5.30pm and on every Tuesday from 10am to 4pm:
{
"username": "MY_USERNAME",
"selfcontrol-path": "/Applications/SelfControl.app",
"host-blacklist": [
"twitter.com",
"reddit.com"
],
"block-schedules":[
{
"weekday": 1,
"start-hour": 9,
"start-minute": 0,
"end-hour": 17,
"end-minute": 30
},
{
"weekday": 2,
"start-hour": 10,
"start-minute": 0,
"end-hour": 16,
"end-minute": 0
}
]
}
block-schedules contains a list of schedules when SelfControl should be started.
null
or omitted the blocking will be scheduled for all week days.Please note that it is possible to create multiple schedules on the same day, as long as they are not overlapping. Have a look at the example below.
The following listing shows another example that blocks twitter and reddit every Sunday from 11pm til Monday 5am, Monday from 9am until 7pm and Monday from 10pm to 11pm:
{
"username": "MY_USERNAME",
"selfcontrol-path": "/Applications/SelfControl.app",
"host-blacklist":[
"twitter.com",
"reddit.com"
],
"block-schedules":[
{
"weekday": 7,
"start-hour": 23,
"start-minute": 0,
"end-hour": 5,
"end-minute": 0
},
{
"weekday": 1,
"start-hour": 9,
"start-minute": 0,
"end-hour": 19,
"end-minute": 0
},
{
"weekday": 1,
"start-hour": 22,
"start-minute": 0,
"end-hour": 23,
"end-minute": 0
}
]
}
If you've installed another version of Python (e.g., using Homebrew), you'll need to run Auto-SelfControl with the original Python installation from macOS:
sudo /usr/bin/python auto-selfcontrol.py
There are also other options, including installing pyobjc
on your own Python version (pip install pyobjc
). See this thread for alternative solutions.