A study timer for Mac that helps you lock in.

Topline puts a study timer on a thin bar across the top of your Mac, next to the music you study to. Lock in for 50 minutes while the bar slides from green to red. Then Autopilot runs the break for you: a minute of breathing, a glass of water, and back to it. No phone, no tab, no app to open.

Updated October 31, 2026

Lock in without picking up your phone

Most study sessions do not end because the material got hard. They end on the way to the timer: you pick up your phone to start one, and twenty minutes later you are somewhere else. Topline's timer is already on the screen you are studying on. Click the left end of the bar and the session runs.

The whole bar is the clock. It starts green and turns yellow, then red, as the minutes run down, so you can feel how much is left without reading a number. Your song stays on the bar too, so changing it does not mean opening Spotify and losing the page you were on.

Autopilot: study, rest, repeat

Turn on Autopilot in Settings and the timer runs as a loop, so you never have to decide when to start again.

• The break takes over the sound. Your music fades out and a calm sound fades in. When the break ends, your music comes back.
• A minute of breathing. At the start of each break the bar breathes: light swells across it as you breathe in for four, and draws back as you breathe out for six. A slow breath out is a quick way to come down from a hard problem set.
• Water. Every other break asks if you have had a glass. One click counts it, and Settings shows the day's total.
• A long break every fourth round, so a four-hour library block does not grind you down.
• It waits for you. If you walked off to get coffee, the next session starts when you are back at the keyboard, not while you are in line.

Sound for studying

If lyrics keep taking the sentence you are reading, switch to sound with no words. Undertone plays from the same bar: brown noise, white noise, a coffee shop, rain, an ocean, a fireplace, slow loops like Drift (mellow lo-fi keys), and binaural tones for headphones. Or keep your own Spotify or Apple Music study playlist. The bar works with either.

Some studies found that moderate background noise, around the level of a busy café, helped people on creative problems, and that louder noise hurt. That is not a promise of better grades. The focus soundscapes page spells out what was measured and what was not.

A finals-week setup in one minute

1. Right-click the bar, open Settings, turn on Autopilot, and pick Study.
2. Start your playlist, or click the waveform and pick brown noise.
3. Click the timer. Close everything you do not need.
4. At night, open Focus Stats to see the minutes you put in today and your streak.

What Topline is not

It does not block websites or apps, and it is not on your phone. It keeps the time, the music, and the breaks in front of you, and trusts you with the rest. If you need a hard block, use Topline next to a blocker like Cold Turkey or Opal.

Questions