Self-hosted · Cross-device · Fail-closed
Rückblick tracks where your time goes and enforces the limits you set across desktop, browser, and Android, all from a server you run at home. Switching devices doesn't reset the clock. Turning off the network doesn't lift the block.
Short-form video
daily budget
17/20 min
3 minutes left, on every device. Then blocked until midnight, even offline.
Open-source trackers show you where your time went, but only per device, and they don't block anything. Commercial blockers enforce budgets across devices, but only through their cloud, fed by your behavioral data. Rückblick combines automatic tracking with cross-device enforcement, and hands the whole thing to you.
01
The desktop app watches the foreground window, the extension watches the active tab's URL, and the Android app reads usage stats. Idle time doesn't count.
02
Clients send batched heartbeats to your server every 15 to 30 seconds. The server aggregates them into per-rule daily totals: one counter for all devices.
03
Every batch is answered with the remaining budget. When it hits zero, the extension redirects to a block page and Android covers the app with an overlay until tomorrow.
Why a central counter instead of peer-to-peer sync? Because a shared budget needs a single authority. Eventual consistency leaves a window where an offline device believes budget remains that another device already spent. That is exactly the “switch devices for another 20 minutes” loophole this product exists to close.
Every device reports to a single self-hosted server that keeps the only copy of today's totals. Switching from laptop to phone doesn't reset the clock. The budget follows you.
If a device can't reach your server (network off, airplane mode, server down), budgeted targets stay blocked. Every failure mode errs toward less distraction time, never more.
Where your attention goes is the most sensitive behavioral dataset you generate. It lives on hardware you control, behind HTTPS with per-device tokens and zero unauthenticated surface.
On desktop, the browser extension tracks the active tab's URL, so a short-form feed can carry a stricter budget than the site that hosts it.
Desktop app for Windows and Linux, a Chrome-family browser extension, and an Android app with overlay blocking. One rule set, one budget, everywhere.
No accounts, no cloud, no engagement features, no monitoring of other people. Rückblick is a personal tool for people who want their attention back without selling their behavior to get it.
Phase 1
Server v1 running
Budget server with heartbeat ingestion, rules, and device tokens; Tauri desktop app for Linux and Windows; Chrome-family extension with hard blocking.
Phase 2
Up next
Usage tracking, foreground service, budget sync, and overlay blocking, so the same budget spans desktop and phone within one sync interval.
Phase 3
Planned
History dashboards (the actual Rückblick), offline grace policy, clock-tamper resistance, weekday/weekend schedules, and open-sourcing the mature parts.
A FastAPI server in Docker, a Tauri desktop app, a browser extension, and an Android client. Follow the project as it heads toward its first releases.
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