Cue

Cue is a free macOS app that turns your headphones into a focus switch. Put your AirPods in and your Mac turns on your Focus mode, blocks distracting sites and starts a timer; take them out and it is break time. It is made for people who work on a Mac and want a focus session to begin without opening another app, and its interface lives in the notch next to the camera. Cue is free, private and built for macOS 14 or later on Apple Silicon. Most focus tools wait for you to open them, choose a session and press start, which means the moment you actually need help is exactly the moment you have to remember to ask for it. Cue takes a different route: it starts from something you already do many times a day, putting your headphones in and taking them out. macOS also has no public way to set a Focus mode, so Cue sets up its own shortcuts once and then switches Focus for you with no more prompts. The result is a focus session that begins and ends with your ears instead of with an app window, and nothing to remember. Your ears start it, not an app. Cue starts when your headphones go in and ends when they come out. Any Bluetooth headphones work, and Cue tells them apart by itself; AirPods Pro, Max, 3 and 4 are the most precise because they report when they are actually in your ears. AirPods start the session when they are in your ears, while other headphones start it when they connect. While you focus, Cue blocks sites: built-in social, video and news lists, plus your own sites, which you paste as a comma-separated list and Cue splits for you. Apps you list are asked to quit. Both the sites and the apps come back when you take a break, so the blocking is scoped to the session rather than to a permanent setting. The product lives in the notch. A small dot and a timer sit next to the camera; point at the notch to open it and tap to pin it. On a MacBook Air M1, iMac, Mac mini or Mac Studio there is no camera cutout, so Cue draws a floating 190 × 32 pill instead, and if you plug into an external display the same pill floats at the top of the screen. Inside the notch you get now playing, with artwork and play, previous and next controls for whatever is playing, from Spotify to a YouTube tab, read on your Mac only. Notifications from any app land in the notch instead of the corner and tuck away by themselves. Volume and brightness show in the notch rather than as a big box in the middle of the screen. You can also give the notch your own colors: pick a preset such as Peach, Lilac, Mint, Sunset or Aurora, or hit Mix and Cue blends three to five colors into three options so you keep the one you like, and the buddies wear the new accent. Two tiny buddies hang under the notch and react to everything you do. They run while you work, nap on your break, dance when music plays and blush when you point at them. New in 2.6 they leave the notch: outside a focus session they roam your whole screen, walking on windows, climbing their sides, hanging from the menu bar and jumping between them, and you can pick one up and throw it or click it to cheer. When focus starts they jump back onto the notch. The loop button sprays 20 to 30 buddies out of the notch and the power button adds ten more on each tap, up to 60; loop again and they all go home. Skins are free, with all 17 outfits available from day one, and the skin you pick is worn on the screen too, with eleven dance moves that change every phrase and stay smooth on the beat. A music panel shows what is playing on the notch with artwork and controls, and the buddies dance to the beat if you let Cue hear it. Sound stays in reach with per-app volume, an output switch and mic mute on ⌃⌥M, plus an orange or green dot that shows when the mic or camera is in use. Open your AirPods case and a card shows the battery of each bud with one-tap connect. Small islands cover keep awake, Caps Lock and a nudge to unplug at full charge, and a single switch hides the notch from recordings. Face Unlock is an opt-in extra for Macs without Touch ID, offered for convenience rather than security, and the maker states plainly that a photo of you could open it. The mechanics are simple. Step one: put them in and focus starts, with Focus mode on, sites blocked and the timer running. Step two: take them out and break starts, after a 10 second grace period in case you were only adjusting a bud, Focus turns off and your sites come back. The break ends after 15 minutes by default, and you can set it anywhere from 5 to 60 minutes in Settings. Step three: see your day, with today against your goal, your streak, your longest session, your sessions today and the last seven days in one place. Cue also greets you by name and reminds you to drink water and rest. The benefits are mostly about removing decisions. There is no Dock icon and no window in the way, so Cue never asks for screen space; a dot and a timer are all you see until you point at them. Because the trigger is your headphones, starting a session costs zero clicks, and the site and app blocking is scoped to the session so nothing is permanently locked. Cue states that it is private and free: no accounts, no analytics, and your data stays on your Mac. It is made with Swift only, and the maker notes it is light on the machine, with two roaming buddies costing no more than the notch alone. In practice, Cue fits a few clear situations. If you put your AirPods in to start work, the session begins the moment your buds go in and the social, video and news lists close themselves; when you pull them out to grab a coffee, the sites come back and a break timer runs until the break ends. If you are writing, coding or studying with music on, the notch shows the track and its controls without a window to switch to. If you are on a Mac without a camera cutout, the same experience follows you as a floating pill at the top of the screen, so an iMac or Mac mini user is not left out, and if you are on an external display the pill floats there too. Cue is for Mac users who already wear headphones while they work and want focus to follow their ears: writers, developers, designers, students and anyone who loses time to social media, video or news sites. It requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later and the download is built for Apple Silicon. Cue is free, with no ads and no accounts. The app is not notarized by Apple, so the first launch needs a one-time confirmation in System Settings, Privacy & Security, and setup asks for Accessibility and Motion permission, with optional Full Disk Access if you want to pick your own Focus modes. Optional update checks are off by default, and the only data Cue sends is feedback you write yourself plus two anonymous one-time setup signals. Cue is a small, free Mac app with one big idea: your headphones are the switch. Put them in and the Mac focuses, take them out and it relaxes, with the timer, the blocking and the buddies all living in the notch. It is private, light and built for macOS 14 or later on Apple Silicon.