FocusMask: A small but mighty Mac-App

Full screen mode in Mac OS X is nice, but sometimes it is just not enough to block out all the distractions around the reading or writing that you wanna get done at the moment. Plus, it always takes a bit time for the full screen-mode to fade in and out, which, when you have to switch forth and back between apps frequently, can get a bit annoying.

In search for a solution to that, I recently stumbled across a little super weapon – FocusMask.

The App cost only about 1 €/$ and allows for a myriad of “focussing-options”: from a focus on the app currently in use to focus-by-selection-frame or a pretty nice algorithm based auto-focus. There are keyboard shortcuts for all the different modes.

When in focus-mode, FocusMask blacks-out anything – in pitch black or with varying degrees of opacity – that is not in focus right now; even a second external display that you might have connected. A simple click outside the focus area brings you back to “normal mode”.

Here is a sample screenshot of this very post here being written in Safari using the focus-by-selection-frame-mode and a slight opacity.

Handy, isn’t it?! I found this app to be extremely useful in my everyday work-routines – and for the price of a cheeseburger a real bargain!