Use focus mode and soundscapes
This guide shows you how to run a focus session: a timed block during which Control Center suppresses non-urgent notifications and floats a countdown pill over your other windows. It also covers the soundscape that (by default) plays under it — an endless ambient track your server synthesizes live, shaped by the mood you pick, the weather outside and the hour of the day.
A focus session is a shell-level feature. It is not tied to any pillar — it does not change the layout, hide the sidebar, or alter a PR review surface.
Start a focus session
Section titled “Start a focus session”- Click the focus icon at the right of the title bar (tooltip Start focus session)
- In the dialog, type an optional Goal — what you are working on
- Pick a Duration: 25m, 50m, 1h, 1h 30m or 2h. The default is 50m and your last choice is remembered
- Leave Block notifications on (see the caution below for what it actually controls)
- Press Start
Checkpoint: the title-bar button is replaced by an accent chip showing the minutes remaining, the floating pill appears over your other windows and — with Start with focus mode on — the soundscape starts playing.
Two other entry points reach the same session:
- ⌘K → Start focus session opens the same dialog.
- ⌘⇧⌥F starts a session immediately with your remembered duration and no goal — it skips the dialog. Pressing it again ends the session.
Read the floating pill
Section titled “Read the floating pill”The pill is a small frameless window you can drag anywhere. It shows:
- A live presence dot and the remaining time as
mm:ss - Your goal, or “Focus session” when you did not set one
- A thin progress bar along the bottom edge
Hover it to reveal two actions:
- Pause / Resume — stops the countdown. Pausing is local to the pill; the session itself stays active.
- Complete — ends the session.
The pill commits to the dark palette whatever theme the main window is using, because it floats over arbitrary desktop content.
If you close the pill from the title bar, the session keeps running. Press the picture-in-picture button next to the focus chip (tooltip Minimize to bar) to bring it back.
Know what gets suppressed
Section titled “Know what gets suppressed”While a session is active, Control Center drops every notification except two categories, which are always delivered:
- Meeting starting soon — a meeting alert you see after the fact is worthless
- Pull request published
Everything else is silently suppressed for the whole session — no sound, no OS toast. Suppressed notifications are not queued for later delivery.
Play a soundscape
Section titled “Play a soundscape”- Click the speaker icon at the right of the title bar (tooltip Soundscapes) to open the panel
- Pick a Mood — Focus, Relax or Sleep
- Press Play
Checkpoint: the Now playing card names the current scene — the weather at your workspace’s location, the temperature in °C and the location label. While it reads “Tuning the ambience…” the scene is still resolving.
The track is not a loop. Your server synthesizes it continuously from the mood, the live weather at the workspace’s location and the time of day. Rain reads bright and busy, a storm loud and gusty, fog muffled; night is darker and more reverberant than midday. The mood sets the vocabulary:
| Mood | Sound |
|---|---|
| Focus | Gentle, alert ambience with a low pulse — meant to sit under work |
| Relax | Warmer, more consonant pads, no beat |
| Sleep | Low drones with almost no events, deep reverb |
Switching mood while playing hands playback to the new mood without stopping.
The panel is also reachable from ⌘K under the Focus category, next to the focus session itself.
Shape the sound
Section titled “Shape the sound”- Tune (Focus and Relax only) — a square pad with a draggable puck. Horizontal is Mellow to Energetic (how much happens), vertical is Spacy to Bright (how open it sounds). Double-tap the pad to reset to the neutral centre; arrow keys nudge the puck. Your tune is remembered per mood, and adjustments glide into the running mix — the stream never restarts. The Sleep mood is untunable by design.
- Volume — a slider from 0 to 100%, defaulting to 60%. It is separate from the system volume and is remembered.
- Location — detected automatically from the workspace. Press Refresh weather to refetch the scene.
Pop out the mini player
Section titled “Pop out the mini player”While audio is playing, the title bar grows a second button (tooltip Pop out player). It floats a small always-on-top HUD with play/pause, the weather glyph, the scene name and a Return to app button — handy once a focus session has you in another app entirely.
Pausing from the mini player does not dismiss it; only its close button (or quitting the app) removes it.
Run them together
Section titled “Run them together”The two features are coupled by one switch in the soundscape panel: Start with focus mode, on by default.
- Starting a focus session starts the soundscape if nothing is already playing.
- Ending the session — however it ends, including the timer running out — stops it, even when you started the soundscape by hand.
Turn the switch off to keep the two independent.
End a session
Section titled “End a session”Any one of these ends it:
- Click the focus chip in the title bar (tooltip Focus mode active — tap to end)
- Press Complete on the pill
- Press ⌘⇧⌥F
- Choose Exit focus mode in ⌘K
- Let the timer run out — the session auto-completes at zero
The pill closes, notifications resume immediately and the soundscape stops.
Understand what does not persist
Section titled “Understand what does not persist”A session lives for exactly one app run. Quit and reopen Control Center and you start inactive with a reset timer, even mid-session — there is no crash recovery and no session history.
Only two things carry over: your preferred duration and the block-notifications flag. The goal, the elapsed time and the pill’s open state do not.
Playback is just as ephemeral — the soundscape is always stopped at launch. Your mood, volume and per-mood tunes persist; the stream itself never resumes on its own.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”The tune pad is missing
Section titled “The tune pad is missing”You are on the Sleep mood, which is deliberately untunable. Switch to Focus or Relax to get the pad back.
Nothing plays after restarting the app
Section titled “Nothing plays after restarting the app”By design — playback is always stopped at app launch. Open the panel and press Play again. If it still stays silent, check the panel’s volume slider, which is separate from the system volume.
The weather or temperature looks wrong
Section titled “The weather or temperature looks wrong”The scene follows the active workspace’s location. Press Refresh weather in the panel to refetch it.