Adamancia Vault

Everything you do happens inside block groups: small focus plans you turn on and off. You never need an account, and your own setup stays on your device.

Click a group on the left to load it on the right. Everything you change in the editor applies to that one group only — so you can keep, say, a strict “Work” group and a gentler “Evening” group at the same time.

Why groups instead of one big list?

Because different situations need different boundaries. A group can hold the places to pause, a schedule, a time allowance, and more - all switched together.

They're checked top to bottom

Put the most important focus plan higher in the list. When two plans could affect the same place, the higher one gets the final say - which is why the order matters.

What's a type?

The type gives the group a helpful starting point. Default handles any sites or apps you list. YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Instagram, Discord, and more start with choices that suit that service. Custom is for a boundary that is especially yours.

You can add as many groups as you want and rename them later, so don't overthink the first pick.

Language

Switch the entire interface to another language instantly. Your groups and rules are untouched — only the labels change — so you can flip languages any time.

Instruction Manual & Settings

Instruction Manual opens the built-in help. Settings opens the global preferences that sit behind every group. We'll come back to both later in this tour.

A clear name also makes it easier to share the same focus plan between the website and Mac tools later. For now, simply give it a name that makes sense to you.

This is the fastest way to pause a set of rules without deleting them. Build a “Deep work” group once, then flip it on in the morning and off in the evening — all your sites, schedules and limits come back exactly as you left them.

Note this is different from Snooze and Freeze (covered later), which are deliberate, harder-to-undo controls. Enable is the everyday on/off.

Why allow?

Because groups are checked top to bottom and the first match wins, you can place a small Allow group above a broad blocking group to rescue exceptions. For example: block all of YouTube, but allow one course channel you actually need.

So the effect plus the order together let you express “block everything here, except these”.

A worked example

Put a narrow Allow “study channel” group at the top, and a broad Block YouTube group below it. Your study channel slips through; everything else on YouTube is blocked. Flip the order and the allow rule would never be reached.

When two groups could both apply, ordering is how you decide which one has the final say.

Block immediately

The strict option: the moment you hit a matching page or app, it's blocked. No grace period.

Block after a number of minutes

A daily time budget. You get, say, 20 minutes — then it blocks for the rest of the cycle.

Timer (count down, then block)

A countdown you set. While it runs the group stays open; the moment it reaches zero the group blocks for the rest of the cycle — “I get 30 focused minutes here, then I'm done.”

Allowed minutes before block

Your budget. Spend it however you like across the cycle; once it runs out, the group blocks until the next reset.

Reset interval (hours)

How long until the budget refills — 24 hours for a daily limit, or shorter for tighter pacing. The Timer mode uses the same reset idea: its countdown refills each cycle.

A redirect can turn a dead end into a nudge: send yourself to your task list, a note that says “back to work”, or a calmer site. It's a small touch that makes blocking feel like redirection rather than punishment.

What counts as a match

You can pause an entire site or only a particular place within it. Pair that choice with a schedule or an allowance when that suits your day.

Each site shows as a removable chip. Add opens a box where you paste one or many sites at once; Clear Sites empties the whole list. This is the bread-and-butter of web blocking: the list of places you don't want to end up.

Why this is stronger

A website boundary helps in a tab. An app boundary helps with the chat or game itself, wherever it tries to pull you in. It is the right tool for desktop distractions.

The two pair up nicely: block the website in the extension and the desktop app in the Mac app, and the distraction is closed off on both fronts.

Days & windows

Tick the days it should run, then add time ranges in HHMM-HHMM form (for example 0900-1200). Leave the windows blank to mean “all day” on the chosen days.

This is how you build “block social media on weekdays, 9–5” without touching anything on the weekend. Outside the window, the group quietly stands down.

The freeze modes

Frozen holds your settings for a set number of hours. Strict frozen is harder to reverse early. Parental frozen is meant to be set by someone else. While frozen, the group's rules can't be loosened until it unlocks.

Use it when you already know future-you will try to bargain. Freeze removes the bargaining table for a while.

The dials

Set snooze minutes (how long the break lasts), an activation delay (a wait before it kicks in), a cooldown (before you can snooze again), and a confirmation count — each confirmation makes you pause a few seconds.

Together these turn an impulsive “unblock now” into a small, deliberate decision — usually long enough for the urge to pass.

The three-step flow

1) Press “Prompt for AI” — it copies a ready-made prompt describing what you want. 2) Paste it into any AI chat (ChatGPT, Claude…) and add details in plain English, like “hide the YouTube home feed and Shorts but keep search”. 3) Paste the rule it gives back and save.

That is it - no technical setup to learn. A personal plan can do things presets cannot, such as making one distracting area of a page step aside.

Templates cover common wishes - timers, schedules, quieter feeds, focus nudges, and more. Choose one, adjust the simple fields, and make it your own. It is the quickest way to start without explaining every detail from scratch.

You can always start from a template and then refine it further with the AI flow from the last box.

Targeted switches

Block the home feed and recommendations while keeping search and subscriptions. Skip to the next video instead of blocking on scroll-feeds like Shorts, Reels, and TikTok's FYP. Keep the useful part without losing the whole site.

YouTube, TikTok, Twitch and similar all share this idea: keep the part you came for, remove the part that traps you.

Reddit

Block the home feed, r/popular and r/all, or filter down to specific subreddits — keep r/productivity while the endless front page stays gone.

Discord & others

Choose the conversations and spaces that matter, then make the busy DMs and home screens step aside. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, and more each get choices that fit the way they pull at you.

How it fits together

Once you connect the two, matching group names can become one shared focus plan. Change it in one place and the other follows.

Nothing is sent away from your computer. The next two boxes show the simple steps: connect the two, then choose which individual groups should stay together.

Turn on the connection, then connect

In the app's Settings, turn on the option labelled “Run local server (hub)”. In the website tool's Settings, press Connect. Once it says connected, the two can share focus plans whenever you choose.

You only do this once per device. After that, linking individual groups (next box) is a single click.

Same name, one shared plan

Link a group to the same-named group in the other tool and they become one shared plan. Change the “Focus” group online and the “Focus” group on your Mac changes too - sites on one side, apps on the other, kept in step.

Groups you don't link simply stay independent, so you keep full control over what syncs.

What lives here

Set the usual snooze length, choose where a blocked visit should send you, and manage the connection to the Mac app. There is also an optional way to contribute a public channel reference to the creator map - never titles or viewing history.

These are set-and-forget defaults — most people open this once and rarely return.

The key difference

Here you turn on the option labelled “Run local server (hub)” when you want the two tools to share focus plans. The everyday preferences mirror the website tool, so what you learned there still applies.

The two settings pages look alike, but this is the one to use when you want the optional sharing connection to begin.

Export

Writes the selected group — all its sites, schedule, limits and rules — to a single file you keep.

Import

Loads a group from a file back into the list, ready to use. Built a great “Deep work” group on your laptop? Export it, import it on your desktop, done — no retyping.

Next to them sits Delete Group, which removes the selected group for good — the one editor action you can't undo, so it asks before it bites.

Whenever you forget what a field does, that button is the place to look first — it's written in your chosen language and stays in sync with the program you're using.

You now know the whole picture: groups, schedules, firmer boundaries, gentler breaks, personal plans, site choices, sharing a focus plan between tools, settings, and moving groups around. Go build your first group.

Everything you just walked through grows from that loop. Groups hold your choices, and their order tells Adamancia which promise matters most. Schedules, freeze, and snooze shape when and how firmly the boundary holds. Personal and site-specific choices let you go from “pause a whole site” to “keep the useful part,” and the two tools can share one allowance when you want them to.

You don't have to use all of it. The honest starting move is one group, one site or app, switched on. Add a schedule when you want it to clock off; reach for freeze the day you want to mean it. The rest is here for when you need it — and the Instruction Manual inside each program always has the long version.

What you're looking at

These boxes are a guided tour, laid out from top to bottom in reading order. Scroll to move through them, pinch or ⌘/Ctrl-scroll to zoom, and use the arrows to jump between steps. Each box explains one idea and most show a static visual reference so you see exactly what's described.

Where it ends up

By the last box you'll understand the whole thing and be ready to build your first rule. No account, no cost, and nothing you set up ever leaves your device. Take it one box at a time — the next three show the two programs and how to install them.

Where it runs

Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, and Firefox. Each browser has its own setup, so a choice you make in Chrome will not automatically appear in Firefox unless you add it there too.

What it can block

Whole websites, single pages, and — its superpower — parts of a page: the YouTube home feed, Shorts, Reels, a Reddit front page, a comment section. It can also redirect a blocked tab somewhere kinder instead of just closing it.

What it can't reach

It only sees the browser it's installed in. A desktop app — or the same site opened in a different browser — is outside its reach. That's exactly the gap the Mac app fills.

macOS & Windows — block whole apps

The Mac and Windows versions pause applications on your computer - chat apps, games, and more. When a group is on, those apps stay closed, which is something a website tool alone cannot do.

Safari — block sites in Apple's browser

The main extension covers Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc and Firefox, but not Safari. The separate Safari blocker fills that gap, blocking individual sites right inside Safari so the same pages stay closed there too.

macOS can share a focus plan

The Mac app can also share one focus plan with the website tool, so one allowance can cover an app on your Mac and the matching sites you visit online.

Same model, stronger reach

Every version uses the same groups, schedules, freeze, and snooze you will learn here - nothing new to learn. They simply help in different parts of your day.

Browser extension — add it, then pin it

Open your browser's add-on store and click Add to Chrome (the same build covers Edge, Brave and Arc); on Firefox use Add-ons. Confirm Add extension, then click the puzzle-piece icon in the toolbar and pin the blocker so its popup — the one you'll see throughout this tour — stays one click away.

macOS app — open the .dmg, then Applications

Double-click the downloaded .dmg, drag the app onto the Applications folder, then launch it from there. On first run macOS asks you to approve it once under System Settings → Privacy & Security — that permission is what lets it keep blocked apps closed. You can choose later whether it should also share focus plans with the website tool.

Windows app — run the installer

Open the downloaded installer and follow the prompts. When SmartScreen or the User Account Control dialog asks, choose Run anyway / Yes - that approval lets it keep blocked apps closed. It then runs quietly in the background and follows your groups.

Safari blocker — enable it in Settings

Open the Safari blocker once, then turn it on under Safari → Settings → Extensions and allow it on the sites you want it to manage. Safari only applies it after you grant that access.

New here? Take the one-minute tour next — it explains the whole model, then walks every control in turn.