OneTabFocus — Focus Mode, Pomodoro Timer & Tab Manager for Deep Work

Focus mode for Chrome that locks one tab and hides the rest. Real Pomodoro timer, tab manager & distraction blocker for deep work.

Lock the tabs. Keep the work. OneTabFocus is a focus mode for Chrome that hides every distracting tab into a single chip — in one click. Your tabs are hidden, not closed: audio keeps playing, drafts stay put, and scroll position is preserved. When your timer ends, everything comes back exactly as you left it — same colors, titles, and order. Most focus extensions are just a countdown with a notification you'll ignore. OneTabFocus is a real lock. During the focus phase it changes what your browser can actually do, so distraction is friction away — not one keystroke away. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT ONETABFOCUS DOES ✓ One-click focus mode for Chrome Collapse every other tab into a single hidden chip and lock onto the one tab you're working in. Need references? Cmd-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows / Linux) to select multiple tabs first and lock them together as a focus group. ✓ A Pomodoro timer that actually locks Configurable focus, short break, and long break cycles — 25/5, 50/10, 90/15, or your own. Unlike most Pomodoro Chrome extensions, the lock holds through the break with a "take a breath" screen, then resumes the next focus phase automatically. This is the Pomodoro timer that enforces focus instead of just suggesting it. ✓ A tab manager that hides instead of closing Built on Chrome's native tab groups API. Declutter a crowded window without losing a single tab, draft, or playing audio. It's the tab manager for people who refuse to close their tabs. ✓ A smarter distraction blocker A traditional website blocker just maintains a blocklist you can edit around. OneTabFocus locks you to the work in front of you, so the rest of the web is simply out of reach for the session — a cleaner answer than trying to block distracting websites one by one. ✓ Streaks and a focus heatmap One completed session a day keeps your streak alive. A GitHub-style focus heatmap shows the days you actually showed up, so you can see whether the habit is real. Syncs across your Chrome devices. ✓ Snaps you back to focus Click a hidden tab or switch windows and focus snaps right back to your locked tab within a frame. The choice to drift is gone. ✓ A custom focus wall (Pro) When you open a new tab mid-session, OneTabFocus shows a full-page focus wall with your own quote and your own accent color. Hold the ring to end early if you really need to. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO IT'S FOR Built for deep work, studying, and ADHD focus. Tab-switching is a dopamine response, not a productivity tool — and locking the choice beats trying to out-willpower the impulse. • Deep work — Protect 60–120 minute blocks with a bounded end. One real block beats a scattered morning. Writers, developers, designers, and analysts who need an uninterrupted runway. • Studying — Cmd-click your textbook PDF and notes, then let everything else collapse. The simplest way to stay focused while studying for an exam, writing a thesis, or working through problem sets. • ADHD focus — Short, reachable focus windows with enough friction to interrupt the impulse to switch. Environment-design over willpower. • Working from home — Turn a noisy browser into a single, calm work surface. Slack, email, and YouTube collapse out of sight until the session ends. • Coding sprints — Lock onto your repo, your docs, and Stack Overflow as one focus group. Everything else folds away. • Writing in Notion, Google Docs, or Figma — Audio keeps playing through your collapsed tabs (your lo-fi playlist, your meeting recording, your reference video) while only the doc you're writing stays visible. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOW IT WORKS — THREE STEPS, NO SETUP 1. Name your focus — Type what you're working on and pick a duration. 2. Press start — Every other tab folds into a single hidden chip and the countdown begins. 3. Tabs come back — When the timer ends, your tab groups are restored exactly: colors, titles, and order intact. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOW THE LOCK WORKS OneTabFocus uses Chrome's native tab-groups API. Hidden tabs are not closed — they're collapsed into a single tab group titled "Hidden." That's why: • Audio keeps playing (Spotify, YouTube, meeting recordings, lo-fi playlists). • Google Docs, Notion, and Figma drafts are never lost. • Your scroll position is exactly where you left it when the session ends. • Your original tab groups, colors, and titles are restored verbatim. No URL tracking. No browsing history. The extension never reads page content. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT IS THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE? The Pomodoro technique breaks work into focused intervals (traditionally 25 minutes) separated by short breaks. The original was a kitchen timer — physical and unhackable. Software timers reintroduced the very problem they were meant to solve. OneTabFocus brings back the discipline of that kitchen timer by actually locking the focus phase. Configure 25/5, 50/10, 90/15, or your own cycle. Long breaks every 4 sessions, automatic. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE? If you've tried StayFocusd, Cold Turkey Blocker, Forest, Toby, Momentum, Marinara Pomodoro, or BlockSite — you know each one solves a piece of the problem. OneTabFocus is the one that locks your browser to one tab. It's a Chrome focus mode, Pomodoro timer, tab manager, and distraction blocker rolled into a single extension — designed for people who keep 30+ tabs open and don't want to close any of them. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRICING Free — Covers daily focus sessions need. Pro — $2/month billed annually ($24/year), or Founders Lifetime for $39 once (first 12 months after launch only). Unlocks unlimited daily sessions, focus blocks up to 4 hours, fully configurable Pomodoro cycles, the year-long focus heatmap, and a custom focus wall. Every install gets a 7-day Pro trial — no card required. Every feature works on day one. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Q: Does OneTabFocus close my tabs? A: No. Tabs are collapsed into a Chrome tab group called "Hidden." Nothing is closed. Audio keeps playing. Q: Will my Google Docs draft be lost? A: No. The tab is hidden, not closed. The Docs editor stays exactly as you left it. Q: Will audio keep playing during a focus session? A: Yes. Tabs in a collapsed group continue to play audio — your music, your meeting, your reference video. Q: Can I include multiple tabs in my focus group? A: Yes. Cmd-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows / Linux) to select multiple tabs before starting. They'll all stay visible during the session. Q: Can I end a session early if something urgent comes up? A: Yes. The sidebar has an "End early" button, and the full-page focus wall has a hold-to-end ring. The friction is intentional, not absolute. Q: Does it work as a website blocker? A: It works better than one. Instead of blocking distracting websites by URL, it removes the entire option to switch tabs for the duration. No blocklist to maintain. Q: Will it help me stay focused while studying? A: Yes. Lock onto your textbook PDF and notes, then let everything else collapse. Pair with a Pomodoro cycle for structured study blocks. Q: Will it help with ADHD focus? A: Many users with ADHD find environment-design works better than willpower. OneTabFocus removes the easiest distraction (tab-switching) without removing the tabs themselves. Q: How do I get Pro back on a new device? A: Sign in at onetabfocus.com/login with the email you used at checkout. Your license is tied to your email. Q: Will the extension slow down my browser? A: No. OneTabFocus runs as a lightweight service worker that's idle until a session starts. No background polling, no page injection on every site. Q: Can I customize the focus wall? A: Yes — Pro users can set their own quote and accent color for the full-page focus wall. Q: Does it sync across my devices? A: Yes. Settings and streaks sync via Chrome's built-in sync. Sign in to Chrome on a new device and your streak comes with you. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRIVACY OneTabFocus does not track URLs or browsing history. The extension sends no telemetry. Your session data, streak, and history live in your browser via Chrome's storage. The only data that leaves your browser is the email you use at checkout for Pro (handled by Stripe and our magic-link sign-in). Full policy: onetabfocus.com/privacy. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Add OneTabFocus to Chrome and turn your browser into a focus mode that finally holds. Lock the tabs. Keep the work.