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Your timer is in the tray.That's why you keep losing time.TimeFence vs tray based timers

TimeFence is a persistent, always-on-top countdown HUD that floats over your work instead of hiding in the tray or a background tab — so you read the time in passing. Native Rust and Tauri, local-first, no telemetry.

TimeFence is a persistent, always-on-top countdown HUD for Windows that floats over your work instead of hiding in the tray or a background tab — so the remaining time stays in your peripheral vision. Native Rust and Tauri, local-first, no telemetry.

$2.99 USD — Perpetual License

One-time purchase · Lifetime updates · Delivered via the Microsoft Store

Get it from Microsoft Store

Purchased and updated securely through the Microsoft Store. No account needed on our site, no subscription, and a Microsoft receipt for easy corporate expensing.

Full TimeFence overview
One-time purchase No telemetry Local-first

windows · local-first · buy direct · one-time purchase

If this sounds like your week

A timer you can't see is a timer you don't have.

The default places people put a timer — the system tray, a pinned browser tab — are exactly the places you never look. Windows collapses tray icons behind a chevron, and a background tab is one Alt-Tab away from gone. You mean to glance at the time, but glancing requires a deliberate detour, so it quietly never happens.

Where tooling usually breaks

Out of sight really is out of mind.

Every check of a hidden timer is a small interruption: move the mouse, hover the tray, read the tooltip, return to work. So you either break your flow to look, or you skip it and resurface an hour later wondering where the time went. Neither is "staying on schedule" — it's hoping.

Where TimeFence lands

TimeFence keeps the countdown in the same plane as your work.

TimeFence is a persistent, always-on-top HUD that floats over your editor, browser, or call window instead of hiding in the tray. The remaining time sits in your peripheral vision, so you read it in passing — no deliberate "check the timer" step. It's a native Rust and Tauri overlay that stays on top without taking keyboard focus, so you keep typing in the app you're actually using. Local-first, no account, no telemetry.

$2.99 USD — Perpetual License

One-time purchase · Lifetime updates · Delivered via the Microsoft Store

Get it from Microsoft Store

Purchased and updated securely through the Microsoft Store. No account needed on our site, no subscription, and a Microsoft receipt for easy corporate expensing.

Learn more about TimeFence

windows · local-first · buy direct · one-time purchase

What you get

Feature highlights

Persistent timer HUD

Always-visible countdown on a zero-latency overlay—peripheral time you can't ignore, without modal chrome blocking your work.

Rust + Tauri, local-first

No Electron tax, no sign-in, and no telemetry. Your focus sessions never leave your machine.

Strict Mode

A real enforcement switch. Start a block and the soft “I’ll just pause it” path disappears—on purpose. Use it when you mean it.

Especially when

  • Combat time blindness: keep a persistent visual timer HUD in view on Windows, not in the tray
  • Reduce context switching: stop tab-flipping to web timers or “focus” apps with account walls
  • When you need commitment, not cosplay: optional Strict Mode for deterministic focus sessions you cannot abandon mid-block

Who benefits

Real-world scenarios

The tray that swallows the timer

You start a 40-minute timer, it minimizes to the tray behind the chevron, and you drop into the task. The next time you surface, you've blown well past the mark — nothing in your field of view ever showed the time moving.

With TimeFence the countdown floats on top of whatever you're doing. You catch the remaining time in passing, without a deliberate "check the tray" detour, and you wrap up roughly when you meant to.

The Pomodoro tab you Alt-Tabbed away

Your timer is a browser tab. Two minutes in you switch to your editor, the tab disappears behind the work, and the 25-minute interval quietly becomes an hour because the clock was never in sight.

TimeFence's HUD stays pinned over the editor, so the interval boundary is always legible. The break arrives on schedule instead of being discovered an hour late.

The transition that never happens

You meant to switch tasks at the top of the hour, but with no visible cue the current task just keeps going. "One more minute" stretches into twenty before you notice.

TimeFence keeps the countdown to your transition in view the whole time, so the handoff between tasks happens when you planned it — not whenever you happen to look up.

Deep dive

Why peripheral-vision time cues beat tray icons and tab timers

The reason a tray icon fails as a timer isn't laziness — it's how attention works. Reading a collapsed tray glyph requires a deliberate act: notice that you should check, move the mouse, hover, read the tooltip, and return. Each of those is a micro-interruption, and the whole sequence is easy to skip when you're absorbed in something. So the timer that's "right there" effectively isn't there at all. Peripheral vision works differently. You don't decide to notice motion or a changing number at the edge of your sight; you just do, passively, while your focus stays on the task. A countdown that lives in that peripheral zone — over the work rather than behind it — gets read continuously without ever costing you a deliberate glance. That's the entire mechanism behind a HUD: it converts "remember to check the time" into "the time is simply visible." For this to help rather than annoy, the overlay has to stay on top without stealing focus. TimeFence uses a native Windows topmost window so the HUD floats above your editor, browser, or call, while keyboard input still flows to the app underneath — visible but non-intrusive. A background tab can't do this (it's covered the moment you switch away), and a tray icon won't (it's hidden by design). TimeFence is built around keeping the count where your eyes already are: a persistent, always-on-top HUD, native Rust and Tauri for a small footprint, local-first with no account and zero telemetry. Optional Strict Mode adds enforcement for the blocks you want to protect.

Trusted by pragmatic desktop users

Built for people who prefer tools that stay local.

Real workflows: focus timers that stay visible, batches that never leave the disk, and renames you can rewind.

Customer review 01

PinPoint: Always On Top saves me so much time as I can organize all my report materials without having to flip between windows or tabs. I love the fact that it is straightforward and simple.

Senior Accountant · Manufacturing Company · United States · PinPoint

Learn more
Customer review 02

I used to get so frustrated when my Taskbar would freeze and disappear. Taskbar Sentinel has eliminated that pain without subjecting me to another subscription.

Darren · Calgary, Alberta, Canada · Taskbar Sentinel

Learn more
Customer review 03

OpticBatch and MetaForge are a lifesaver for me as a person with a passion for photography. They give me the ability to stay organized and keep personal information confidential when I post pictures online.

Sherri · United States · OpticBatch & MetaForge

Learn more

Quotes are shown with customer permission; names and locations appear as reviewers provided them.

Our Core Moat

Engineered to respect your system boundaries.

System Resource Monitor (Idle State Comparison)
Automata Labs sub-5MB idle memory footprint compared to generic Electron applications

Lightweight Native Stack

Compiled Rust core wrapped inside an optimized Tauri shell. No heavy background node loops or duplicate Chromium engines cooking your memory footprint (<5MB idle RAM).

100% Local-First Privacy

Executes entirely on-device with full offline isolation. Absolute zero background telemetry policies, no metrics aggregation, and zero mandatory cloud-sync accounts.

Perpetual Fallback Licenses

Pay a single, clear one-time purchase price. Own your specific native software utility execution tier permanently without artificial subscription paywalls or ongoing usage tax.

FAQ

Straight answers—no glossary dump

Why a HUD instead of a system tray icon or a browser-tab timer?

A tray icon and a background tab both require a deliberate act to check, which is exactly what gets skipped when you are focused. An always-on-top HUD keeps the countdown in your peripheral vision over the work, so you read it in passing — no detour, no forgetting. That visibility is the whole point.

Will the always-on-top HUD steal focus or interrupt my typing?

No. TimeFence stays on top as a topmost window without becoming the foreground window, so keyboard input still goes to the app underneath. You keep typing in your editor, browser, or call while the countdown stays visible. It is designed to be visible but non-intrusive — a HUD, not a modal pop-up.

Does TimeFence collect any data or require an account?

No. TimeFence is local-first with zero telemetry and no mandatory account. It runs entirely on your machine and nothing about your sessions leaves it. It installs from the Microsoft Store and runs locally.

What do I need to run TimeFence, and where do I get it?

TimeFence is a Windows desktop app (Windows 10 and 11) built with Rust and Tauri, and it installs from the Microsoft Store. It is a one-time purchase that runs locally — no subscription and no account required.

Related pages

Time blindness isn't about trying harder. It's about seeing the clock. A time-box only works when you can see the box. Time blindness isn't about trying harder. It's about seeing the clock. Decide once, at the start. Not every time the work gets hard.

The tray is where clocks go to die.
Put time back on screen.

TimeFence is a one-time Windows purchase. No subscriptions, no telemetry. Just a local Rust/Tauri HUD with optional Strict Mode for serious blocks.

$2.99 USD — Perpetual License

One-time purchase · Lifetime updates · Delivered via the Microsoft Store

Get it from Microsoft Store

Purchased and updated securely through the Microsoft Store. No account needed on our site, no subscription, and a Microsoft receipt for easy corporate expensing.

Open full product page

Technical specifications

Technical specifications for procurement

Spec Implementation
Data Sovereignty Focus sessions and HUD state remain on-device; no cloud session store
Telemetry Status None; no analytics or sign-in for core timer behavior
Core Runtime Rust / Tauri with native Windows overlay APIs
Network Requirements Fully functional offline
Deployment Compatibility Windows 10 and 11 via Microsoft Store and direct purchase
Overlay behavior Always-on-top HUD designed not to steal keyboard focus
Strict Mode Optional session lock with pause/quit paths disabled until block ends