Overlap / Multiple sessions running at the same time [Now Works with App Limits and Sessions]

[Chris]

From customer support

Love the app. Feature ideas:

• set time limits on how much time I can spend on a specific app within a day
• during a session, a time limit on the amount of breaks I can take
• allow multiple sessions to happen at the same time

[Chris]

From customer support

Multiple blocking sessions at once?

Hello, I hope you are doing well! I was wondering if it is possible to have multiple blocking sessions occurring at once? I would like to have one always running that gives me absolutely no access to some apps 24/7 (adult sites, TikTok, and Reddit), and another session that blocks distracting apps from the morning until I get home from school. Is this possible?

[Chris]

From customer support

I was playing with sessions while I was trying to discover the app and I wanted to have 2 sessions that run at the same time.
I created an allow list that runs from 5am to 6pm to do actual work and a block list that runs all the time for something else. And unfortunately I set that one as a deep focus session so I can’t edit it or delete it. So the first one is basically not active because of the second one.

[Chris]

From customer support

Can I have 2 sessions active at the same time?

[Chris]

From customer support

I think it’s an awesome app. Love the deep focus ability. Would appreciate a few updates

• pomodoro timer that counts how many sessions ive done
• be able to run multiple sessions at once

[Chris]

From Customer Support

Hi there - I set up multiple “sessions”, some that are due to overlap, but only one is active and I can still access some of the apps I had hoped to block. Can users have more than one limit or session going at a time?

[Vanessarseneau]

I would prefer to have the ability to have more than one session. As they don’t work the same.

I.e. I’d like to have some apps “always on” and only take breaks for them when needed, rather than having them blocked for cooldown.

[Vanessarseneau]

I’d love to be able to have more than one session at a time. i.e. There’s some apps that I would like to have “always on”, and then be able to have other sessions with more apps other times throughout the day.

[Rach_K]

Also would like to request running multiple sessions at once.

Or - to be able to add apps to a Deep Focus session while in progress.

Thanks!

[kenneth]

@Mordri_G-O

•Second topic: I think sessions should be allowed to overlap because what if there are certain apps you want to block only on certain days but allow them to run on other days, but keep your main apps you don’t want to use blocked all at the same time. It’s annoying you can’t customize it more in that way

Adding this here from another post

[joel888]

Being able to have multiple, overlapping sessions is key to the use case of opal. I block certain apps at certain times but then want to go into a deep work session and shut down additional apps (overlapping time) for focus.

Cold Turkey is the gold standard for mac and what opal should replicate for ios.

[Elliot_Tower]

I would like to be able to have one session which blocks work emails and messages outside of work hours, as well as a continuously running social media blocking session, which I did using the coworker live session. But it currently seems to end the social media one automatically when toggling on the work blocking session.

[kenneth]

Thank you for reporting this. @Elliot_Tower I actually split up the second part into a different feature request: Challenge: total session timer - How long you can you last?

[yoav_kirshenboim]

Everytime i block an app on a single session it updates the rest of the sessions, for example i wanna block social and mail in the morning and in the afternoon session only social, it doesn’t let me do that

[Ahmad]

This is an important and a very useful feature.

[Adrien]

@kenneth is overlapping sessions being developed?
I’ve read the entire thread here and I can see you’ve directed people towards using App Limits at the same time as a session, but it’s not the same as having overlapping sessions.

For ex I’d like to have most distracting apps blocked throughout the day but not WhatsApp.
But for 2 hours each morning I’d like to also block WhatsApp, to do some deep work.

Thanks!

Adrien

[kenneth]

Hey Adrien! overlapping sessions is not planned at the moment, what I suggest as backup is for you to create two distinct sessions:

1. Morning for 2 hours: Your distracting apps + Whatsapp
2. Rest of the day (all hours expect the 2 morning hours you picked): Your distracting apps without Whatsapp

[Adrien]

Thanks, I’ll do that!

[rafaelmoreira]

Hey @kenneth Why is the overlapping sessions function not planned yet?

I understand that there are other ways to organize the time blocks that each user needs, but it would be much easier to release the function of overlapping sessions.

And there are possibilities that can’t be done. Example: I would like to completely block social media throughout the day, but partially block WhatsApp at night. It can’t be done, because the sessions will overlap.

And I don’t want to use an app limit, because it’s not the same thing.

[neverfresh]

This is also what I want.

My original plan was to have 2 app groups: strict and lenient, but both set to the same time window (8am-7pm, then 8pm-7am). This way social media could not be unlocked, but browsers (yes I block browsers) could be unlocked in a pinch.

Now to make this work, I just have everything as a lenient unlock.