Bookidoro

Hi IH 👋 I'm Niko.

For years I've had the same problem: I want to read more, but "finding time to read" never happens. What does happen, every 25 minutes, is a break. And I spent those breaks scrolling.

So I built Bookidoro, a tiny Mac menu bar app that turns your work breaks into reading breaks.

How it works

• You work. Bookidoro sits quietly in the menu bar.

• When it's break time, the next page of your book opens in the middle of the screen, with everything else blurred.

• You read a page (or two), click Done, and you're back to work.

• It remembers your place, so a book gets finished a page at a time without you ever "making time".

The math is what convinced me: a few pages per break, a handful of breaks a day, is a lot of books a year for zero extra time.

Details I cared about

• 📚 Your own PDFs and EPUBs, with a library that keeps your place in each.

• 🤫 Never interrupts calls or screen sharing, and waits a minute after you come back to your desk.

• 🔄 Syncs across your Macs through your own iCloud: no accounts, no servers of mine.

• 📊 Reading stats: streaks, pace, and when you'll finish.

• 🌙 Paper, Sepia and Night page themes.

• Look back a page, keep reading if you're in the flow, or snooze until tomorrow on days that aren't reading days.

How it's built
Native Swift/SwiftUI, menu bar only, macOS 13+. Everything is local: your books and reading history stay on your Mac. It's signed and notarized by Apple, with in-app updates via Sparkle. The one bit of analytics is anonymous (TelemetryDeck), never includes what you read, and has an off switch.

Business model
Free to download and use, every feature, forever. After a few breaks it gently asks you to support it with an optional license, $9.99/year. No paywall, no trial countdown. I'd rather people build the habit first and pay because it's working for them.

Where I'd love your help

1. Does "reading instead of scrolling on breaks" resonate with you, or is it a niche of one? 😅

2. Is a gentle, non-blocking license the right call for a small utility like this, or would you go paywall or one-time purchase?

3. Where would you find the first 100 users for something like this? I'm thinking productivity and reading communities, but I'm open to ideas.

👉 bookidoro.app (free for Mac)

Thanks for reading!