I have a terrible habit of losing track of time when I’m deep in work. Hours disappear, I forget to take breaks, and suddenly it’s 8pm and I’ve been sitting at my Mac Mini M4 since 9am without moving. Pandan changed this by making me acutely aware of how long I’ve been actively working.
The app tracks your idle time and displays your current session duration in the menu bar. When I’m actively using my Mac, Pandan shows “2h 15m” indicating I’ve been working for two hours and fifteen minutes without a meaningful break. The moment I step away from my keyboard for a few minutes, it automatically detects I’m idle and stops counting. When I return, it starts a new session.
What makes Pandan particularly clever is that it knows when you’re inactive and automatically disables tracking. If I leave my Mac overnight, I don’t wake up to a “14h 32m” session - the app is smart enough to recognize genuine inactivity and pause itself. This idle detection works seamlessly and I’ve never had to manually manage it.
The Shortcuts integration is where Pandan becomes truly useful for health awareness. I created an automation that triggers a notification when my active session hits 90 minutes, reminding me to stand up, stretch, and give my eyes a break. Another shortcut logs session data to a spreadsheet so I can review my work patterns weekly. The app supports custom notification sounds and alerts through Shortcuts, making these reminders as gentle or insistent as you need.
Activity history is intentionally limited to 120 days by design - this is about time awareness, not long-term behavior analytics. I appreciate this privacy-conscious approach. The app also supports command-line session management if you want to integrate it with other terminal-based workflows.
One important note: Pandan is macOS-only and won’t work on iOS due to platform limitations around background activity tracking. It also doesn’t sync between devices - each Mac tracks independently.
The app runs on macOS 15 or later, with legacy versions supporting back to macOS 11. Memory usage is minimal at around 35MB, and CPU impact is negligible since it’s just monitoring system idle time. Pandan is completely free with no advertisements and no iCloud sync (all data stays local).
After two months of use, I’ve become much better at taking breaks. Seeing “1h 45m” in my menu bar triggers a conscious decision: keep working or take that overdue stretch break. For anyone who loses themselves in work and forgets basic self-care, Pandan provides gentle, persistent awareness without judgment.
