Focus that rewards you.
A chapter of a historical life opens: a quote they said, a story from their years, or an image from their world. Coins added, XP added, streak extended.
A Pomodoro app, reimagined for the modern attention economy
The Pomodoro timer that catches ghosts.
Every 25-minute session reveals a mind that changed history, pixel by pixel. An innovative Pomodoro timer that rewires your brain for deep work. Built for ADHD brains that rigid timers fail.
Why Catch the Ghost
Stakes without shame.
Brains rewire through feeling. A focus loop without consequences is a loop without teeth. Finish a session and a chapter of someone's life opens. Bail early and the apparition escapes; if you staked coins on the session, they go with it. Miss a day and your streak resets, though you can buy it back. These consequences are deliberate, chosen, and quickly recoverable. The feelings are real. The stakes are yours to set. The pressure nudges. It never scolds.
A Pomodoro timer that adapts to your brain.
25 minutes is a suggestion, not a law. Switch between Deep Focus and Shallow Focus, dial anything from 10 to 120 minutes, and pick the kind of mind you want to meet. Build the loop that fits your day.
Replace scrolling with collecting.
Your phone is engineered to hold your attention. We engineer it back. 700+ ghosts to catch and counting, from Seneca to Ada Lovelace.
The digital hourglass
Time, without the ticking clock.
A Pomodoro doesn't have to feel like a countdown. In Catch the Ghost, time reveals itself as an image. One pixel appears, then another, then another. No seconds blinking in your face, no dread as the number shrinks. By the end of 25 minutes, a ghost has arrived in your library.
Calmer for any focused mind. A quiet relief for ADHD ones.
Why it works
Anti-scroll, by design
We make staying off your phone rewarding.
Your phone is a slot machine of dopamine hits. Catch the Ghost is the counter-offer: a focus loop that actually competes. Pixel by pixel, apparition by apparition, a historical figure reveals themselves while you work.
Meet the ghosts · 700+ and counting
Every focus session, another chapter of a life that changed history.
700+ historical figures to catch across Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary eras, with new ones arriving every week. Seneca. Ada Lovelace. Frederick Douglass. Queen Elizabeth I.
A ghost is not one picture. It is a life told in order, across 6,600+ chapters. Chapter one is the cold open, where they came from and what they were before anyone knew the name. Then a quote they actually said, a story from the years that made them, an image from their world. The last chapter is how it ended and what survived them. Catch every chapter and the app says the only thing left to say: their story is yours now.
Explore the libraryTwo modes. Nine categories. One shared room.
Pick the mode, the length, and the company.
Not every task needs 25 uninterrupted minutes, and not every Monday morning feels the same. Catch the Ghost gives you two focus modes, any length from 10 to 120 minutes, a say in which kind of mind you meet, and the option to run the whole thing alongside your friends.
Shallow Focus
Inbox, errands, admin. From 10 minutes up, still earning coins and keeping your streak alive. No ghosts in Shallow, since apparitions are reserved for Deep Focus, but Shallow saves the working minutes you would otherwise lose entirely.
Deep Focus
Writing, coding, studying, strategy. 25 to 120 minutes, in 5-minute steps. Chapters are only caught in Deep Focus. Pro unlocks the Sleep Timer so a full night counts toward your library.
Who are you catching?
- Lucky
- Art
- Entertainment
- History
- Literature
- Music
- Philosophy
- Politics
- Religion
- Science
Or skip the surprise
The other half of the picker is Pick a ghost: choose a ghost already in progress and spend the session on their next chapter instead.
Categories
Before a session the app asks who you are catching. Leave it on Lucky and anyone can walk out of the pixels, or steer toward Philosophy, Science, Music, and the rest. The categories are served from our end, so the list grows without you updating anything.
Focus Together
Focus together, earn 2x.
Deep Focus, but in a room with up to eight people. One of you creates the room and shares a code, a link, or a QR square. Everyone's timer starts on the same second. Finish, and every person who finished walks away with double coins and double XP on top of every other multiplier they earned.
It takes two.
The bonus needs at least two people to cross the line. Finish alone and you keep your full normal reward, plus a quiet note that the 2x is still waiting on a partner.
Nobody can cost you anything.
A partner who steps away never subtracts from your reward. The asymmetry is deliberate and enforced on our servers, not on trust.
Nobody gets called a failure.
Someone who does not finish shows up in the room as Done for now. Not failed. Not gave up. The roster your friends see is the same room you would want to walk back into tomorrow.
Earn your way into the Store
Focus earns coins. Coins unlock packs.
Every focus session earns coins. Spend them in the in-app Store on themed ghost packs: Great Strategists, Actors, Famous Japanese, Great Authors, and more arriving every month. Keep your streak and you earn more coins per session. Invite a friend and you get 3,000 coins the moment they finish their first 25-minute session, while they get 1,000. The Store is earnable, not just purchasable. The premium tier is for convenience, not for access.
See how pricing works
Common questions
Answers, up front.
Everything we get asked most often, answered without marketing throat-clearing. For the full list, the FAQ page has more.
Does the Pomodoro technique work for ADHD?
Yes, when the timer is flexible. Traditional 25-minute-only Pomodoro fails many ADHD brains because rigid intervals ignore energy state and task type. Catch the Ghost lets you switch between Deep Focus and Shallow Focus, set any length from 25 to 120 minutes, and pick the category of figure you want to meet, so the timer adapts to you instead of the other way around. See the ADHD page for details.
How is Catch the Ghost different from Forest?
Forest grows a tree that dies if you leave the app. Catch the Ghost rewards you with a chapter from a historical life, coins, and XP every time you finish a focus session. No dying tree, no blame, no onboarding that tells you you have wasted your life. If you leave mid-session the apparition escapes, but your coins stay yours unless you chose to stake them, and a grace window gives you time to come back first. Our pricing is transparent: monthly, annual, or a $99.99 founding-member lifetime. See the Forest comparison for a full breakdown.
Is Catch the Ghost free?
Yes, on both iOS and Android. The Free tier includes the Pomodoro timer, the ghost-catching loop, Focus Together group sessions, and the leaderboard. Every focus session also earns you coins you can spend in the in-app Store on themed ghost packs. Keep your streak and you earn more coins per session, so even the Store is reachable without paying. Subscribing is for convenience, not for access.
Can a focus app really help with phone addiction?
Not by blocking. Blocking apps fail because you can always uninstall them. Catch the Ghost works by giving your focus a reward loop that competes with the dopamine your phone already offers. When putting the phone down earns you something you actually want, picking it back up starts to feel like a worse trade.
What is the difference between Deep Focus and Shallow Focus?
Deep Focus is for heavy cognitive work: writing, coding, studying, any task that benefits from uninterrupted time. It runs 25 to 120 minutes and it is the only mode that catches ghosts. Shallow Focus is for admin and low-stakes work: inbox, errands, quick chores. It starts as low as 10 minutes and still earns coins and keeps your streak, but no apparition is revealed. Choosing the right mode for the task is part of the product.
Can I focus with friends?
Yes. Focus Together puts a Deep Focus session in a shared room of up to 8 people. The host creates a room, friends join with a code, a link, or a QR scan, and every timer starts at the same instant. If at least two of you finish, everyone who finished earns double coins and double XP. If someone does not finish, nothing is subtracted from anyone else, and the app calls them "Done for now" rather than failed.
Does Catch the Ghost block other apps?
No. We do not block, lock, or restrict anything on your phone. Our thesis is that reward works better than restriction. You can always put the phone down; we just give you a reason to.
Pricing, in plain English
Three ways in. Zero dark patterns.
Use the app for free forever, subscribe for convenience, or lock in the founding-member lifetime price before it goes public. The App Store and Google Play handle the billing. We never do.
Free
$0
Pomodoro timer, ghost-catching, Focus Together, leaderboard, the full coin economy. Earn your way into premium content by focusing.
Most popular
Pro
$2.92/mo
7-day free trial (3 days monthly). Then $34.99/yr, or $4.99/mo monthly.
Legendary Ghosts, Premium Moods, Sleep Timer (up to 10x coins), Ghost Universe, Full History. Cancel anytime in one tap.
Founding member price
Lifetime
$99.99
Pay once. Yours forever.
Everything in Pro, for people who are tired of subscriptions. Launching soon at the founding-member price.
From the App Store
Reviewed by the focused.
Amazing App!
Pokémon for adults in the best way possible. Enjoy the design aesthetic of the pixelation, quotes, and simple and effective UI.
I get more work done!
This app has improved my productivity by at least x2. I now get more work done and use less time on my phone scrolling through social media endlessly when I should be working.
Ingenious idea!
Makes me excited to stay off my phone, to see what ghost I'll be catching next, and to read what that ghost has to say!
Fantastic utility
The only app I've found that FORCES you to lock in, by tracking when you leave the app, which can't be circumvented. Very clever idea! I also like that you can customize which ghosts you meet.
Best Focus Timer
I've been using focus timers for a while and stumbled across this on Reddit. I've never come across a focus timer that was this much fun to use and made me feel this good getting work done.
A great tool for productivity!
The focus timer in the app has helped me stay on track to complete my tasks, and the design of the timer and the corresponding catching apparitions concept with artworks is unique and well done.
The mission
We give your focus a reason to stay.
We don't block your phone. We don't shame you for picking it up. We give your focus a reason to stay, and we make the reward worth the wait. Every 25 minutes of deep work, a mind that changed history joins your collection. Catch enough ghosts, and you stop noticing the scroll.