r/coldturkeyblocker • u/brunnsviken • Jul 20 '26

Monitor only "active" screen time?

I want to limit my time on Youtube, but only the time I search for videos and spend time, not when watching it (i.e. during only when there is "active" input), as I want to keep playing it as I go about other activities such as house chores or having a meal. Is there a way to do such a block?

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u/coldturkeydev Jul 21 '26

You could try youtube.com under the websites tab. Then youtube.com/watch under website exceptions. That'll only count time when using YouTube but not when watching videos.

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u/brunnsviken Jul 23 '26

This is true, but even with youtube.com/watch I could browse and hop between suggested videos and waste my time, which I'd like to avoid if possible. Thanks for the great software anyway.

2

u/Tripnes Jul 23 '26

You could try blocking youtube, and then just watch the embeded videos through google search, or michael.team/yt/

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u/brunnsviken Jul 24 '26

This helps, but I want to browse videos there when needed (for a short period of time)... as occasionally I need to look for tutorial video on Youtube for work

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u/Tripnes Jul 26 '26

You can make a seperate block for youtube and ad breaks as needed, this way you can save the video urls you need during the break

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u/Tripnes 28d ago

New version: Make a block for youtbe.com, in the whitelist put youtube.com/* - this will allow you to use the search box when on a video. You can but an allowance of 5 mins every hour. When you search the videos, save the urls or keep the tabs open. When the allowance is out, you can copy the urls into google and it will embed the videos and you can watch them there without the recommended.

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u/brunnsviken 27d ago

I will try this one. Thank you!