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About this tool
Every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds. A looping screen-break timer with guided eye exercises.
The 20-20-20 Eye Rest Timer runs the screen-break rule on a loop: every 20 minutes of work it interrupts you for a fixed 20-second break spent looking at something 20 feet — about 6 metres — away. It chimes at both ends, shows the countdown in the browser tab title, and rotates through eight different eye exercises so no two consecutive breaks are the same. Break counts, tracked screen time and your day streak are kept on your device, with the last seven days shown as a bar chart.
Open 20-20-20 Eye Rest Timer on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Set the 'Work interval' (15-60 min slider or the 20/30/45/60 min presets) and your 'Daily break goal', then press 'Start the loop'.
Work until the chime — the tab title carries the countdown — then follow the 20-second break screen and its named exercise, or press 'Skip to work'.
Use Pause, 'Break now' or Stop mid-loop; breaks taken, screen time and your day streak build up in the seven-day chart, stored on your device.
The countdown is anchored to a wall-clock target rather than a tick counter, so a throttled or hidden tab still fires the break on time.
Eight exercises — distance gaze, palming, figure-8 tracing, near-far shifts, full blinks, slow sweeps, eye rolls and closed-eye rest — cycle in turn instead of repeating one prompt all day.
Breaks taken against your daily goal, screen time accumulated and a running day streak turn the rule into something you can actually see yourself keeping.
Every 20 minutes, look at something at least 20 feet (roughly 6 metres) away for 20 seconds. The distance is the active ingredient: holding near focus keeps the ciliary muscle contracted, and about 6 metres is far enough for it to relax back toward its resting state.
Yes — the work interval slides from 15 to 60 minutes in 5-minute steps, with one-tap presets at 20, 30, 45 and 60. The break stays 20 seconds whichever you choose; longer intervals interrupt you less but rest your eyes less often.
Current evidence says no — screen use causes digital eye strain, which is uncomfortable and reversible, not structural damage. The main mechanism is blink rate: it drops by roughly two thirds during concentrated screen work, from about 15-20 blinks a minute to 5-7, which lets the tear film break up.
Yes, in two ways: the chime plays regardless, and a desktop notification fires only while this tab is hidden, if you have granted permission. The tab title also carries the live countdown so a glance at your tab strip tells you where you are.