Touch the phone and the tree dies

Most focus tools turn attention into a progress bar: break it and nothing is lost. Forest takes a different route. A session begins by planting a virtual tree, for a length you choose from ten minutes up to two hours, and if you switch away to the phone during that time, the half grown tree withers. Finished sessions remain as a forest that keeps expanding, so a week of work ends not in a curve but in a screen full of trees. The team behind it comes from Taiwan and has been running this mechanic since 2014.

More than a timer

The core rule fits in one sentence, but the features built around it are not thin.

Deep focus keeps the apps you choose out of reach while a session runs, and switching to one pulls you back. The timer guard goes further and schedules the blocking for fixed hours of the day, so a social app that has no business being open during working hours does not need a session started by hand every time.

Blocking is not all or nothing. Apps that must not be cut off, maps and messengers above all, can go on an allowed list, so a message that actually matters still arrives.

Group sessions give several people one shared tree: if a single person gives up halfway, the tree falls for the whole group. That sense of being tied together is harder to fake than a private countdown.

A mindfulness space adds a set of breathing guides built around sound, a few minutes before and after a session, so the step from chores into concentration is less abrupt.

Beyond the forest, real trees

Finishing a session earns coins, and coins buy species and ground styles or go into a charitable project that plants real trees. Forest has worked with a tree planting organisation since 2014, and by the count published on its own site, the people taking part have brought about more than two million real trees into the ground across Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Cameroon. One qualification matters: the budget is limited, so the number of real trees a single account can plant is capped, and the figure given officially is five.

Where it runs, and working offline

The apps cover the two main phone systems, there is a wearable that pairs with the phone, and on the desktop the product exists as a browser extension rather than a separate client. Sign in with the same account and the sessions from every device flow into one forest; without a desktop client of its own, work on the computer is mostly covered by that extension. The timing core does not depend on the network, so on a plane, on a metro or in a room with poor signal the tree keeps growing and the statistics are not lost.

Is the free tier enough

It is. The core is not hidden away: the timer and the growing tree, the app blocking inside deep focus, group sessions and the basic statistics all sit inside the free range, and the official wording is that this part has no expiry. The subscription is optional and buys the full set of soundscapes, a custom allowed list, finer statistics with custom labels, exclusive and seasonal species, and small boosts such as faster coin earning. Prices differ between stores, so the number shown in each app store is the one that counts. As of September 2026 the store listing shows version 5.

What kind of focus it suits

The design leans on not wanting to let something already grown die, which makes it a good fit for single blocks of work: drafting a piece of writing, revising a chapter, clearing an inbox that has piled up for days. What it does not do is plan a day or break a task into steps, and it has nothing to say about aimless scrolling outside a session. The one condition for any of it to work is that you are willing to press start yourself.

Forest turns concentration into a visible loss: the tree is growing, so the person cannot walk away. The free tier already carries app blocking and group sessions, and the subscription only adds decoration. For anyone who needs a little ceremony to sit still, it works better than a cold countdown.