Stop doomscrolling.
Get your time back.

TimeRetriever hides short-video shelves, algorithmic feeds, or an entire site on a schedule. Keep the parts you actually want, and let the rest stay out of sight.

Free on the Chrome Web Store. No account, no sign-in, no server.

Looking for Instagram on your phone? Download TimeRetrieverApp for iPhone & Android →

5sites it runs on. On anything else it does not load at all.
0bytes that leave your computer. There is no server to send them to.
6hbetween the automated checks that catch a site changing its markup.

The extension

One list. No dashboard.

No score, no streak, no dashboard. Every site has one compact list of surfaces, a master switch, a whole-site option, and the controls that matter.

Timeback
YouTube4h 13m
Instagram
X (Twitter)1h 30m
LinkedIn12h
Reddit6h 5m
Reset to defaultsReport a breakv0.4.3

One list. Every control.

Five sites, every surface grouped beneath its name, plus a master switch and an optional whole-site curtain. Your choices stay compact and local instead of becoming another dashboard to manage.

Timeback
YouTube this tab4h 13m
Shorts
Shelf on home and search
Sidebar entry
In search results
Channel Shorts tab
Recommendations
Other
Reset to defaultsReport a breakv0.4.3

Down to the surface, and to the hour

Each surface is its own line, grouped the way the page groups it. Give Shorts, comments, recommendations, or a whole site their own schedule — for example, LinkedIn gone from nine to six while everything else stays available.

Timeback
YouTube4h 13m
Instagram
X (Twitter)1h 30m
LinkedIn12h
Reddit6h 5m
Reset to defaultsReport a breakv0.4.3

Control the escape hatch

Need the LinkedIn feed back? Pause one site for five minutes, the afternoon, or the week while the others keep working. The timer restores your settings automatically, and the optional arithmetic gate makes impulse changes take a second.

What it hides

Five sites. Nothing else.

All of it goes the moment you install. Putting any single piece back is one click, and any site you keep can be drained to black and white.

YouTube

Shorts, everywhere they show up — home, search, sidebar, channel pages. The player itself stops opening, even from a link someone sent you.

The recommendations next to the video, the end screen grid and comments go too.

Instagram

Reels and Explore in the navigation, plus suggested posts and accounts in the feed.

The feed can also slow down instead of disappearing, giving new posts a softer arrival.

X (Twitter)

The For You tab, Trending, Who to follow and Grok.

Following stays. The tab you did not choose is the one that goes.

LinkedIn

The video carousel, the feed sort control, the news module and the feed itself.

Search, messages and your profile stay.

Reddit

The inline video player, and the home, popular and all feeds.

The feed can slow down instead, while your subreddits keep working.

Everywhere else

Nothing. It cannot run outside those five sites.

The list is fixed in the manifest and cannot grow without a new version being reviewed.

What it will never do

Three lines it does not cross.

Not as a policy that could change next quarter. Each of these is the reason the extension still works.

It does not block ads.

That is a fight the platforms fund permanently, and staying out of it is what keeps this extension working.

It does not touch your account.

It never follows, unfollows, likes, posts, votes or comments for you. People have lost their accounts forever over extensions that did.

Nothing leaves your computer.

No history, no page content, no identifiers, and no server to send them to. What it keeps — your switches, and how long you spent on each site — the browser keeps, on your machine.

How it works

Hidden before the first paint.

The difference between not seeing a Short and seeing one for 200 milliseconds — plus a small interruption when you stay too long.

Hiding after the page renders

load
paint
hide

The section appears, is seen, and then vanishes. Your eye already did the work the shelf was built for.

TimeRetriever

load
paint
hide

The rule is in place before the first frame reaches the screen, so the section is never drawn at all. Later, the optional puppy can appear after a long visit and give the loop a visible stopping point.

Honest about limits

When a site changes, something can come back.

Websites change their markup without warning, and when they do, a hidden section can reappear. An automated check runs against the live sites every six hours, so breakage is found in hours instead of weeks. If you spot something first, the support address is the fastest way to get it fixed.

Get your time back.

Nothing blocked, nothing touched, nothing leaving your computer.