Fomi download not working? It isn't you
Fomi, the AI focus app for Mac, is no longer on the App Store, so its download button leads nowhere. Here's what's known, what to do if you paid, and what to use instead.
This post is from Tolby, one of the options below.
Can you still get Fomi?
No, as of November 13, 2026.
- Fomi's Mac App Store listing is gone. Apple's lookup for the app returns no listing in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Japan or India. The App Store was the only place to get Fomi for Mac, so there's no other download.
- fomilab.ai is still online. Its Mac download buttons lead to that App Store page, which no longer exists, and its Windows download buttons lead back to the homepage.
- Nothing on Fomi's site or blog says why, or whether it's coming back.
Stuck on "Validating…"?
If Fomi is still installed and your sessions stop at "Validating…" and never start, it isn't just you. Users in Fomi's public Discord have reported it since May. It cleared up in May, came back in August and was fixed on August 3, then was back again by late September. The latest reports, from October 12 and 13, had no reply as of November 10.
If you paid for Fomi
Fomi was sold through the App Store, and its privacy policy says Apple handled all billing. If you're switching, check whether your subscription is still active:
- On a Mac: open the App Store, click your name at the bottom left, then Account Settings, and find Subscriptions.
- On an iPhone: open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions.
Fomi and Tolby, side by side
Fomi's column comes from its own site and privacy policy. Tolby's comes from tolby.app.
| Question | Fomi | Tolby |
|---|---|---|
| Can you get it? | No. The App Store listing is gone. | Yes, free from tolby.app. |
| Price | $2.99 a week, $7.99 a month or $59.99 a year, after a 3-day trial. | Free on Macs with 12GB of memory or more. Tolby+ ($8 a month) runs the coach online, which is easier on your battery, and is what a smaller Mac needs. |
| How you start | A session: your task, the sites you'll use, and 25, 45 or 60 minutes. | Say what you're about to do, in your own words. No timer. It stays on all day. |
| When you drift | An alert. If it was wrong, you clicked False Alert. | A short question. You answer in your own words: go back, change the plan, or carry on. |
| Where your screen is judged | Online. Screenshots went to AI services such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Gemini, after personal details were removed on your Mac. | On your Mac, on every plan, by a model that runs there. |
| What leaves your Mac | Those screenshots. | Free: nothing from your screen, unless you choose to send it to us. Tolby+: text for the online coach, filtered first: the apps and window titles you've been in and a short note about your screen. We don't store it. |
| With the Wi-Fi off | Its privacy policy says its screenshots went to those online services. | With 12GB of memory or more, it keeps noticing and asking, once its model has downloaded. On a smaller Mac, check-ins pause until you're back online. |
| Reports | A report after each session. | A Time page: the time you planned next to the time you spent. No score. |
| Runs on | Mac, through the App Store. | Mac with Apple Silicon and macOS 26 or later. With less than 12GB of memory, it needs Tolby+ or a gift code. |
When Tolby's coach runs online, it sends your plan, the chat, the coach's notes about you, the apps you've been in and their window titles, and a short note about what's on your screen. If you turn them on, your current and next calendar event and Todoist tasks go too. Card, ID and bank numbers and anything that looks like a password are filtered out first. That filter catches what it recognizes, so it's a filter, not a guarantee. The privacy page has the details.
Pick by what you used Fomi for
It told your work from the rabbit hole
This is the part a blocker can't do. Your statistics lecture is on YouTube, and so is the video essay autoplay puts on after it. Blocking YouTube loses the lecture. Telling them apart takes an app that reads your screen.
Tolby does this on your Mac, and it's free with 12GB of memory or more. You tell it what you're about to do. While your screen matches, you hear nothing. When you're off in a rabbit hole, it asks whether that's still the plan.
Two paid apps do this job too, and both do their judging online. Hugo ($12 a month after a 14-day trial) checks each new tab against the goal you set, and in its AI mode reads the text of one window. aimlock ($19 a month) checks the app, window title and web address you're on every minute.
It kept you to a timed session
If what you liked was the timer, and your distractions are sites you never need for work, a blocker during a timed session does the job without reading your screen at all. Cold Turkey Blocker's free version blocks websites for a set time, on Mac and Windows.
The catch: if the work and the rabbit hole are on the same site, a blocker has to block both or neither.
It showed you where the time went
If you'd miss Fomi's report after each session, Dayflow records your day on your Mac and writes it up as a timeline you read later. It's free if you run its AI on your own Mac, and since May it has daily focus targets with reminders you can turn off.
Tolby has a lighter version of this. Its Time page puts the time you planned for each thing next to the time you actually spent at your Mac, and it stays on your Mac.
You were on Windows
Tolby, Hugo and Dayflow are Mac only. Cold Turkey runs on Windows, and so does aimlock, which also tells work from distraction.
Before you install anything else that watches your screen
Three questions are worth asking of any app in this category, Tolby included:
- Does it send pictures of your screen, text about it, or nothing? A screenshot carries everything on it, including the parts no filter would think to remove.
- Who receives it? The privacy policy should name the companies.
- Does it still notice with the Wi-Fi off? Turn off Wi-Fi, wander off on purpose, and see. That tells you where the judging happens better than any feature page.