YouTube Time Limiter

YouTube Time Limiter gives you a time budget instead of a plain on/off block.

You start with a balance of minutes. It drains while a video is actually playing, in any tab, and fills back up while nothing is playing, up to a cap you set. When the balance hits zero, every YouTube page goes dark and playback stops.

Sometimes you genuinely need one video while you're out of time, like a tutorial you're halfway through. So the block has an escape hatch: open that video and unlock it on its own. Unlocking isn't a single click. You type a random phrase that changes every time, with pasting turned off, and answer a small question that's different on each try. Get either one wrong and you start over. You can't do it on reflex, and you have to repeat it for every video.

The popup shows how much time is left and whether you're draining or refilling. Settings cover the refill rate, the cap, how much you have to bank before a block lifts, and an option to hide the suggestions sidebar so finishing one video doesn't hand you the next. Changing any setting takes the same two steps as unlocking a video, so you can't loosen the rules in a weak moment. There's also a button to subtract time on the spot when you want to spend less.

What it won't do: stop a determined version of you. You can turn the extension off or edit its saved data. It's built to interrupt the reflex of opening YouTube and losing an hour, not to lock anything away.