I built Sanctum after noticing that my problem wasn t YouTube itself. It was the moment when one intentional video quietly turned into 30 minutes of recommendations, Shorts, or aimless browsing.
Sanctum doesn t completely block YouTube. Instead, it adds small pauses at the moments when you re most likely to slip into autopilot, so you can decide whether you actually want to keep watching.
Sanctum is a Chrome extension that helps you use YouTube intentionally instead of getting pulled into recommendations, autoplay, and Shorts. It adds gentle friction through pause prompts, viewing intentions, mindful breaks, and short reflections. The goal is not to block YouTube, but to help you notice when your original intention starts to drift. For this OpenAI Day release, GPT-5.6 helped refine the UX, copy, and interaction flows.
Sanctum is a Chrome extension for people who want YouTube to be useful without letting recommendations, autoplay, and Shorts decide what happens next. It adds small, intentional pauses before distracting actions, helps you name why you opened YouTube, and offers gentle reflection instead of hard blocking. The goal is not to control your behavior, but to restore a moment of choice.
