The MoodGuard popup — tone score, mood filter, and quick journal entry.
MoodGuard — Protect Your Mental Space While Browsing
Tone Highlights · Calming Filters · Micro-Breaks
Version 1.0 · Updated 2026
MoodGuard is a Chrome extension that quietly pushes back against emotionally charged content. It highlights charged paragraphs as you read, offers one-tap calming filters, and slips in short breathing and posture nudges between pages.
News and social feeds are built to spike your emotions — MoodGuard helps you read with greater awareness and protects your mental space.
What Is MoodGuard?
MoodGuard is a wellness layer for your browser that:
- Detects charged language — highlights negative/positive paragraphs as you read.
- Shows page tone at a glance — a toolbar badge turns red/green/yellow based on overall sentiment.
- Changes how the page feels — Calm, Focused, or Energized filters, one tap from the popup.
- Nudges micro-habits — 10-second breathing, gratitude, or posture checks during idle moments.
- Reminds you to take eye breaks — 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
- Captures your journal — quick entry from the popup or a full page on the new tab.
Who Should Use MoodGuard?
- News readers — who want to read with greater emotional awareness.
- Remote workers — who spend hours in Chrome and need micro-break nudges.
- People with light sensitivity or eye strain — who benefit from blue-light filtering and dark/calm modes.
- Anyone trying to reduce doomscrolling — who wants to be more intentional about what they consume.
- Journal keepers — who want a simple way to capture moods and thoughts throughout the day.
Why You Can Trust MoodGuard
🔒 Trust built in Local-first, private by default, and built with transparency.
MoodGuard scores the tone of the page you're viewing entirely on your device — the page text itself is never sent anywhere, only a single tone number used to color the toolbar badge. Mood taps and journal entries stay local unless you explicitly enable Pro's encrypted sync. MoodGuard has no server of its own.
Built from experience
Designed by a team with years of experience in browser extensions and digital wellness.
Proven architecture
Uses battle-tested MV3 patterns: alarms, storage, and content-script messaging — no flaky hacks.
Verified publisher
Published under a verified Chrome Web Store developer account with a clear privacy policy.
100% transparent
All code is readable, all data stays local, and we clearly explain every permission we request.
Features at a Glance
🔴 Emotional Tone Guardian
Color-coded highlights on charged paragraphs, plus a toolbar badge showing the current page's overall tone.
🌊 Mood-Based Page Distortion
Calm, Focused, or Energized filters — one tap from the popup changes how the page looks and feels.
🌱 Micro-Habit Prompts
10-second breathing, gratitude, or posture nudges during idle moments. Adjustable frequency.
👁️ Eye Strain Coach
A 20-20-20 break reminder plus an on-demand blue-light filter for any page.
📝 Dream & Mood Journal
Quick capture from the popup or a full page on the new tab. Timestamped and searchable.
🔒 Privacy-first
No server, no data collection. Everything stays on your device unless you explicitly enable sync.
Detailed Feature Guide
1. Emotional Tone Guardian
What it does: Scans paragraphs on the page for negative or positive language using a bundled keyword lexicon. Negative paragraphs get a red left border; positive ones get green. The overall page score updates the toolbar badge — red for charged, yellow for mixed, green for calm.
Why it matters: Helps you read with greater emotional awareness — especially useful for news, social media, or emotionally charged content.
formula ToneScore = (positiveWords − negativeWords) / totalWords per paragraph, averaged for a page-level score.
An article with many negative words like "hate", "terrible", "awful" → page score drops below -0.15 → toolbar badge turns red 🔴, and charged paragraphs are highlighted with a red left border.
⚠️ Important The lexicon-based approach is a best-effort heuristic — it will catch obvious cases but miss nuance. Sensitivity slider (1–10) lets you adjust how easily paragraphs get flagged.
2. Mood-Based Page Distortion
What it does: Applies a visual filter to the page based on your selected mood mode:
- Calm — desaturate + slight dim, reduces visual noise.
- Focused — grayscale + extra grayscale on images/video/iframes so media doesn't dominate attention.
- Energized — saturation/contrast boost, makes the page feel more vibrant.
- Neutral — no filter (default).
Why it matters: Changes how the page feels, not just how it looks. The filter toggles instantly via chrome.storage.onChanged — no page reload needed.
3. Micro-Habit Prompts
What it does: Shows a random micro-habit notification at a frequency you set (default: 20 minutes). Prompts include breathing exercises, gratitude, and posture checks.
Why it matters: Regular micro-breaks reduce stress, improve focus, and build positive habits without breaking flow.
technology Uses chrome.alarms (minimum 5-minute interval) because the service worker is non-persistent.
• "10-second breath: in for 4, hold 4, out for 4."
• "Unclench your jaw and drop your shoulders."
• "Name one thing that went well today."
• "Sit up straight for a moment — check your posture."
4. Eye Strain Coach
What it does:
- Break reminders: Every 20 minutes, a notification reminds you to look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
- Blue-light filter: On-demand filter (sepia + saturate + brightness) that reduces eye strain in low-light environments.
Why it matters: The 20-20-20 rule is scientifically proven to reduce digital eye strain. The blue-light filter helps you wind down in the evening.
5. Dream & Mood Journal
What it does:
- Popup quick entry: A 2-line field for capturing a thought without leaving the current tab.
- New tab page: Full journal view with a same-day summary of mood taps and entries.
- Mood log: Quick mood taps (😊 😢 😡 😴) with timestamps, stored in
moodLog.
Why it matters: Creates a simple, consistent space for reflection — and keeps it separate from your browsing memory so the two don't blur together.
Setup & Configuration
Adjusting Sensitivity
- Open the Options page (
chrome://extensions → MoodGuard → Options). - Under Tone Sensitivity, adjust the slider from 1 (only flag strongly charged text) to 10 (flag almost anything charged).
- Changes apply to the next page load.
Excluding Domains
- Open the Options page.
- Under Excluded Domains, add domains (e.g.,
mybank.com) where you don't want tone analysis to run. - Tone analysis will be skipped on those sites.
Adjusting Prompt Frequencies
- Open the Options page.
- Under Habit Prompt Frequency, set the interval (5–60 minutes).
- Under Break Reminder Frequency, set the interval (20–120 minutes).
License (Pro)
- Open the Options page.
- In the License section, paste your Gumroad license key.
- Click Verify.
- If valid, Pro features unlock immediately.
grace period If Gumroad is temporarily unreachable, Pro features stay on for up to 14 days — so you're never locked out due to a network hiccup.
Pricing: Free vs. Pro
- Emotional Tone Guardian
- Mood-Based Page Distortion
- Micro-Habit Prompts
- Eye Strain Coach
- Dream & Mood Journal
- On-device, private by default
- Everything in Free
- AI-powered tone analysis (bring your own key)
- Weekly mood dashboard
- Habit streaks & analytics
- Encrypted cross-device sync
- AI journal summarizer
- Priority support
- Everything in Monthly Pro
- Save $29/year vs. monthly
- Same great features
- Priority support
Best value
One Pro subscription covers all features. Get your license at Gumroad.
Common Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
Fix: The lexicon-based approach is a heuristic — it catches obvious sentiment but misses nuance. For better accuracy, connect a real model via your own API key (Pro). Adjust the sensitivity slider to match your tolerance.
Fix: The minimum is 5 minutes. A 15–30 minute interval is recommended to avoid notification fatigue.
<article> or <main> elements.Fix: MoodGuard scores semantic content. On JS-heavy SPAs, analysis may be limited — check the badge; if it never updates, the page structure isn't supported yet.
- ⚠️ Excluded domains: Add sites where tone analysis doesn't make sense (e.g., work tools, banking).
- ⚠️ API key security: Your key is stored locally — never paste it anywhere else.
- ⚠️ License verification: If you see "grace" status, the extension couldn't reach Gumroad — Pro stays on for 14 days while connectivity is restored.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does MoodGuard read the text of every page I visit?
It scans the page for tone scoring, but the text never leaves your device. Only a single tone score is sent to the background to update the toolbar badge. The actual page content is discarded immediately after scoring.
Where is my data stored?
100% locally on your device, in chrome.storage.local. No data is sent to any server (except optional Gumroad license verification).
Can I use MoodGuard offline?
Yes. All core features (tone scoring, mood filters, habit prompts, journal) work entirely offline. API-based features (AI tone analysis) require internet.
What happens if I uninstall the extension?
All data (journal entries, mood log, settings) is removed from your browser. If you have a Pro license, you can re-enter your key after reinstalling to restore access.
How accurate is the tone analysis?
The built-in lexicon is ~60–70% accurate for obvious sentiment. For higher accuracy, you can connect a third-party API (Perspective, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) using your own key — that moves accuracy closer to 85–95% depending on the model.
Can I use MoodGuard on any site?
Yes — MoodGuard works on every page you visit via the content script. Tone analysis runs on semantic content; mood filters and blue-light work everywhere.
Ready to protect your mental space?
Free forever · Pro from $9/month · 14-day free trial
Get MoodGuard Pro → Install Free on Chrome Web Store →MoodGuard · Version 1.0 · Built with ❤️ for Chrome · Privacy Policy · Contact Me
