How to Block Apps on iPhone

Method 1: Apple Screen Time App Limits (free, built in)

Apple's own tool is the right place to start:

1. Open Settings → Screen Time and turn it on if you haven't.
2. Tap App Limits → Add Limit.
3. Choose a category (like Social) or expand it to pick specific apps.
4. Set a daily time limit and tap Add.

When the limit is reached, the app greys out with an hourglass. It's free, private, and takes two minutes to set up.

The catch: the block screen includes an Ignore Limit button — "One more minute," "Remind me in 15," or "Ignore for today." Most people learn to tap it without reading it within a week. A limit you can dismiss in one tap isn't a limit; it's a speed bump.

Method 2: Downtime

Downtime (Settings → Screen Time → Downtime) blocks everything except apps you allow, on a schedule — useful for sleep hours. But it's all-or-nothing by time of day, and the same one-tap bypass applies.

Method 3: Delete the apps

Honest, drastic, and it works — for a while. Most people reinstall within days because the underlying habit hasn't changed, and some apps (like Safari-accessible sites) can't really be deleted away. Deleting treats the symptom without replacing the habit.

Method 4: A blocker with real friction — the earned-time approach

The reason limits fail isn't that you're weak; it's that the exit is free. Change the price of the exit and the behavior changes.

FocusFirst uses Apple's Screen Time framework — the same shielding technology as App Limits — but replaces "Ignore Limit" with a trade:

1. Block your distracting apps. In FocusFirst's Focus Engine, add the apps, categories, or websites you want shielded. The shield stays on by default.
2. Pick your focus apps. Study tools, reading apps, language learning, work — time spent in them earns scroll time at a rate you set (for example, 10 minutes of focus earns 3 minutes of scrolling).
3. Spend earned time to unlock. When you open a blocked app, the shield shows your balance — "You've earned 43m. Spend 5m to unlock now." — with two honest options: Use 5m or Not now.

There is no free bypass to build a habit around. Either you've earned the time and spend it guilt-free, or you haven't — and the app you were about to lose an hour to gets a "not now" instead.

Which method should you use?

• Light problem (occasional overuse): Apple's App Limits are enough.
• Scheduled quiet hours: Downtime.
• You keep tapping Ignore Limit: you need friction with no free exit — that's the earned-time model.
• Compulsive loop (open app → close it → open it again 40 times a day): blocking alone won't fix it; you need blocking plus a replacement behavior. That's exactly what earning time from focus apps provides.