Free app blocker to reduce screen time (that you can't skip)

The best free app blocker to reduce screen time is Beyond Alarm's Phone Block, on Android and iPhone. Block the two or three apps your dashboard blames, at the hours it blames them, in Strict mode — no stop button until the timer ends, free with one short ad.

The short version:

• Beyond Alarm is the free blocker we recommend. Its Strict mode can't be cancelled, and it costs one short ad rather than a subscription.
• Most blockers charge for their strict mode — and a limit you can dismiss is the one that stops working by the second week.
• Read your dashboard first. A handful of apps and two times of day usually hold most of the hours.
• Block at those hours, not all day. A blocker you can live with is one you keep.
• Cover the morning automatically: Morning Lockout starts when your alarm is done.

Why a free blocker has to be hard to skip

Screen time goes down when opening the app takes more effort than the urge is worth. The clearest evidence is a field study of the app one sec, published in PNAS in 2023 by Grüning, Riedel and Lorenz-Spreen. Over six weeks with 280 participants, a short pause before chosen apps opened cut how often people opened them by 57%.

The detail that matters: in a follow-up experiment in the same paper, the part with the strongest effect was giving people a clear option to back out of opening the app. Friction at the moment of the urge works.

A built-in limit adds almost none. On iPhone without a passcode it offers "Ignore Limit"; on Android, a Focus session has "Take a break". So the free blocker worth installing is the one where getting past it costs more than a tap.

For a longer look at the free options, see the free app blockers worth installing, or the phone-specific guides for Android and iPhone.

Step 1: find the hours worth blocking

Both phones already record your screen time — Digital Wellbeing on Android, Screen Time on iPhone. Read it for three or four days before blocking anything. Menu names vary by phone and version, so search Settings if a path isn't where you expect.

Look for two things: the two or three apps at the top, and the hours when use clusters. For most people that is the first hour after waking and the evening. How much screen time is normal puts your number in context, and how to reduce screen time covers the settings side in full.

Step 2: set up a block in Beyond Alarm

1. Open the Phone Block tab and tap Block now.
2. Choose what to block. On Android: a ready-made category list, a saved block list, Pick apps, or Whole phone. On iPhone: apps or whole categories in Apple's Screen Time picker (allow Screen Time access the first time).
3. Pick a length — 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 or 120 minutes, or Custom from 5 minutes to 8 hours.
4. Choose Regular mode or Strict mode, then start.

Save the apps your dashboard blamed as a block list. After that, each block is two taps.

A running block can be made longer or wider — Add Time, More Apps, and on Android Lock the Whole Phone — but never shorter. In our own code, a block survives a restart, and switching the phone off doesn't pause it; it still ends at the same clock time.

Beyond Alarm

Beyond Alarm does this part for you: the alarm will not switch off until you have actually moved, and the apps you pick stay locked afterwards.

Step 3: choose Strict mode for the hours you lose

Regular mode is for blocks where you might genuinely need out: leaving early takes a short ad and a held button, long enough to change your mind.

Strict mode is for the hours the dashboard keeps showing — the evening scroll, the lunch break that becomes forty minutes. There is no stop button until the timer ends, and a free user turns it on by watching one short ad.

Pick a length you will finish. An hour every evening, kept for a week, cuts more than one heroic four-hour block you abandon.

Step 4: let the routine run itself

A blocker cuts screen time only if you remember to start it. Beyond Alarm covers the two hours where most people lose the most.

The morning. If your alarm is on your phone, the first pickup is the scroll. Morning Lockout starts by itself when an alarm is finished and keeps the apps you picked shut for the time you set.

The evening. Once you've used Phone Block a few times, Beyond Alarm learns when you usually start one and sends "Time to block your distracting apps" an hour before, every day. It skips the reminder on days you've already blocked. More on the daily reminder.

Check the number after a week

Go back to the dashboard after seven days and compare the top apps and the busy hours with where you started. If an hour hasn't moved, the block there is too short or in Regular mode when it should be in Strict mode — change one thing and give it another week.

Two habits help the blocker along:

• Turn off notifications for every app that isn't a person talking to you. Most pickups start with a buzz.
• Watch for the swap. When one feed is shut, another takes its place. Add it with More Apps mid-block.

If your screen time is mostly studying gone sideways, the step-by-step for that is the free app blocker for studying.

Not sure which apps to block? Screen time on Android shows how to read the Digital Wellbeing dashboard, and app timer for Android compares its daily timers with a countdown that locks.