Whole-phone block

An app list always has a gap: the one app you forgot, or the new one you installed last week. Beyond Alarm's whole-phone block on Android leaves no gap. Every app is locked until the timer ends, calls still come through, and with free Strict mode there's no stop button at all.

What it does

A whole-phone block is a Phone Block with every app as the target. While it runs:

• Phone Block's countdown stays on screen. Anything else you open, including an app opened from a notification, is sent straight back to it.
• Calls get through. Incoming calls ring and can be answered. A call button on the running block opens your dialer for outgoing calls. Beyond Alarm asks the phone which app is its dialer, so this works on phones where the dialer isn't called "Phone".
• Notifications are readable, not usable. You can pull down the shade and read them. Tapping one to open its app sends you back.
• The power menu stays shut. The on-screen power menu is closed while a whole-phone block runs, so switching off isn't a way out. If the phone does restart, the block picks up again and still ends at the same time.
• Settings is off limits. The Settings app is sent back too, so the guard can't be switched off halfway through.
• Alarms still ring. An alarm that comes due during the block rings as normal.

How it works

1. Start it as a whole-phone block, or widen one. On Android, Whole phone is the first choice on the setup screen: "Every app. The screen is covered until it ends." An app block that's already running can be widened with Lock the Whole Phone.
2. The guard holds it. Beyond Alarm's accessibility guard notices whichever app comes to the front and, during a whole-phone block, brings the countdown back. The guard only sees which app is on screen. It never reads, stores or shares anything.
3. Strictness carries through. A Regular mode block can still end early after a short ad and a five-second hold. A Strict mode block can't. Widening an app block to the whole phone keeps the strictness it already had.
4. It can only grow. Add Time adds 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Nothing makes it shorter.
5. The timer ends it and the phone is yours again.

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.

When to use it

• Exam revision and deep work, when "just one app" is the problem.
• Bedtime: lock the phone for the last stretch before sleep and leave calls open for anyone who really needs you.
• Dinners, dates and days out, when you want the phone to be just a phone.
• A real detox day. Set a long block in Strict mode and let the timer do the work.

Set it up

1. Open the Phone Block tab and tap Block now.
2. Pick a length: a quick choice from 15 minutes to 2 hours, or Custom for 5 minutes to 8 hours.
3. Under What to block, choose Whole phone. On Android it's the default.
4. Under How strict, choose Regular mode or Strict mode.
5. Tap Block for …. The first time, the app walks you through switching on its guard in Android's Accessibility settings.
6. If you chose Strict mode on the free plan, watch one short ad. The block starts straight away.

Already running an app block? Tap Lock the Whole Phone, then Lock it all. It keeps the time already on the clock.

Related

• Phone Block
• Free Strict mode
• Prevent power-off
• How to lock your phone for an hour
• Phone lock box vs an app