If you have already tried to cut down and it has not worked, please do not read this as more things you have failed at. You have been up against professionals. A tool is not willpower in an app — it is just something that stands between you and the reach, so the decision gets made once instead of forty times a day.
Almost every “best screen time apps” page you will find is an affiliate page, where the ranking is really the commission. This one is not. I take no money from anybody here, which is why the two free open-source options are at the top rather than buried at the bottom.
Which of the three do you need?
Buying the wrong sort is the usual reason people decide none of this works. So, briefly.
If you pick the phone up without deciding to — you are reaching for it before you notice — you need friction: something that puts a pause between the reach and the app. That is on this page.
If you decide to look at one thing and then lose an hour, you need a blocker. Also on this page.
If you turn the blocker off — and most people do, at about eleven at night — software is not your answer. You need something physical.
If you have not changed a single setting yet, start with the settings already on your phone. Ten minutes, no money, and enough for a lot of people.
Nothing on this site is sponsored, affiliated or paid for. There are no affiliate links, no advertising, no sponsored placements and no tracking. Nobody can pay to appear here or to be described more kindly. There is also no signup: no email address, no account, no cookie banner. If a company on this page later offers me money, this line is how you will know they were turned down. Why it is all free →
Michael's two physical tools: read the Brick review when you still need some phone apps, or read the K-Safe review when you want the whole phone gone until a set time.
Apps that block or slow you down
In rough order of how little they ask of you. The first two are free and open source, which in this category is unusual enough to be worth saying twice.
Foqos Free
Free and open source, and the only thing here that does what Brick does without the hardware cost. You tap the phone against an NFC sticker — about a pound for a pack — and your chosen apps stop opening until you tap it again. Twelve triggers: NFC, QR code, timer, schedule. No account, no cloud, nothing leaves the phone.
Works on: iPhone · Price: Free. No paid tier, no ads, no subscription.
Evidence: none published on the app itself.
If you were about to spend money in this category, try this first. The reason it is not better known is that nobody earns a commission recommending it.
SelfControl Free
A Mac timer that blocks a list of sites for a period you set. Once it is running there is no way to stop it — not by quitting, not by deleting the app, not by restarting the machine. That sounds severe until the first time you try to cancel one.
Works on: Mac only · Price: Free. Open source.
Evidence: none published on the app itself.
The most uncompromising free thing here. Set short blocks until you trust yourself with long ones, because you genuinely cannot undo it.
ScreenZen Free
Adds a pause and a reason-to-continue before an app opens, plus session limits and a strict block mode.
Works on: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android · Price: Free. Genuinely free, funded by optional tips.
Evidence: none published on the app itself.
Start here. It costs nothing, it does most of what the paid apps do, and if it works you have saved yourself a subscription. If it does not, you have lost nothing.
one sec Research behind it Free
Makes you take a breath before the app opens, rather than blocking it. Has a “doom scroll emergency brake” that re-interrupts you mid-scroll.
Works on: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, browser extensions · Price: Free for one app. Around $20 a year, or a one-off lifetime price.
Evidence: Yes — the only app here with published peer-reviewed research on the product itself (PNAS, 2023).
The best-evidenced option, and the gentlest. It does not lock you out; it just makes the automatic reach conscious. If you hate being controlled, this is your one.
Freedom Research behind it Free
Blocks apps, sites, or the entire internet across all your devices at once, on a schedule.
Works on: Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android, Chromebook · Price: Free tier. About $40 a year, or a one-off “forever” price.
Evidence: Freedom was the tool used in the strongest study in this field (PNAS Nexus, 2025).
The one to pick if your problem spans a laptop and a phone. Worth knowing: in that study, only a quarter of people managed to keep the block on for ten days out of fourteen. The tool works. Sticking with it is the hard part.
Opal Research behind it Free
Aggressive app and website blocking with focus sessions and a wellbeing score.
Works on: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android · Price: Free tier. Around $100 a year — the most expensive on this list.
Evidence: None. Its published percentages come from its own customer survey.
Well made and genuinely effective for some people. But you are paying a premium for design, and Jomo does much the same for a third of the price.
Jomo Research behind it Free
Blocking, daily limits, and routines that earn you screen time by completing habits. Keeps messaging reachable during blocks.
Works on: iPhone, iPad, Mac only · Price: Free tier. Around $30 a year, or a one-off lifetime price.
Evidence: None found.
The value pick on iPhone. Close to Opal's feature set at a fraction of the cost.
Cold Turkey Research behind it Free
The severe one. Blocks sites and apps and can lock the whole computer, and is deliberately very hard to switch off once running.
Works on: Mac and Windows only · Price: Free version. Pay once for the pro version — no subscription.
Evidence: None found.
For the desktop worker who has already defeated every gentler blocker. Nothing else here is this hard to argue your way out of.
AppBlock Research behind it
Blocks by time, by location, or by which wi-fi you are on.
Works on: iPhone, Android, browser extensions · Price: Real free tier. Paid tiers monthly, yearly or one-off.
Evidence: None found.
The best option on Android, mostly because of the location and wi-fi triggers — blocking social media whenever you are at your desk is a genuinely different idea.
Forest Research behind it
Grows a virtual tree while you stay off the phone. The tree dies if you leave.
Works on: iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple Watch, browser extensions · Price: Now a subscription — the old one-off purchase is no longer sold.
Evidence: No study of Forest itself.
Works surprisingly well if you respond to gentle guilt rather than hard locks. Popular with students. Note that it changed to a subscription — older reviews quoting a one-off price are out of date.
Clearspace Research behind it
Friction with teeth — including making you do pushups before an app will open.
Works on: iPhone, Android · Price: Around $45 a year.
Evidence: None found.
The pushup gate is not a gimmick if you need the friction to be genuinely annoying. The Android version lags well behind the iPhone one.
Prices move constantly. Check on the maker's own site before you buy — every one of these has changed in the last year.
Browser extensions
The most underrated category here, and nearly all of it is free. If your problem is one particular site rather than the phone in general, start here — you can keep what you actually use and remove only the part that eats the evening.
News Feed Eradicator
Removes the Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and Reddit feed and leaves a quote in its place. Everything else still works — you can still message people and visit a specific page. It is only the endless scroll that disappears.
Free · Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari
If you need Facebook for one group and lose an hour every time you open it, this solves exactly that. Probably the single most useful free thing on this page after greyscale.
Unhook
Strips YouTube back to search and the video you came for. Hides the recommended sidebar, the endless home feed, Shorts, comments, autoplay — you choose which.
Free · Chrome, Firefox, Edge
YouTube is where most people lose the evening without meaning to. Turn off the sidebar and Shorts and it becomes a library you visit instead of a river you fall into.
DF Tube
A simpler version of the same idea for YouTube. Fewer options, easier to set up.
Free · Chrome, Firefox
Use this if Unhook feels like too many switches.
LeechBlock NG
Block chosen sites on a schedule, with a time allowance, in whatever pattern you like. Very configurable.
Free · Firefox, Chrome, Edge
Free and does most of what a paid blocker does on a computer. Try it before paying for anything.
StayFocusd
Gives you a daily allowance on the sites you choose. When it runs out, they are gone for the day.
Free · Chrome
Good if you do not want a hard ban, just a limit. The nuclear option locks everything for a set number of hours.
uBlock Origin
Blocks adverts and trackers. Not a screen time tool as such, but the web is dramatically calmer with it on, and a calmer web is easier to leave.
Free · Firefox, Chrome, Edge
Install it regardless. It makes everything else on this list work better.
The other two pages
Make your phone less addictive — seven free changes, with current iPhone and Android instructions. Worth doing before you install anything.
Dumb phones and physical devices — for when software gets switched off at eleven at night, which it does.
What no app can fix
Everything across these three pages works the same way: it puts something between you and the reach. That is worth doing, and for a lot of people it is enough.
But if you take the phone away and the evening feels unbearable rather than just quiet, then the phone was doing a job for you — and no blocker touches the job. That is not a character flaw. It is the most common thing in the world, and it is what the free course actually deals with; it spends far more time on what goes into the space than on the screen itself.
And if you have tried all of it and none of it holds, that is worth taking seriously rather than personally. Free meetings run every day, they cost nothing, and you are allowed to turn up and say nothing at all.
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Michael has spent much of his working life online—and much of the rest of it trying to stop that technology taking over. He has thrown a phone into a lake, locked devices in boxes and experimented with long periods offline. He writes about what helped, what failed and how to keep the useful parts of digital life.