How do I limit some apps to particular time of day in my iphone?

Akrasia
1

I am a student. I’m trying to commit myself to use my iphone to access only my note taking application, except between 5pm-6pm (this one hour is free time, when I can access Youtube, Safari, etc.). Hence, I need to track and limit usage of all apps except my note taking app.

Is it possible to do this through screen time or any other way?

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iOS isn’t as great as Android in its blocking capabilities, but it’s still possible and I do something similar on iOS.

First you set the apps you want to block:

  1. Go to Settings → Screentime → Always Allowed
  2. Select the apps you always want to be available (the note app in your case), and remove any apps from the always allowed list that you don’t want to be able to use outside of your 5-6pm window.

Then you turn on downtime:

  1. Go to Screetnime → Downtime
  2. Turn on the “Scheduled” option and the “Block at Downtime” option
  3. Set the days and time for when you want the apps to be blocked

But right now, even if you enter a passcode for screentime, you can go to any blocked app during downtime → click Ask for more time → enter your passcode and get as much time as you want.

So for bonus points, have a friend or family member set your screentime passcode for you after you set everything up. That way you can’t bypass your restrictions unless you go through the effort of texting them asking for the passcode (and having to ask them to change it later) or having them enter it on your phone. This has been very helpful for me.

Best of luck!

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Hi. I see this is a few weeks old but try Focusmate for blocking the internet and all or particular apps on iOS. It is not foolproof but it will block you. The only downside is I sometimes have to delete it to use, say, Google Maps, my exercise vid website or check the weather and then I forget to reinstall. (There is a way to exclude websites but it doesn’t seem to work very well.) Otherwise it is GREAT and life changing.

You can schedule it to leave your single hour window very easily. You can set up different schedules for different devices and different lists of excluded sites/apps. You can also make it undeletable.

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I’ve been waiting for something like this too - checkout www.opal.so. It’s iOS native. I’ve been using it for the better part of a year,

I just leave it to be always on. I just hadn’t realized that you could have time blocks set with premium until just the other day.

It works really well for me! While I’ve found that my brain still finds a way to get distracted on my phone, pretty often, I no longer lose hours of my day to it. I even take it for granted when I turn opal off and find myself on TikTok for hours.

While I haven’t kicked my main vice,Twitter - I’ve basically entirely quit using the following on my phone:

  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Facebook

I have cut 80% or more:

  • Twitter
  • TikTok

To put that in context, I don’t even check my biggest phone time-wasters Twitter & TikTok every single day.

Although I still take a 10-minute twitter break like every 3-4 hours…which is a terrible way to spend a break, at least it’s not a 50 minutes break.

This is not to say I don’t get distracted, but it’s a more benign distraction. Like downloading Obsidian plugins or starring random github repos I will never clone.

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