Open now · until 8:30 PM
Instagram
30:00
30 min budget today
Furlough · for iPhone
No unblock button.
A personal app blocker. Pick the apps and sites that eat your time, give each a daily budget and the hours it's allowed, and the only way to loosen a rule is to wait.
Coming soon to theApp StoreHow it works
iOS 26 or later. Built on Apple's Screen Time API. Nothing collected.
01
Pick the apps
Apps, categories and websites, from Apple's own picker. Furlough is never told which ones; iOS keeps that to itself.
02
Give each a rule
A daily budget in minutes, and if you want, the hours it's allowed, the same every day or different per weekday.
03
Wait to loosen
Tightening is instant. Anything that gives you back time waits a delay you set in advance, and you can cancel it while it does.
Budgets
Thirty minutes. Then it's gone.
Every app gets a daily budget, counted across all its windows and spent whenever it's in front. Five minutes before it runs out you get a warning. At zero, iOS shields the app until midnight.
Daily budget
30min
across all windows
Windows
Open only when you said so.
Eight to ten on school nights. Later on weekends. A window can run past midnight, and each one can have its own days. Outside the windows, the app is shielded.
MTWTFSS
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8:00
8:00
8:00
8:00
8:00
8:00
8:00
8 PM to midnight on Sun–Thu · 8 PM to 2 AM on Fri and Sat
The delay
Loosening waits a day.
A longer window, a bigger budget, removing an app: each waits out a delay you set in advance, and you can cancel it while it does. Apps you mark Hazard wait four times as long. Apps you mark Essential wait a quarter.
Pending · lands in 22:41:06
IInstagramMore time, so it waits 1 day
Now
30 min
8:00–8:30 PM
Waiting
60 min
8:00–9:00 PM
Cancel
The Anchor
Locked till you tap the tag.
A second list of apps you lock in one tap, from anywhere. The only thing that unlocks it is holding your phone to an NFC tag you paired. Leave the tag at home and your phone stays anchored until you're back.
Anchored · since 6:12 PM
Anchor
2:14:09
Instagram, Safari, YouTube +3
AnchorUnanchor with the tag
The shield
Nothing to tap but Close.
The block screen says which app is closed and when it opens next. That is the whole conversation. No snooze, no "one more minute", no code to type. The app can't be deleted while it's shielded, either.
Instagram is closed
Opens tomorrow at 8:00 PM
Close
The living hourglass
One glass, every status.
The top bulb is the window and drains with the countdown. The pile carries the budget: sand while there's plenty, amber after the warning, ember once it's spent. The same glass sits in every row, the widget and the Live Activity.
Open nowThe window drains with the countdown
5 minutes leftThe budget warning turns the glass amber
Coming soonA grain slips through as the window nears
Done for todayEvery grain settled, the glow low
Used upThe budget spent: ember, still
Always blockedA category with no windows
Needs a scheduleAdded, nothing enforced yet
AnchoredThe stream stopped dead until the tag
Privacy
Furlough collects nothing.
No account, no server, no analytics. There is no networking code in the app at all. Apple's Screen Time API never even tells Furlough which apps you picked.
Read the privacy policyThe way out
There is one escape, and it's Apple's.
Settings › Screen Time › Apps with Screen Time Access › Furlough › off. It lifts every shield at once. Furlough can't prevent it, and says so on purpose.
Support
Ready when you are.
Free of accounts, free of servers, and free of an unblock button. It only works if you mean it.
Coming soon to theApp Store
Furlough for Mac is open source. Build it from GitHub.