Anchor: Screen Time Blocker

Doomscrolling again? Anchor makes using your apps intentional, not reflexive.

Some apps were designed to trap you. The feed doesn't end, and "five more minutes" always seems to turn into forty. That's not a willpower problem, it's the design working as intended. Anchor blocks the apps that do this by default, so opening one is always something you decided, never a doomscroll you fell into.

THE IDEA Screen Time is built to be turned on. Anchor is built to already be on. There's no timer to start and no "focus mode" to remember. The apps you choose are blocked from the moment setup finishes, permanently, as the baseline state of your phone.

The difference isn't less time in these apps. It's who decides when you get it.

Want in? You ask for it. Open Anchor, set how long you actually need — five minutes, twenty, whatever the moment calls for — and access is granted for exactly that long. When it runs out, blocking resumes. This is the anchor that prevents you from losing your days to doomscrolling.

RECLAIMED TIME, NOT WILLPOWER Anchor isn't a fast to survive. It doesn't track streaks or shame a slip. It tracks one thing: how much of the time you used to lose is coming back to you, every day, measured against the baseline you set for yourself in onboarding. Give it your age, and it shows you how much of your life you get back without these apps quietly eating it.

HOW IT WORKS • Pick the apps and websites you drift into without deciding to. • From then on, every one of them is blocked, all the time. • Reach for one anyway, and the block screen meets you instead. • Want it? Open Anchor, set a duration, and go. One deliberate ask, no lecture. • When the time's up, the block returns on its own. Set a new intent whenever you want back in.

BUILT TO GET OUT OF YOUR WAY • A Home Screen widget and Control Center button to drop anchor without hunting for the app. • Ask Siri to start or check a session. • A Live Activity keeps the countdown visible in your Dynamic Island while a session runs.

YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS Anchor runs on Apple's Screen Time framework entirely on-device. The apps you block, the time you spend, and the breaks you take never leave your phone. There's no account, no server, and nothing to opt out of, because nothing is collected in the first place.

Anchor doesn't ask you to want less. It makes sure that whenever you reach for one of these apps, it's because you decided to — not because your thumb got there first.