Setting up Lock-in

1. Allow Screen Time. This is the permission that lets an app hide other apps. Nothing leaves your phone — Lock-in cannot see which apps you picked, and has no account or server.
2. Choose apps. Whole categories are quicker than individual apps. Tap a category's chevron to reach the apps inside it, and use the search field.
3. Start a session, or add a schedule so it happens without you.

Blocking an app does not silence its notifications. Only a Focus does that, and no app is allowed to turn a Focus on — that is an iOS rule, not a missing feature. There are two ways around it.

The easy way: Focus Filter

Settings → Focus → pick a Focus → Focus Filters → Add Filter → Lock-in. Now turning that Focus on applies your block too. Nothing to install.

The other way: a shortcut

If you want the app's button to switch Do Not Disturb on, make a shortcut it can run. In Lock-in: Settings → Do Not Disturb → Install ours, or type the name of one you already have.

To stop Shortcuts asking “Until?” every time, build it as two actions: Start Focus Session (from Lock-in), then Set Focus → Do Not Disturb → On → until → Shortcut Result. The app hands over the real end time, so the Focus ends when the session does.

Ending a session early starts a wait first — Settings → Ending a session. Fifteen minutes is the default. The urge to quit rarely outlives the countdown, which is the entire point.

To close the obvious hole — deleting the app — set a Screen Time passcode and turn off Deleting Apps under Content & Privacy Restrictions. Better still, have someone else set the passcode.

Lock-in is a nudge, not a jail. Anyone determined enough can get around any of this, and it does not pretend otherwise.

Share your setup from the home screen. Your friend gets your schedules and unlock delay — not your app list, which iOS never lets an app read or send. They pick their own once.

Posters: print QR cards from takesfocus.com/posters for a study lounge or kitchen wall. Scanning one starts a session. No extra hardware, and it works for people who do not have the app yet — they get sent to install it.

• The Do Not Disturb button does nothing. The shortcut name must match exactly, capitalisation included. The app cannot read your shortcuts library to check — use Test it.
• Shortcuts keeps asking “Until?” Your shortcut is set to Ask. Use the two-action version above, or set it to “until Turned Off”.
• A blocked app shows Apple's plain “Restricted” screen instead of Lock-in's. Something else is blocking it — most likely a Screen Time App Limit or Downtime you set up separately.
• A schedule did not fire. Windows shorter than 15 minutes are refused by iOS, and each selected day counts as its own window. Settings → Debug → Windows iOS holds lists exactly what is registered.