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// The bypass ledger

Every way to defeat a phone blocker.

If you are here because the app you installed to stop you scrolling did not stop you scrolling, you already know the important part. This page is the rest of it: how these tools actually fail, and which failures are documented against which products.

Two things worth saying before the table. Some of the tools below never promised to block anything, and holding them to a promise they did not make would be unfair, so they get a plain note instead of a score. And Aegin makes this list too, at the bottom, described by what it is built to resist rather than by a guarantee — because no consumer app on any platform can close Safe Mode, a second device, or a factory reset, and ours cannot either.

The eight failure modes

Brand names change, these do not. If you are evaluating any blocker, these are the questions to put to it.

  1. 01

    Uninstall the blocker

    Remove the app that is doing the blocking.

    Enforcement that lives entirely inside one app dies with that app. This is the single most common failure, and almost every tool is vulnerable to it in some form.

  2. 02

    Revoke the permission it runs on

    Turn off the system permission the blocker depends on — Screen Time access on iOS, an Accessibility service or Device Admin on Android, or a VPN profile.

    A blocker is only as strong as the permission underneath it. If that switch sits in Settings behind nothing but the device passcode, the blocker is behind nothing but the device passcode.

  3. 03

    The escape hatch it shipped with

    Tap the product's own override — an "Ignore Limit" button, a five-minute extension, a snooze, or an overlapping session.

    The most-used bypass is usually the one the vendor built. A limit with a one-tap override is a suggestion, not a limit — and that is a design choice, not a bug.

  4. 04

    Change the system clock

    Move the device's date or time.

    Schedules and daily allowances are computed against the clock. If a tool trusts the device's clock and the user can move it, the schedule moves with it.

  5. 05

    Delete and reinstall the blocked app

    Remove the app being restricted, then install it again.

    Some restrictions bind to an installed app rather than to an identity that survives reinstallation, so the fresh copy arrives unrestricted.

  6. 06

    Safe Mode (Android)

    Boot the phone into Safe Mode.

    Safe Mode is an OS recovery feature that runs only preinstalled system software. Any third-party enforcement is inert while it is active. No Android app can prevent this — it is below the layer apps live in.

  7. 07

    Another device

    Pick up a second phone, a tablet, or a laptop.

    Per-device enforcement says nothing about the device next to it. This is the failure no on-device blocker can close on its own.

  8. 08

    Factory reset or a second user profile

    Wipe the device, or switch to a separate Android user profile.

    A clean profile has no blocker in it. The cost is high enough that this is rare, but it is always available, and it is the honest ceiling on what any consumer tool can promise.

What is documented, product by product

Every claim below links to where it came from. Where we have not tested something, it says so rather than guessing.

Apple Screen Time

iOS · built in

Claims: App limits and downtime, enforced with a Screen Time passcode.

Opal

iOS · Android

Claims: Deep Focus is presented as Opal's strongest session type, the one intended to be hardest to cut short.

  • Revoke the permission it runs on

    Opal enforces through iOS Screen Time access. On Opal's own forum users report removing Opal from Settings → Screen Time → “Apps With Screen Time Access” mid-session and unblocking their apps, and that doing so requires only the device passcode. One commenter reports that setting a separate Screen Time passcode does not gate it either. The thread is a standing request to put that switch behind the Screen Time passcode.

    Opal community forum — request to lock Screen Time access behind a passcode

  • The escape hatch it shipped with

    Users report that scheduling a second Deep Focus session overlapping a running one snoozes the active session and returns access to the blocked apps.

    Opal community forum — “Bypass to Deep Focus FOUND”

Digital Wellbeing / Focus Mode

Android · built in

Claims: App timers and a Focus Mode that pauses distracting apps.

Freedom

iOS · Android · desktop

Claims: Blocks apps and websites across devices, with a Locked Mode.

  • Revoke the permission it runs on · not assessed

    Not assessed. We have not tested Freedom's Locked Mode and found no first-party or neutral source documenting a specific failure, so there is nothing to report here. Competitor blogs make claims about it that we are not going to repeat without checking them ourselves. Treat this row as an open question, not a clean bill of health.

    Freedom — official site

one sec

iOS · Android

Claims: A deliberate pause before an app opens. It does not claim to stop you.

one sec is friction by design: it makes you breathe, asks whether you still want the app, and then lets you in. Calling that a bypass would be dishonest — it is the product doing exactly what it says. Its published research is about reducing opens, not preventing them. Judge it on that promise, not this one.

Forest

iOS · Android

Claims: A Pomodoro timer where leaving the app kills a virtual tree.

Forest is a focus timer with a guilt mechanic, not a blocker, and has never presented itself as one. Nothing is being enforced, so there is nothing to defeat. If tree-guilt works on you, it works.

Where Aegin stands

We build one of these, so read this section with that in mind. It is a list of design decisions, not a promise. Aegin is Android-only today and early.

The escape hatch it shipped with
There is no ignore button. An exit is argued for and can be refused, which is a different mechanism from a tap, and the decision is made on the server rather than on the device.
Revoke the permission it runs on
Enforcement leads with an Accessibility service rather than a VPN profile, and losing it is treated as an event to surface rather than a silent stand-down.
Change the system clock
Budgets and schedules are resolved server-side against a stored timezone, so moving the device clock does not move the day.
Uninstall the blocker
State lives on the server, not in the install, so a reinstall recovers its own history rather than arriving as a clean slate.
Safe Mode, another device, a factory reset
No consumer app can close these, and Aegin does not claim to. Safe Mode sits below the layer any Android app runs in. What Aegin does instead is notice and remember.

The last row is the one that matters. Safe Mode, a second phone and a factory reset sit below or outside anything an app can reach, on any platform, for every product on this page including ours. Any blocker that presents itself as beating those is worth checking carefully, and so is one that goes quiet without telling you when it loses the permission it depends on.

See how Aegin decides

Who wrote this. Aegin makes a competing product, so read this as comparative information from an interested party. We have tried to keep it to what is documented, to link every source, and to say plainly where we have not tested something.

Reported behaviour, not permanent fact. Every claim describes behaviour reported by users or documented publicly, on a particular version of an app or operating system, as of the review date below. These are actively developed products and any of this may already have been fixed. Nothing here alleges that any company intended a gap or acted in bad faith.

Names. Apple, Screen Time, Opal, Google, Digital Wellbeing, Freedom, one sec and Forest are the trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only to identify the products being discussed. No affiliation, sponsorship, endorsement or partnership is implied or claimed.

Right of reply. If you work on any product named here and something is inaccurate, outdated, or since fixed, tell us and we will correct or remove it promptly, and record the correction on this page.

Last reviewed 8 August 2026.