The best app blockers for studying in 2026

How we compared them

We make prettysmart, one of the apps below, so we haven’t ranked it first, and its drawbacks are listed like everyone else’s. Every other page in the top results for this search is also written by an app maker, usually ranking its own app first without saying so; we’d rather you know.

For each app we read its App Store listing and its own website on October 16, 2026, and recorded how it blocks, its strictest mode in the maker’s own words, the platforms, the oldest iOS it supports, the free tier, the US price and any student discount.

Prices differ by country and change often. We have not run a hands-on test of how easily each app can be bypassed, so where a claim is the maker’s, we say so.

The short list

• Best free: ScreenZen
• Best with nothing to download: Apple’s Screen Time, with a passcode someone else holds
• Best strict software lock: Opal (Hard Mode is paid)
• Best physical lock: Brick, or Foqos for free
• Best for phone and laptop together: Freedom
• Best for breaking the habit of opening an app: one sec
• Best for timed study sessions: Forest
• Best for schedules that start on their own: AppBlock
• Best when studying is the unlock: ScrollToll for ready-made exam packs, prettysmart for your own flashcards

Compared at a glance

The apps

Apple Screen Time, Focus and Guided Access: the free baseline

Every iPhone can already limit apps. On iOS 27, Screen Time for yourself is called Screen Time Schedules and Time Allowances: daily allowances by category, time windows, and a list of apps that are always allowed.

• Focus only silences notifications; it doesn’t block apps.
• Guided Access locks the phone to a single app until you enter a passcode, which is a blunt but free way to sit in your notes or flashcards.
• Price: free.
• Good for: anyone who wants to try blocking before paying for anything.

Watch out: The catch is in Apple’s own words: by default, Screen Time limits can be ignored once reached. The fix is to have a friend or parent set the Screen Time passcode, so the block is real.

ScreenZen: the best free app blocker

ScreenZen makes you wait before a distracting app opens, and the wait can grow each time you come back. It can also block apps outright for set times or after a number of opens, and lock its own settings so you can’t quietly turn it down.

• Price: it describes itself as completely free; the only purchases are optional tips from $5 to $40.
• Platforms: iPhone (iOS 16.4 or later), plus Mac, Windows and Android according to the maker.
• Drawback: the default is a delay you can wait out, and nothing ties it to studying.

Opal: the strictest software lock

Opal blocks apps on schedules, time limits and open limits. Its paid Hard Mode is described by the maker as “no way out. You can’t turn Opal off.”

• Price: the free plan covers one rule. Pro is $99.99 a year or $19.99 a month, with a $399 lifetime option, and students can apply for up to 50% off.
• Needs: iOS 18 or later.
• Drawback: the most expensive subscription on this list, and the strict part is paid.

one sec: stops the reflex

one sec puts a short breathing pause in front of the app you’re trying to avoid, and Pro adds strict block sessions on iPhone.

• Evidence: the best of any app here. In a six-week study with 280 participants, people opened the targeted apps 57% less. One of the study’s authors is the app’s developer.
• Price: free covers one app; Pro is $19.99 a year or $6.99 a month, $99.99 for life, and students get 50% off.
• Drawback: by default it’s a pause, not a lock, so you can still go in.

Forest: for timed study sessions

Stay off your phone and a virtual tree grows; leave early and it dies. Its Deep Focus mode blocks every app that isn’t on your allow list during a session.

• Price: Forest is now free to download, with ads outside focus sessions, so pages calling it a paid app are out of date. Forest Plus is $5.99 a month or $32.49 to $35.99 a year.
• Drawback: giving up is one tap, and it only works while a session runs.

Freedom: phone and laptop in one session

Freedom blocks apps, websites or the whole internet, synced across Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android and Chromebook, which matters when essays and online classes happen on a laptop.

• Plans: the free plan blocks with limits; Premium adds scheduling and Locked Mode, which stops you quitting a session.
• Price: Premium is $39.99 a year or $8.99 a month, with a 7-day free trial; the App Store also lists $59.99 and $12.99 tiers.
• Drawback: the strict features are paid, and its iPhone rating (4.4 in the US) trails the other big names.

Brick and Foqos: a physical lock

Tap your iPhone on the Brick to lock your chosen apps; tap it again to unlock. You can lock remotely, but you need the physical Brick to unlock, apart from 5 emergency unbricks.

• Price: $59, with no subscription. It needs iOS 18.
• The trick: leave it in another room and your phone stays locked until you walk there.
• Foqos does the same with a cheap NFC sticker or a printed QR code, and it’s free and open source.
• Drawback: Brick is $59 upfront, and if you carry it around, the friction is gone.

AppBlock: schedules that start on their own

AppBlock blocks by time, location or Wi-Fi network, so a school or library schedule can start without you touching anything, and Strict Mode stops you lifting the block.

• Price: the free tier allows 2 schedules and a 12-hour Strict Mode timer. Premium shows up at $29.99 to $59.99 a year or $4.99 to $14.99 a month in the App Store list, and there’s a student discount form.
• Drawback: the price varies, and the free tier is tight.

Refocus: choose how hard unlocking is

Refocus blocks by time, schedule, limits or location, and its Strict Mode lets you pick the barrier: a passcode, an NFC tag, a wait, a copy-text challenge, or a Pomodoro cap of five 25-minute unlocks a day.

• Price: “Refocus Pro” is listed at $7.99 to $59.99, but the App Store list doesn’t show billing periods, so we can’t say what each one buys.
• Drawback: pricing you have to discover in the app.

Cold Turkey: for the laptop

Cold Turkey is the laptop half of a study setup: free website blocking, with Pro adding app blocking, schedules and every locking feature.

• Price: Pro is a one-time $45 (many lists still say $39). Students can request 20% off.
• Drawback: Windows and Mac only, no phone app.

ScrollToll: answer a question, get 5 minutes

ScrollToll locks Instagram and TikTok behind a single question from your own notes or a ready-made pack (MCAT, USMLE, mental math, vocabulary and more). Answer it and you get five minutes before it locks again, with adaptive spaced repetition deciding what comes next.

• Price: there’s a limited free version; Pro is $49.99 to $69.99 a year or $9.99 a month, and students pay $44.99 a year or $8.99 a month. It needs iOS 18.
• Good for: pre-med and med students who want exam questions ready to go.
• Drawback: one question per five minutes is a gate, not a study session, and unlimited blocking is paid.

prettysmart: earn screen time with your own flashcards (ours)

prettysmart locks the apps, app categories and websites you pick, and every flashcard you review adds screen time back.

• How the time works: 30 seconds a card by default, adjustable from 2 to 60, with an occasional bonus for a correct answer. You choose the days of the week the lock runs and how many free minutes you get each day.
• The cards: AI writes them from a typed topic, your notes, a PDF or Word file, photos or a voice recording, and FSRS spaced repetition decides what’s due each day.
• Price: free to try, then a subscription: $28.99 a year or $11.99 a month in the US. It runs on iPhone with iOS 16.4 or later.
• Good for: students who want the time they spend on TikTok to be paid for with real reviews of their own material.

The real drawbacks:

• iPhone only, with no Mac or Windows blocking; pair it with Cold Turkey or Freedom for the laptop.
• A subscription once you’ve tried it, and no student price.
• No zero-access mode: there’s no mode that blocks with no way to earn time back. If you want zero access during exam week, use Opal’s Hard Mode or Brick.
• It can be switched off in Settings, like every blocker built on Screen Time, unless someone else holds your Screen Time passcode.

Apps that make you earn your screen time

A newer kind of blocker doesn’t just say no: it makes you do something first. For studying there are four:

• ScrollToll: answer a question, get 5 minutes.
• StudyLock: pass a quiz at a score you set (very new).
• prettysmart: every flashcard you review adds time to a budget you spend on your apps.
• Habit Doom: complete habits, studying included, verified by photo.

The same idea exists outside studying: PushUp Time unlocks 15 to 120 minutes after reps, Prayer Lock shows a Bible verse you complete first, and Unrot turns walks and reading into coins. If what you need is to study, pick one where the unlock is the studying itself.

How to block apps on iPhone without downloading anything

1. Open Settings → Screen Time and set up a schedule or time allowance for the apps or categories that pull you away (on iOS 26 and earlier, these are Downtime and App Limits).
2. Turn on Block at Downtime, so the apps are blocked rather than just dimmed. Apple says this needs a Screen Time passcode.
3. Ask a friend or parent to set that passcode and keep it. Without it, “Ignore Limit” is one tap away.
4. For a single focused session, use Guided Access to lock the phone to your study app until the passcode is entered.

How to choose

• You have no money to spend: Screen Time with someone else’s passcode, then ScreenZen.
• You always cave at the last second: Opal Hard Mode or Brick.
• The laptop is the problem too: Freedom, or Cold Turkey on the computer plus any phone blocker.
• You open TikTok without thinking: one sec.
• You need structure more than a wall: Forest for sessions, AppBlock for schedules.
• You want the scrolling to cost you some studying first: ScrollToll or prettysmart.

Why some popular names aren’t here

• Flipd no longer hides apps in its iPhone app; the feature moved to a separate app because of Apple’s rules, though some lists still recommend it as a phone lock.
• Stay Focused and Lock Me Out are Android only.
• QuizLock still shows up in searches, but it’s gone from the App Store.

Once the phone is handled

A blocker buys you the time; the rest of your setup decides what you do with it. We compared the best study apps for high school students by job, and wrote exam guides for APUSH, AP Biology, AP Psychology and anatomy and physiology, each with a free deck.