Are an app lock and an app blocker the same thing? No, and the search term hides two completely different jobs. An app lock keeps other people out of an app on your phone. An app blocker tries to keep you out of it. The first is a solved problem that iPhone handles natively and for free. The second is not solved by anybody, including the apps that sell it, and knowing which one you want saves you a subscription.
If you want to keep other people out
This is the easier half and iPhone does it without any third party app.
Touch and hold the app icon on the Home Screen, then choose Require Face ID. Confirm, and from then on that app needs your face, your fingerprint or your passcode before it opens. Notifications and content from it stay out of search and out of the share sheet.
The same menu offers Hide and Require Face ID, which additionally moves the app into a locked Hidden folder at the bottom of the App Library so it does not appear on the Home Screen or in search at all.
This is what most people actually mean when they type app lock. Someone borrows your phone to look at a photo, or a child uses it on a train, and you would rather they did not land in your messages. Native lock covers that completely and there is no reason to install anything.
Two things it does not do. It does not hide the app from someone who knows your passcode, since the phone passcode unlocks it. And it does nothing whatsoever about your own use, because the face it checks is yours and it is always there.
If you want to keep yourself out
This is the harder half, and the reason it is hard is worth understanding before you spend money on it.
A lock only works when the person on the wrong side of it does not have the key. You do. Every self-directed lock therefore has to fake the missing key, and there are only three ways to fake it: a passcode you gave to somebody else, a delay you have to sit through, or a setting buried deep enough that you cannot reach it in the moment.
All three are real and all three are negotiable, because the negotiation happens at the exact moment you are least interested in the position you took last Tuesday. What people describe is a pattern rather than a personal failure: it holds for about four days, then a tap goes through with barely any thought behind it, then it is faster the next night, and inside two weeks the lock is a thing you walk past. The full version of that is in why your app blocker stopped working.
The nearest thing to a genuine self-lock on iPhone is a Screen Time limit with Block at End of Limit turned on and a Screen Time passcode you do not know, usually because someone else set it. That is the strongest version and it comes with a relationship cost, which we went through in what happens when a partner holds the passcode. The setup for the rest of it is in how to limit apps on iPhone.
The question underneath both
A lock and a blocker answer the same question: can I open this. That question is fine, and it is not the one that produces most lost evenings.
Most lost evenings do not start with wanting the app. They start with a check. You picked the phone up to see the time, your thumb went where it goes, and forty minutes later you are reading comments on something you do not care about. Nowhere in that sequence did anybody decide anything, and a tool that asks whether you are allowed in has arrived at a decision that was never made.
The other question is: am I here on purpose. Answering that one does not need a key, a password or a partner, because there is no adversary in it. It needs a moment that did not exist. That is a different category of tool, and it is described in full in what a scroll-breaker is and why it is not a blocker. reCalm builds that moment out of one slow breath in front of the app you picked. Six seconds, then the app opens, every time, on purpose.
Which to use
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| Others out of one app | Native Require Face ID, free, thirty seconds |
| Nobody to know the app is there | Hide and Require Face ID |
| An app genuinely gone | Delete the account, not the app |
| A hard daily cap you respect | Screen Time limit, Block at End of Limit, passcode held elsewhere |
| To stop arriving somewhere you did not choose | A pause in front of the open |
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I lock an app with a password on iPhone?
Yes. Touch and hold the icon, choose Require Face ID, and it will ask for your face, fingerprint or phone passcode each time. It is built in, so a third party app lock is not needed on modern iOS.
Is there an app lock that stops me opening it myself?
Not honestly. Anything that could stop you can also be undone by you, since you hold the phone and the passcode. The strongest available version is a Screen Time passcode held by someone else, and that trades a software problem for a relationship one. If the app needs to be gone, deleting the account is the only version with no exit.
Does app lock work on Android?
Android has had per-app locking through the manufacturer for years, under names like App Lock or Secure Folder depending on the phone. The same split applies: it is built for keeping other people out, not for keeping you out.
Will locking an app reduce my screen time?
Locking against other people will not, since it does not slow you down at all. A limit with a passcode you do not hold can, for as long as the passcode arrangement lasts. Neither touches the unplanned open, which is where most of the time actually goes.