How does it work?
Pick the apps that eat your day, then start a pledge with friends, or join one with a code. A pledge starts once enough of you are in, though your own limits switch on the moment you start or join. When you open a blocked app, you can go back to your day, use some of today's minutes, use a weekly pass, or ask your friends.
I blocked an app by mistake
Tap Change on the app list and untick it. While your limits are on, unblocking takes 24 hours, so a weak moment can't undo them. Adding an app is instant.
How do I leave a pledge?
Open your pledge and tap Leave. Your limits stay on for 24 hours, or until the pledge ends if that's sooner, and after that you can start or join another. A pledge that hasn't started, with nobody else in it, can be deleted instead.
My friend didn't get my ask
Asks go out as notifications, so check that your friend has them switched on for Phone Escape. Asking only works once the pledge has started. And if nobody answers within 20 minutes, the minutes are yours anyway.
The block screen says my time is spent
Today's minutes come back at midnight, and passes come back every Monday. Until then, a pass or a friend's yes still opens your apps.
I reinstalled the app, or got a new phone
On the same phone, your pledge comes back on its own. So do your sessions and the apps you blocked, and any 24-hour wait keeps running. A new phone set up from a backup of the old one picks up your sign-in, and your pledge comes back with it.
How do I delete my Phone Escape account and data?
In the app: open Settings and tap Delete my data. Your account is deleted from our server straight away.
Without the app: email hello@phoneescape.com with the first name you use in Phone Escape and the name of your pledge, and we'll delete your account within 30 days.
What's deleted: your account and its sign-in key, your first name and avatar, when you last used the app, your asks and their notes, your check-ins and cheers, your answers to another round, your phone's notification address and, on Android, its code for getting your account back, your blocks, reports by or about you, and any pledge nobody else was in.
What stays: a pledge you started that friends are still in stays for them, without your name, and so does a yes you gave to a friend's ask, until that ask is deleted after a week. Each keeps only a random ID that can't sign in, and that goes too once nothing needs it. Nothing else is kept.
If you're in a pledge, deleting your data also leaves it, and as with leaving, your limits stay on for 24 hours, or until the pledge ends if that's sooner. They don't if you started it in the last 10 minutes and nobody else had joined. The privacy policy has the details.
Can I delete some of my data and keep my account?
In the app: tap Use my initial in Settings to remove your emoji. To remove a block, tap the … beside the person's name and choose Unblock.
Anything else: email hello@phoneescape.com with the first name you use in Phone Escape, the name of your pledge, and what you'd like deleted, such as your check-ins, a cheer, or an ask and its note. To be sure it's you, we'll ask you to switch your emoji in the app to one we name. Then we'll delete it within 30 days, and your account stays.
Some of it goes by itself: asks and cheers after a week, check-ins after two weeks.
Someone wrote something abusive
Tap the … beside their name or their ask, and report it. We look within a day. You can also block them, and see the terms of use.