The full walkthrough
LogOut does one thing: it puts a walk between you and your most distracting apps. Here's exactly what happens, start to finish.
Open LogOut and start a session — anywhere from 1 to 120 minutes. That's your window: the last lap of tonight's scroll, a study block, or a full deep-work session.
Start it from the app or a Home Screen widget. The countdown follows you on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island via Live Activities — and if you wear an Apple Watch, the session mirrors live to your wrist.
Delay Lock — use your phone freely while the countdown runs. When it hits zero, your distracting apps lock automatically. It turns “ten more minutes” into an actual ten minutes.
Instant Lock — everything distracting locks the moment the session starts, so there's nothing to reach for while you focus or wind down for sleep.
Both roads end the same place: the apps are unavailable until you move.
LogOut enforces the lock with iOS Screen Time, the same system-level shield parents use for their kids' devices — except you're both the parent and the kid. Locked apps show a shield instead of a feed, and force-quitting LogOut doesn't lift it.
By default every non-essential category is covered. iOS categorises your apps automatically, so there's nothing to configure — though you can tailor your Focus Rules if you want to.
The only way back in is on foot: 10, 20, 30 steps, or a custom goal. Steps are verified by your iPhone's motion coprocessor — the dedicated chip that knows the difference between walking and wiggling your phone.
Each footfall lands with a haptic tick, and if you wear an Apple Watch your wrist counts too. Around the corner and back is usually enough — and usually enough to forget why you wanted the feed.
Every session is recorded: streaks, steps, distance, and time reclaimed. The first week is novelty. By the third, the reflex-open starts losing its grip — and you have the chart to prove it.
Questions
Add friction where the autopilot lives. Willpower fails because a feed is always one free tap away — so make the tap not free. With LogOut you set a timer before you start scrolling; when it ends, your apps lock via iOS Screen Time and the only way back in is to walk real steps. The scroll session gets a hard ending, and standing up breaks the trance far more reliably than a “time's up” notification you can dismiss.
If your problem is compulsive checking and endless feeds, yes — that's exactly the pattern LogOut is built to interrupt. It doesn't lecture you or shame you with graphs; it simply makes continuing cost more than stopping, and puts a short walk between impulse and feed. Most people notice the reflex-open weakening within a couple of weeks. (If your phone use is seriously affecting your mental health, an app is a tool, not a treatment — talk to a professional too.)
Apple's app limits end with an “Ignore Limit” button — one tap and you're back in the feed. LogOut uses the same system-level Screen Time enforcement but replaces the free tap with a real cost: steps. You can't talk your way past a pedometer. Same shield, an actual lock on it.
You can try — the motion coprocessor won't be impressed. It's the same dedicated hardware Apple uses for fitness tracking, and it's built to tell real gait from hand-waving. Honestly though, if you're shaking your phone in your kitchen to get back into TikTok, that's a moment of clarity all by itself.
Phone calls, Messages, and system apps are never blocked. And for true emergencies, LogOut includes an Emergency Bypass that lifts the lock immediately — it's there for real life, not for losing an argument with your step goal.
By default, every non-essential category: Social Media, Entertainment, Games, Browsers, Shopping and more. iOS categorises your apps automatically, so it works out of the box. You can customise your Focus Rules, but LogOut is deliberately opinionated — it's designed to protect you from your future self.
Nothing changes. The lock is enforced by iOS Screen Time at the system level, backed by a background extension that keeps running whether or not the app is open. The walk is still the way out.
No. LogOut works fully without one. An optional account (Sign in with Apple, Google, or email) syncs your session history and settings across reinstalls — that's all it's for.
Steps are counted on-device. Which apps you block never leaves your phone — Apple stores those choices as opaque tokens that even we can't read. No ads, no data sales, ever. The details live in our privacy policy, which is written in actual English.
LogOut is free for your first 7 days — every feature, no paywall during onboarding. After that it's a simple subscription, cancel anytime. If a week of it doesn't change how you use your phone, it's not for you, and that's fine.
An iPhone on iOS 17 or later, and a one-time Screen Time permission so LogOut can do its job. Apple Watch is supported but optional.
Set one timer tonight and see what your evening looks like on the other side.
Requires iOS 17 or later · Free for your first 7 days
