What is the best app blocker for Android?

It depends on which problem you have. If you need enforced blocking that you genuinely cannot bypass — for a compulsion, or for a device that is not yours — choose a dedicated hard blocker with a lockout mechanism, and accept the rebound risk. If your problem is opening apps without deciding to, a friction tool is a better fit and far more likely to still be installed in six months. Sanctuary Launcher is the second kind: a pause and a daily budget rather than a lockout.

Does Sanctuary block apps completely?

No, and it will not be persuaded to. There is no password, no accountability partner, no timed lockout, and no mode that cannot be exited — every one of those is a deliberate omission rather than a missing feature. The firmest boundaries available are a daily budget, which produces a calm limit screen you can still override, and a focus mode such as Deep Work or Sleep and Wind-down, which hides non-essential apps for a scheduled period you set yourself. If a bypassable boundary is not enough for your situation, that is a real requirement and you should install a dedicated hard blocker instead of trying to make this one stricter.

Why do app blockers stop working after a few weeks?

Because a hard blocker eventually says no at a moment when you have a real reason to say yes, and at that point the fastest way through is to uninstall it. The uninstall removes every constraint at once, not just the one that was inconvenient, which is why usage often rises above the original baseline afterwards. Tools that never refuse avoid creating that moment, so they tend to survive the bad evenings that end stricter tools.

Can an Android app blocker work without the Accessibility permission?

Only partially. Android does not let an ordinary app prevent another app from launching, so blockers work by detecting that an app has entered the foreground and then intervening. Without the Accessibility Service, an app opened from a notification, a link, a widget, or the Recents switcher never passes through your launcher and cannot be detected. Sanctuary keeps the permission optional: without it, gates and limits still apply to apps launched from Sanctuary itself.

Is Sanctuary a parental control app?

No. Sanctuary is designed for your own phone. There is no parental dashboard, no child account, no remote monitoring, and no way to see another person's usage — there is no cloud to monitor from, since everything is stored on the device. If you need to manage a child's device, use Android Family Link or a dedicated parental control product.

App blocking

App blockers for Android, and when friction works better

Hard blocking has a well-known failure curve: excellent for eleven days, uninstalled on the twelfth. This is an honest account of what app blockers do, when you actually need one, and what Sanctuary does instead.

Three things called "app blocker"

The category name covers three mechanisms with very different behaviour under pressure. Knowing which one you are installing predicts whether it will still be on your phone next month.

Hard blockers

The app refuses to open, often with a password, a timed lockout, or a mode that cannot be turned off until a session ends. Highly effective while active. The failure mode is not that you defeat it — it is that you uninstall it during the one evening you badly want the app, and then do not reinstall it.

Timers and budgets

You get a fixed allowance per day and a wall when it is spent. Gentler than a hard block, and it fails differently: if the allowance is unrealistic you override it daily until the wall becomes wallpaper. Budgets work when set generously enough that you actually endorse them.

Friction

Nothing is refused. Something small is placed between the impulse and the app — a pause, a question, an extra step. It cannot stop a determined user, which is precisely why there is nothing to rebel against. It targets automatic opening rather than intentional use.

Why prohibition rebounds

A hard block turns your phone into an adversary. That is fine for a week, while the novelty of the constraint is doing some of the work. It stops being fine the first evening you have a real reason to open the app and the tool says no. At that point you are not negotiating with a habit, you are negotiating with software, and software always loses that argument — you have the uninstall button.

The rebound is the expensive part. Removing a blocker is rarely a neutral event; it usually happens at a low moment and it removes every constraint at once, including the ones that were working. People commonly end up using the app more in the fortnight after uninstalling a blocker than they did before installing it.

Friction avoids this by never creating the confrontation. If the tool always lets you through, there is no moment at which it becomes the enemy, so it stays installed — and a mild intervention that stays installed for a year beats a severe one that lasts eleven days.

This is not an argument that hard blocking is useless. It is an argument that it is a specialised tool, and that most people reaching for it are trying to solve unconscious use, which does not need that much force.

If you need an unbypassable blocker, Sanctuary is not it

Intention Gates can always be passed. That is a design decision, not a limitation to be worked around, and Sanctuary has no password lockout, no accountability partner, and no mode that cannot be exited. If you are managing a compulsion where any bypass is a failure, or you need to restrict a device that is not your own, you want a dedicated blocking product, and you should install one rather than hoping this is close enough.

What Sanctuary does instead

Refusing to open the app

LimitationCreates a confrontation the software eventually loses, taking every other constraint with it.

With SanctuaryA four-second breathing pause and one question — what are you opening this for? You always continue if you mean to.

A password or partner to unlock

LimitationAdds an administrative burden and turns lapses into a social event you will want to avoid rather than examine.

With SanctuaryNo password, no partner, no accountability theatre. The record is local and nobody else sees it.

One global on/off switch

LimitationAll-or-nothing modes get switched off entirely the moment one part of them is inconvenient.

With SanctuaryPer-app gates, per-app budgets, and scheduled focus modes, so one bad evening does not disable everything.

A hard lockout when the timer expires

LimitationArrives as an error at the worst possible moment and reads as punishment.

With SanctuaryA calm daily-limit screen that asks you to come back tomorrow — the same boundary, without the tone.

What blocking actually requires on Android

Android does not give ordinary apps the ability to prevent another app from launching. Anything advertised as an app blocker is detecting that an app has come to the foreground and then covering it or sending you back — including Sanctuary, when it shows a gate or a limit screen.

Detecting the foreground app reliably needs the Accessibility Service, because Android lets an app be opened from a notification, a link, a widget, or the Recents switcher, none of which pass through your launcher. This is why so many tools in this category ask for that permission, and it is worth being suspicious about what each one does with it.

Sanctuary treats the permission as optional. Grant it and gates fire regardless of how an app was opened. Decline it and the launcher works normally, with gates and limits firing only for apps launched from Sanctuary itself. In either case Sanctuary does not read screen content, keystrokes, messages, form fields, or passwords, and sends no accessibility data off the device.

Straight answers.

What is the best app blocker for Android?: It depends on which problem you have. If you need enforced blocking that you genuinely cannot bypass — for a compulsion, or for a device that is not yours — choose a dedicated hard blocker with a lockout mechanism, and accept the rebound risk. If your problem is opening apps without deciding to, a friction tool is a better fit and far more likely to still be installed in six months. Sanctuary Launcher is the second kind: a pause and a daily budget rather than a lockout.
Does Sanctuary block apps completely?: No, and it will not be persuaded to. There is no password, no accountability partner, no timed lockout, and no mode that cannot be exited — every one of those is a deliberate omission rather than a missing feature. The firmest boundaries available are a daily budget, which produces a calm limit screen you can still override, and a focus mode such as Deep Work or Sleep and Wind-down, which hides non-essential apps for a scheduled period you set yourself. If a bypassable boundary is not enough for your situation, that is a real requirement and you should install a dedicated hard blocker instead of trying to make this one stricter.
Why do app blockers stop working after a few weeks?: Because a hard blocker eventually says no at a moment when you have a real reason to say yes, and at that point the fastest way through is to uninstall it. The uninstall removes every constraint at once, not just the one that was inconvenient, which is why usage often rises above the original baseline afterwards. Tools that never refuse avoid creating that moment, so they tend to survive the bad evenings that end stricter tools.
Can an Android app blocker work without the Accessibility permission?: Only partially. Android does not let an ordinary app prevent another app from launching, so blockers work by detecting that an app has entered the foreground and then intervening. Without the Accessibility Service, an app opened from a notification, a link, a widget, or the Recents switcher never passes through your launcher and cannot be detected. Sanctuary keeps the permission optional: without it, gates and limits still apply to apps launched from Sanctuary itself.
Is Sanctuary a parental control app?: No. Sanctuary is designed for your own phone. There is no parental dashboard, no child account, no remote monitoring, and no way to see another person's usage — there is no cloud to monitor from, since everything is stored on the device. If you need to manage a child's device, use Android Family Link or a dedicated parental control product.

Related guides

Core feature

App time limits

How daily budgets work, how to pick a number you will keep, and what happens when the budget is spent.

Core feature

Intention Gates

The four-second pause in detail: what happens on each tap, what is recorded, and why it never refuses.

Focus modes

Four modes that change what your phone offers, and why putting them on a schedule matters more than the modes themselves.

Screen time

Reduce screen time on Android

Why total minutes is the wrong target, and a five-step setup that reduces the unchosen part of your day.

All Sanctuary guides

Friction, not prohibition.

Sanctuary never refuses to open an app. It just makes sure you meant to. Free to install, with no account and nothing sent off your device.

Get Sanctuary for Android