App Pause: Mindful Screen Time

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In-app purchases

About this app

Break phone addiction, stop social media addiction, and regain control of your time. App Pause is a digital wellbeing app that introduces mindful friction before you open distracting apps and websites. It is your all-in-one app blocker, website blocker, and screen time tracker.

⏳ Pause Before You Open
Take a moment before launching a distracting app or opening a blocked website. The customizable pause screen shows your usage data, helping you break the autopilot habit and make mindful choices.

🌐 Website Blocker for All Major Browsers
Block distracting websites across all major Android browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Brave, and DuckDuckGo. It is the perfect social media blocker to stop mindless browsing on Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, and more.

⏱️ App Session Timer: Break Doomscrolling
Set a session timer before opening any app. Once your session ends, you'll be paused again. This is the most effective way to stop doomscrolling and enforce your own screen time limits.

🚫 Daily App Limits & App Blocker
Define daily limits for any app. Once a limit is reached, choose your approach: from a full app block to a time multiplier that makes each subsequent pause screen longer.

📅 Schedule Your Digital Detox
Automatically block apps and websites at specific times (e.g., 9 am - 5 pm). As an essential focus app for work, study, or sleep, you can build a distraction blocker schedule that works for you.

✨ Additional Features

✔️ Mindful Breathing: Turn any pause screen into a wellness exercise.
✔️ Productive Swaps: Swap a distracting app for a "Good App" (like a book reader).
✔️ Screen Time Tracker: Monitor app and website usage with a floating timer and 7-day bar chart.
✔️ Multi-Window Support: Works in split-screen and floating window modes.

💎 Pause+ (Optional Upgrade)

✔️ Unlimited Profiles: Create as many profiles as you need (Work, Study, or Evening) to manage screen time for different contexts.
✔️ Support a solo developer building tools for self control and focus.

📝 A Note from Samiul

I built App Pause because I found myself unlocking my phone and opening social media apps completely on autopilot. Standard hard blockers didn't work for me, as I would just bypass them. I needed a tool that forced me to take a breath and think. I build and maintain this app independently to help all of us improve our focus and build healthier digital habits. If you have feedback or ideas, please reach out!

⚙️ Technical Details

App Pause uses Accessibility Services to detect when distracting apps are launched or blocked websites are visited. This ensures the app blocker and website blocker work reliably. No personal data is ever collected or shared.

Ratings and reviews

using this instead of Ascent because a lot of customization is available for free :) the pausing can literally save your life, download this asap!! one problem: for the apps I have blockers or multipliers set up for, the time usage randomly goes to super high numbers like 738/15m, and I've only used the app for a total of 12m in the past 3 days. it resets after a while but it keeps happening

Great app! Very easy to personalize. I especially appreciate the 3-second glimpse before the app kicks in. It doesn't sound like much, but I can see if there's anything new for me to look at. I choose which time-wasting apps to monitor, how long is the pause (to think if I really want to do this right now) etc. Other "pause" apps only tracked the total time per day, on all of the monitored apps together. Not nearly as useful

Overall a great app! I am taking one star away because whenever you take a screenshot in a timed app, it counts it as opening the app again - so the waiting screen appears and the opens counter goes up. It is a little annoying, but maybe should be considered a feature, as I spend even less time on my timed apps :D

What’s new

⏱️ Profile Usage Budgets: Set shared daily limits across entire profiles to control total screen time and stop app-hopping.
⏳ Hourly Limits: Cap usage within rolling 60-minute windows for stricter pacing (Pause+).
🎨 App Icons: Fixed an issue where app icons appeared as generic placeholders on some devices (especially Xiaomi).
🧹 Profile Cleanup: Uninstalled apps are now automatically removed from monitored profiles.