# Phone Break: App Limits — Screen Time & Focus Breaks

> Screen Time & Focus Breaks (iPhone/iPad app by Atsushi Hashimoto.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/phone-break-app-limits/id6807063316 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Atsushi Hashimoto](https://appshunter.io/developer/6801967463)
- Category: Productivity, Health & Fitness
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 17.0 · 3 MB
- Languages: American English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified, China), European Spanish
- Released: 2026-09-05
- Data updated: 2026-09-26

## What is Phone Break?

Phone Break helps you create space from the apps you use more than you intend. Choose the apps, categories, or websites you want to pause.

YOUR LIMITS, YOUR WAY

• Take a timed break for 15, 30, or 60 minutes.
• Set a combined daily limit from 15 to 480 minutes.
• Set daily limits for individual apps from 5 to 480 minutes.
• Block selected items on specific days and hours, including overnight schedules.
• Pause for 5, 8, or 10 seconds on each app open (requires an app-opening automation in Shortcuts).
• Choose whether to continue or close after each additional 30 minutes of use counted after enabling usage breaks.
• In Strict Mode, active timed breaks, scheduled blocking, and reached daily limits cannot be changed or disabled inside the app until they end.
• Standard Mode offers one five-minute grace period per day for the combined daily cap, with automatic relock.
• See Screen Time suggestions and compare the last seven completed days with the seven before them.

Rules work together. Continuing from a pause never removes daily caps or scheduled blocking. For Pause on each open, create a Shortcuts App automation, select Is Opened and Run Immediately, then add Phone Break’s Pause When App Opens action. A step-by-step guide is included in the app. Elapsed clock time alone no longer brings back the opening pause.

PRIVATE BY DESIGN

Individual app names and usage details are displayed inside Apple's protected Device Activity Report. Selection tokens, restriction settings, and break state stay on your device. There are no accounts, ads, analytics SDKs, external servers, or cloud sync.

Screen Time authorization is required. You can revoke access in iPhone Settings or delete the app. Phone Break is a digital wellbeing tool, not a medical product, diagnosis, or treatment.


## Version history (last 3 releases)

### 1.1.1 — 2026-09-14

• Improved the Screen Time setup wording.
• Separated opening pauses from breaks after 30 minutes of actual use.
• Removed automatic opening re-locks based only on elapsed clock time.
• Added a simple step-by-step Shortcuts setup guide.
• One decision handles opening and usage pauses when both are due.
• Improved instructions in all five supported languages.

The old Pause Before Next Open action has been removed. If you use it, replace it with Pause When App Opens in your automation.

### 1.1.0 — 2026-09-11

• Added per-app daily limits.
• Added automatic blocking for selected days and hours, including overnight schedules.
• Added 5, 8, or 10-second opening pauses with automatic relock.
• Added a choice to take a break after each 30 minutes of use.
• Improved daily-limit recovery and day-boundary handling.
• Now available in Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese, Korean and Spanish.
• Fixed the missing Open action on the opening-pause screen.

### 1.0 — 2026-09-05

No release notes.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-26.*