Unwind

How it works

1. Cross out the apps that pull at you. One stroke crosses an app out, and another lets it go. Everything else on your phone stays exactly as it is.
2. One of them opens, and a line comes first. Each line is made on the phone at the moment it interrupts you. Unless you drew it, no one has seen it before.
3. Trace it, then choose. Open the app, or not now. Choose not now, and the trace stays with you, as a scale on your wall.

Every trace you keep

What is inside

• A deck of your own. Draw your own line, and it is dealt like the rest. Send it to a friend, and theirs can come to your deck. The seven built-in kinds of line are always in it.
• Calm, not strict. No password and no lecture, just a moment before the app opens. One trace covers one visit: leave the app, and the next visit asks again.
• Nothing to sign up for. No account, no server, no ads. The accessibility service Unwind asks for learns only which app has come to the front, never what is on the screen, and Unwind never sends what you trace anywhere.
• Six languages. Unwind speaks English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean, and follows your phone's language.

Why a pause

Researchers have tried putting a few seconds, and a plain way out, in front of the apps people reach for. Our film looks at what that changed, and what it didn't. The studies were of apps like Unwind, not of Unwind itself.

What a six-second pause changes, and what it doesn't — eight minutes, on YouTube.

The price

Try it free for 48 hours, then keep it with a single payment. No subscription, no ads, and Google Play shows you the price in your own currency before you buy. If you skip it, blocking simply pauses — your phone is never held hostage.