Blocky
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Ways to block social media until you hit a step goal
Screen Time, Shortcuts, apps that sell minutes for steps, habit apps you tick yourself, and a goal Apple Health unblocks. How each one works, and where each one breaks.
Steps are the easiest habit to prove. The iPhone in your pocket counts them all day and keeps them in Apple Health, no watch needed. So the question isn't whether an app can know. It's what the app does with the count.
| The way | What it does with your steps | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Screen Time | Nothing. It limits time in the app. | It ends on the clock, and Ignore Limit is one tap. |
| A Shortcuts automation | It can react to a number, but it can't keep an app shut. | Nothing holds the app closed in the meantime. |
| An app that sells minutes for steps | Steps buy screen time, say 1,000 steps for 10 minutes. | The minutes run out and you walk again. Steps are a currency, not a goal. |
| A habit app you tick yourself | Nothing. You tell it. | The phone already counted the steps. A tap adds nothing but a way round. |
| A goal Apple Health unblocks | The apps unblock when the day's count reaches the goal. | Only what the phone or a watch counted. |
Screen Time and Shortcuts
Screen Time limits how long an app is open, not whether you walked, so it can't wait for a step goal. A Shortcuts automation can do something when a number is reached, but Shortcuts runs when something happens. It doesn't hold an app shut until then.
Minutes for steps
Some apps turn steps into screen time: walk a thousand, get ten minutes of TikTok. It's a fair trade if what you want is a meter. But a meter keeps you counting. Every scroll costs steps, so the day becomes a running balance, and the feed is something you buy back in small pieces.
Ticking it off yourself
A habit tracker with a blocker will hold the apps until you check the steps off. For steps that's a strange extra step: the phone knows the number already, and the only thing the box adds is a way to skip it.
A goal, read from Apple Health
Halfway.
Blocky reads the count your iPhone keeps in Apple Health and holds the apps you pick until the day's goal is there. Then they unblock for the rest of the day, however long you're on them. The walk is the price, and it's paid once.
Set the goal where you are: anywhere from 100 to 50,000 steps. A milestone on the way can unblock some apps early, Messages at 2,500 and the feed at 5,000. Open a blocked app and the block says how far there is to go. Rest days are rest days, and a sick day can be paused. More on the steps page.
Which one fits
- A cap on scrolling, steps or not: Screen Time.
- Screen time you earn as you go: an app that sells minutes for steps.
- A daily walk before the feed, once, then done: a goal Apple Health unblocks.
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iPhone, iOS 26.5 or later. No watch needed.
The Blocky team