---
title: OpenAppLock
---

![Screenshots of OpenAppLock, including the home page with three active rules, and the new rule page with rule templates.](/assets/img/openapplock-1.png)

OpenAppLock is an open source iOS app for blocking apps. It is also a vibe-coding experiment turned real app, after I decided against gatekeeping it.

Block apps on a schedule, add time or open limits, and lock rules to prevent edits. I built it to help me spend more time outside staring at grass, like the picture below.

Some of the design principles of OpenAppLock:

- Completely offline, no account needed, nothing is tracked
- The app is meant to sit in the *background* of your phone
    - You're meant to *not* use it, along with using your phone less
    - Set the rules once, and let the app work
- Future considerations
    - Integrate nature as part of the app design?

I worked with the different Apple screen time APIs to build the features in a privacy-preserving way.

Try it out and send me [feedback](mailto:openapplock@bchen.dev)!

- [Download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/openapplock/id6780259647)
- [Join the TestFlight](https://testflight.apple.com/join/5ymbrmns)
- [Website](https://openapplock.bchen.dev/)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/brendan-ch/openapplock)

![A picture of some grass.](/assets/img/openapplock-2.png)