FAQ

A timer blocks one fixed stretch. A schedule repeats on the days and hours you choose. An Allowed budget gives you daily or weekly usage minutes, then blocks when a limit is spent. You can set both limits; reaching either one blocks. A schedule can also cap free time between blocking schedules, with one daily allowance for every day and/or a weekly allowance. A spent scheduled allowance blocks access and cannot earn extra minutes. An effort goal can open a timer or schedule early, or buy usage minutes after a standalone budget blocks.

Yes. Choose Time only for a timer or schedule, or tell the helper lock it or no early unlock. It removes the effort goal, so effort cannot open it early. Choose Hardcore too if you want no Tap out; Soft still allows that escape. You can switch to Time only while the helper is asking for a workout or goal. For an Allowed budget, choose No earn-back so a spent allowance stays blocked until its daily or weekly reset.

Open the speech bubble in Settings, or hold + in Commitments, to describe a new commitment or ask how Paxt works. Start with Create a commitment, or include the apps and settings you already know. It asks for missing choices, then prepares a draft. For a guarded person, choose them in Commitments, then hold + and choose Describe a commitment. Settings opens a conversation for you. You still select the apps in Apple's picker, review the commitment pass, and hold to commit. It cannot unlock apps, approve requests or change an existing commitment for you.

Paxt needs confirmation of the guarded person's child account before creating a commitment. You can prepare a helper draft while waiting. Open Paxt on their phone, then use Refresh account status in the helper. Creating becomes available when their child account is confirmed. The helper keeps the same person and account requirements as regular setup.

The helper uses Apple's on-device model when available and guided setup otherwise. Its conversation stays in memory on this phone and clears when you close it. No conversation is sent to an AI service. Existing guardian sharing continues separately.

Say Hey Siri, Ask Paxt, then wait for Siri to ask what you want to set up. Answer with your request, such as Create a two-hour timer that blocks YouTube. Use these two turns; a longer command in one sentence may be handled as another Siri action. You can also run Ask Paxt in Apple's Shortcuts app. Paxt still asks you to select the actual apps, review and hold to commit.

Free includes Steps, walking/running Distance and Mindfulness. Plus adds Workouts, Active calories and Time in daylight. Premium includes all six too. Choose the effort in the commitment setup, then enter your goal. For workouts, also choose a training type and its measure. Time in daylight needs a compatible Apple Watch for automatic tracking.

Paxt counts steps during your commitment's counting period. Your iPhone can measure them without a watch. Compatible watches and third-party apps can contribute if they save steps to Apple Health on this iPhone. Allow Paxt to read Steps in Health; Motion access also enables live step updates from your iPhone. Data from another device or app must finish syncing before Paxt can use it.

The Distance choice counts walking and running distance saved to Apple Health during the counting period. Your iPhone can track it without an Apple Watch. Compatible watches and third-party apps can contribute if they save walking/running distance to Health on this iPhone. It does not combine cycling, swimming or other sports. For those, choose a specific Workout and its Distance measure when supported. Goals use the distance Health records, not a fixed conversion from steps. The distance shown beside steps in Activity is a labelled estimate.

Paxt counts the duration of Mindful Sessions saved to Apple Health during the counting period. Use an app or a watch feature that records mindful sessions and allow Paxt to read them. An Apple Watch is optional. Time spent in a meditation app does not count unless it writes a mindful session to Health. Finish and save the session, allow it to sync, then open Paxt to check progress.

Set an Active calories goal, such as 100 cal. Paxt reads Active Energy in Apple Health for the counting period, including everyday movement and exercise. It does not count resting calories, require a finished workout, or reuse calories from before the block. A compatible Apple Watch or another device or app that writes Active Energy to Health can supply the data. Allow Paxt to read Active Energy. Updates depend on recording and sync; they are not guaranteed live. Requires Plus or Premium.

Set a goal in minutes. Paxt reads Time in Daylight from Apple Health during the counting period. Automatic tracking needs a compatible Apple Watch with Time in Daylight enabled. The watch estimates outdoor daylight; Paxt does not use your location or camera to measure it. Watch Low Power Mode turns daylight tracking off. Allow the data to sync to your iPhone and open Paxt to check progress. This is daylight exposure, not all time spent outdoors, and updates are not guaranteed instant. Requires Plus or Premium.

Time in daylight needs a compatible Apple Watch for automatic tracking. Steps and walking/running Distance can come from your iPhone. Mindfulness needs an app or device that saves Mindful Sessions. Active calories need a source that saves Active Energy. Workouts can come from a compatible watch or fitness app that saves completed workouts to Apple Health on your iPhone. Paxt reads Apple Health; it does not connect directly to those accounts.

Pair your Apple Watch with your iPhone as usual and allow Paxt to read the Apple Health types used by your goal. Steps, walking/running distance, active calories and time in daylight can contribute as the watch records and syncs them. Workout and mindfulness goals use saved sessions, so finish and save those first. Daylight tracking needs a compatible model and must be enabled. Open Paxt to update your progress after syncing. There is no separate watch connection to set up inside Paxt.

Yes, if their app saves workouts to Apple Health on your iPhone. Enable its Apple Health connection and allow it to write workouts and the energy or distance data your goal needs. Allow Paxt to read those types too. Paxt reads the saved workout through Health; it does not connect directly to your fitness app's account. Workout goals require Plus or Premium.

Paxt currently counts completed workouts saved to Apple Health, not a live session on your watch or in another app. Finish and save the workout, allow it to sync, then open Paxt. A workout counts when it finishes during the commitment's counting period, even if it started earlier. Steps and walking/running distance goals are separate and can update as new measurements arrive.

An Active calories goal counts active energy saved to Apple Health from everyday movement and exercise during the counting period. A Workout goal measured in calories counts only matching completed workouts. Both exclude resting energy and display cal, like Apple Fitness. Workout time and distance goals use the recorded workout duration or distance. Active calories already include workout energy; Paxt does not add workout calories to that total again.

Check that the finished workout appears in Apple Health on this iPhone, its type matches your goal, and it contains the time, active calories or distance you chose. Any workout accepts every type for time or calories. Confirm Paxt's read permissions, let your watch or recording app finish syncing, then reopen Paxt. A workout completed before the counting period does not count toward a fresh goal. Each budget earn-back needs fresh effort; effort already spent on an earlier earn-back cannot be used again.

Just open Paxt. The app checks your progress against the goal when you open it, so that is the moment the unlock lands. And once a block is earned open, it stays open for that block, even if Apple Health later adjusts your numbers down.

Tapping out opens the apps until midnight and resets your streak to zero. The day is marked in your week. There is one exception. If you have banked a streak shield by earning seven days in a row, you choose whether to spend it. A spent shield absorbs the tap out and covers the rest of the day, so your streak survives, and any other tap out that same day costs nothing.

Screen Time access was turned off or denied, so nothing on this phone is being blocked right now. Tap ALLOW SCREEN TIME ACCESS and accept Apple's dialog when it appears. One tap restores everything. On a guarded phone, the guardian is told too.

Blocks live inside iOS, not inside the app, so deleting Paxt does not lift them. It freezes them in place. Reinstall Paxt, open it, and allow Screen Time again. The leftover blocks clear the moment access is back.

The real key is whoever holds the Screen Time passcode, if you set one up with Make Paxt un-uninstallable. They can undo it all from the phone's Settings. On a guarded phone, your guardian can unlock or remove any commitment they set. A hardcore block with neither of those is doing exactly what you asked it to. It opens on schedule.

You choose one per commitment when you create it, and it decides the way out, never the block itself. Soft lets you tap out anytime, at the price of your streak, and lets you edit or delete freely. Hardcore has no tap out, only tightening edits until Monday, and deleting waits for Monday too. Both block exactly the same way. Choose hardcore when you want the door welded shut.

A block takes effort. It carries a goal, and reaching that goal opens the apps for that block. A lock takes time. It has no goal and opens only when its hours end. You pick one per schedule, and a spent limit also locks until its reset. This is separate from soft vs hardcore. A soft commitment can hold locks, and a hardcore one can hold earnable blocks.

It stops you from opening the apps. The moment you launch a committed app, a block screen covers it instead, and there is nothing to scroll. Its Back button just closes the app. OPEN PAXT opens Paxt on iOS 26.5 and later. On an older iOS it sends you a notification instead, because Apple gave no way to jump from one app to another; if nothing arrives, your phone is on Silent or notifications are off.

It walks you through setting a Screen Time passcode with someone you trust. That passcode stops Paxt being deleted, guards the switch that would turn its Screen Time access off, and pins the clock. It only works if they hold the code and you don't. Commitments block fine without it. The passcode protects them from you. You'll find it in Settings, under PROTECTION.

No. iOS never lets an app block itself, so Paxt always opens, whatever you committed. There is no lockout risk, ever.

Yes. Blocks live inside iOS, so deleting the app freezes them in place rather than lifting them. Reinstalling Paxt and allowing Screen Time again is what clears them.

The day it starts. An evening schedule that runs into the small hours is one single block owned by its start day, tail included. The week grid marks it with a +1.

A one-week commitment. It blocks exactly like any other until next Monday at midnight, then deletes itself. Nothing carries into the next week.

Because sealed always wins. While a locked schedule is active, the whole commitment is locked and no goal opens anything. It lifts the moment that schedule's hours end.

No. Each block asks for fresh effort, counted from the moment it starts. Effort is generous in one way though. One walk counts toward every commitment blocking at the same time, and you only need to beat the hardest goal per activity.

Because saving it would free something that is blocked right now, and that is exactly what the TAP OUT button does. Your streak resets, and a banked streak shield can absorb it if you choose. The changes that count as escapes are shortening or removing a schedule that is blocking, lowering its goal, removing a blocked app, category, or website, raising a spent limit, and making a spent limit's earn-back easier or more generous. Tightening anything, editing while nothing is blocked, and raising a limit you haven't spent yet never cost a thing.

Free minutes belong to Allowed budget commitments and to schedules that carry an allowance. They tick down whenever you use the apps and no schedule is blocking. Daily minutes reset at midnight, weekly minutes on Monday at midnight. A Paxt week always starts on Monday, whatever your phone's calendar says.

The schedule rules its hours, and the free minutes rule the gaps. While a schedule is blocking, the apps are closed and no minutes are spent. Between blocking schedules, and during a schedule you earned open, your use counts against the free minutes. Spend them all and the gaps lock too, until the reset.

That's deliberate. Time you spent on the app before the commitment existed never counts against it. The meter starts fresh the moment you commit.

iOS sometimes delivers the cut-off late, so a few unblocked minutes can leak past the limit. Paxt refunds those minutes to your weekly count so the week stays fair, but not to the day. The daily cap eats them.

Each day can pour at most its own daily cap into the week, and the week also runs its own meter. The two always agree that spent is spent, but not always on the exact arithmetic.

On an Allowed budget with overflow, yes. Fresh effort after blocking buys one batch of usage minutes at the exchange rate you set, say 1,000 steps for 10 mins. Blocking returns once those minutes are spent, and the next batch needs fresh effort after that block. Earlier or surplus effort is not banked. A schedule's allowance never earns back. Spent is spent until the reset.

Because the minutes you spent are already gone. A schedule you escape opens instantly, so that escape is charged and delivered together. A spent limit is different. The raise still costs a tap out, but the extra minutes only exist after the reset at midnight or on Monday, because today's count is already over the old limit. The honest shortcut, if you need the apps now, is the TAP OUT button itself.

Only the tile on the commitment's own page can read your live usage, straight from Screen Time. The list row can't know the remaining minutes, so it says UNBLOCKED and leaves the number to the tile. The tile can take a moment to settle. It is Apple's meter, not ours.

Free includes up to three individual apps across your live commitments, with timers and steps, distance or mindfulness goals. Whole categories and websites need Plus. Plus also removes the app limit and adds schedules, allowed budgets, workouts, active calories and time in daylight. Premium includes everything in Plus and adds Guardian mode. A guarded phone's commitments follow its guardian's access. Both paid plans come with two weeks free.

Yes, while your total stays at three individual apps or fewer. A running app timer keeps its slots until it ends, then they free up. Categories and websites require Plus.

A purchase follows your Apple ID, and Paxt checks with the App Store every time it opens, so a new phone usually catches up on its own. If it hasn't, tap the Subscription card at the top of Settings, then Restore purchases under the button, which asks the App Store again. Nothing is removed while Paxt can't reach the App Store.

After the App Store confirms a downgrade to Free, Paxt removes schedules, allowed budgets, and any commitment containing a category or website, including a mixed app/category commitment or a queued edit that adds one. A block active at removal counts as a tap out, like other downgrade deletions; a banked streak shield can absorb it. App-only timers finish normally. Moving from Premium to Plus keeps categories and websites, but unpairs guarded phones. Paxt waits through the verification grace period and keeps your commitments while it cannot verify the downgrade or a different Apple ID is signed in. Activity history stays on the phone.

Your streak counts the days you held every commitment without tapping out. Earned days and waited days both count. A day your schedule has no block on counts as waited too, and a day with nothing committed at all simply passes through without breaking anything. One unabsorbed tap out resets it to zero.

A day where you opened at least one block with real effort. On a schedule, that means beating a block's goal. On a timer, beating its goal before the clock runs out. On an allowed budget, your first overflow purchase of the day counts as earning it. A block that just ran its course marks the day waited instead, and a day with both shows as a half-filled square. Both kinds keep your streak alive. A commitment that blocks only a category earns and waits like any other.

Earn seven days in a row, pure ones, where you earned and nothing merely ran out, and you bank one streak shield. It sits there until a tap out threatens your streak, and then you choose. Spend it, and it absorbs the tap out and covers that entire day, a real cheat day, so later tap outs cost nothing either. Or keep it banked and take the reset. One shield at a time.

Three chapters. Day streak shows your number, the last seven days as squares, filled for earned, outlined for waited, dashed for today in progress, plus your shield's progress toward seven. Today lists each commitment's live goal and how far your effort has come, straight from Apple Health. This week draws your effort day by day, so you can see the week's shape at a glance.

Because iOS only hands real control to family child accounts. On a child account, iOS itself blocks deleting Paxt, and only you can loosen what you set. On any other account those guarantees don't exist, so pairing requires one. Commitments you set on a guarded phone are always hardcore for the child. They can't tap out, they ask to unlock instead. Guardian mode is part of Premium.

Not on a child account. iOS blocks deleting apps there, and Paxt keeps the clock on automatic whenever a commitment or a pairing exists, so time can't be moved to skip a block. Deleting Paxt or resetting the phone does not end the pairing either. The next time Paxt opens on that Apple ID, it finds its guardian again. Protected, not impossible, and we say it like it is.

Their commitments and the lockdown stay exactly as they were, and nothing updates until the phone is back on the Apple ID that was paired. Paxt never lets a change of account undo a guardian.

No, but the way out is on the child's phone, not in Paxt. A guardian who loses their phone or deletes Paxt without unpairing leaves every commitment standing, on purpose. The key is the Screen Time passcode. On the child's phone, open Settings, then Screen Time, then Apps with Screen Time Access, and remove Paxt. Every block lifts at once and the pairing ends. Erasing the phone does the same. A guardian who gets a new phone signs in with the same Apple ID and finds the child again.

A phone that already guards someone can't be guarded too. Paxt refuses the scan and says so. Pair the person's own phone instead.

They can create their own commitments freely, including stricter ones stacked on the same apps. Wanting harder is always allowed. Yours they can only see and serve. No edit, no tap out, no delete. They can ask to unlock, one open ask per commitment per day, and an unanswered ask expires at midnight.

Effort on the commitments you set, their streak, and their daily outcomes. Paxt shares daily and weekly effort summaries through your private iCloud storage with the paired child's account. You do not see the details of commitments they set for themselves, and Paxt does not upload raw Health records.

Our developer account does not let us browse, retrieve or export your family's private iCloud records. The Paxt app on the paired phones can read them to provide Guardian mode. If you email us a screenshot or other information, we receive what you choose to send; that does not give us access to your private iCloud records.

Your commitments keep blocking, but iOS stops guaranteeing the rest. They can now delete Paxt, and Paxt tells you the moment it notices. You can still unlock and remove what you set. Creating and editing pauses until the account is a child one again.

Seconds when their phone is awake. A push wakes Paxt and applies the change. Longer when iOS throttles background wake-ups, and a pull-to-refresh nudges it. Pairing is its own case. Create the code and scan it in the same session, because backing out discards it, and if a pairing fails, wait before retrying. Apple throttles the account lookup for hours.

Within minutes if Paxt is open on their phone. Usually within the hour if it is closed, on the background watchdog's schedule. A phone that goes fully dark can't report at all, and the LAST CHECK-IN line under their name is your signal.

Categories require Plus or Premium. A category blocks every app inside it as one unit. iOS never reveals which apps a category holds, so Paxt can't either. A category always wins over an individual app's earn, and a budget on a category is the category's combined total, not per app.

iPhone protects a limited number of commitments at once with always-on enforcement. Past that, this commitment still blocks, but mainly when Paxt is opened. Remove a commitment you don't need and the rest get full protection back.

If you see this message, Paxt couldn't read its saved data on this phone. Unlock your phone and tap Try again first.

Only use Start over if retrying doesn't help. Confirming Clear and start over deletes your commitments and history on this phone and removes their blocks. Your Guardian pairing and permissions stay. Nothing is deleted until you confirm.

That was Paxt learning the app's name. iOS reveals an app's name only from behind a block, so a freshly picked app is blocked once until it is opened. Open it, the name lands, and that block lifts for good.

Blocking websites uses Apple's content filter, and Apple disables private browsing whenever one is active, across the whole phone. The platform's rule, not ours.