One tap to lock. The tag to unlock.

The Anchor is a second list, released only by a physical NFC tag you paired — and, by default, that same tap locks it too. Leave the tag at home and the phone stays anchored until you are back.

It is separate from your rules and it does not use the delay. Anchoring only ever takes things away, so it needs no waiting; the walk back to the tag is the whole of the friction.

Using it

1. Choose apps. The first time, the anchor offers what you already block, every one checked. Keep what it should hold, or go on to the picker for anything else. After that, Change apps opens the picker with the list filled in.
2. Pair a tag. Hold the phone to any NTAG sticker, or the tag that came with another blocking product if you already own one. Furlough reads its hardware identifier and writes nothing to it. Up to three can be paired, so a key can live at each place you do — name each one for its place.
3. Anchor. By default, it asks for your tag first — hold it up and the list locks, the same ritual as Unanchor below. Turn off Require the tag to anchor under Anchor › Tags and one tap locks it immediately instead, no tag needed. Either way nothing is delayed, because anchoring only ever takes things away.
4. Unanchor. Only a tag you paired lifts the anchor, and any of them does, at once. Hold it up on the Anchor screen, or tap Unanchor anywhere else. This is the one unblock in Furlough, and it exists only here.

Holding a tag up

The Anchor screen listens on its own. Open it with the anchor down, or with a list and a tag ready, and the reader is already waiting — holding a tag to the top of the phone is the whole of it. What happens then is the tag's to decide rather than a button's.

• A paired tag, anchored. Weighs anchor at once. It is what a tag has always done, and it was just held up to say so.
• A paired tag, free. Offers to anchor, naming what goes behind the tag and when it lifts. It asks first because a tag that locks as well as unlocks is one you could shut yourself out with by walking past the drawer it lives in.
• A tag Furlough does not know. Offers to keep it as a key, and asks what to call it. The first becomes the key; a later one is a key at a second place.
• An unknown tag while anchored. Refused, like every other change under the lock. A key cut under the lock is no lock.
• It stops listening. The sheet is Apple's, not Furlough's, and Apple gives a reader about a minute — Core NFC has no way to read a tag quietly behind a screen. Tap the row to listen again.

Which tag to buy, what you may already own, and where to keep it: NFC tags.

The whole phone

The Anchor screen has a scope. Chosen apps is the list above. Everything except turns the list inside out: while anchored, every app and every website on the phone is shielded, and the list is what stays open.

• The list starts with your essentials. Switching to Everything except puts every app you tiered Essential on the list — Messages, the authenticator, the way home — so they stay reachable unless you take them off. Taking an Essential app off warns before the anchor drops, exactly as anchoring it singly does.
• Rules still apply to the list. An app that stays open keeps its own windows and budget, so YouTube on the list is still shut outside its window.
• Switching starts the list again. A list that means "held" under one scope would mean "let through" under the other, so it is not carried across. The screen says so before it switches, and the first offer under Chosen apps is everything you already block.
• What iOS keeps open. iOS keeps a few of its own apps outside every shield, whatever the anchor is set to. Which ones is being confirmed on a phone and will be listed here.
• Websites. A site off the list is blocked in every browser. Where Furlough's own shield does not reach, iOS shows its "Website Not Allowed" page instead.

While anchored

• Nothing can loosen. The list and the tags cannot be changed until the anchor is off, so no key can be cut from under the lock. Pair every tag you want before you anchor.
• Rules still stand. An app can be anchored and have windows too. With the anchor off it falls back to its rule, or to nothing if it has none.
• Forget tag unpairs one after a confirmation, and only while the anchor is off. Anchoring is refused once the last one is gone, so there is always a way back.
• There is no pause. No break, no temporary access, no emergency unblock — each of those is an early release with a nicer name. The tag lifts the anchor. Beyond that, the only escape is Apple's own: Settings › Screen Time › Apps with Screen Time Access › Furlough › off, which lifts everything Furlough does, not the Anchor alone. See Support.

More: NFC tags · All help · support@furloughapp.com