Screen Time Ignore Limit: How to Make a Limit Hold on iPhone

The Ignore Limit button is not a glitch. On iOS 26, Apple writes that Screen Time limits can be ignored once reached, by default. Its iPhone guide gives one switch against that: Block at Downtime, available once you set a Screen Time passcode, which stops apps from opening during the hours you choose. On iOS 27, limits are called Time Allowances, and the guide does not mention ignoring them.

Why Screen Time lets you ignore a limit

Apple’s iPhone guide for iOS 26 puts it in one sentence: “By default, Screen Time limits can be ignored once reached.” So nothing is broken when the screen that announces your limit also lets you carry on. Out of the box, a limit on your own iPhone is a reminder.

Downtime starts out the same way. With Block at Downtime off, the guide says, “you see a reminder that it’s downtime, but you can choose to continue using the apps.”

Turn the reminder into a block on iOS 26

The switch Apple documents sits under Downtime, the hours you set aside. Apple’s sentence for it reads: “You can Block apps during scheduled Downtime so that limits can’t be ignored once they’re reached.”

1. Open Settings and tap Screen Time.
2. Tap App & Website Activity and turn it on, if it is not on already.
3. Scroll down and tap Lock Screen Time Settings, then enter a four-digit passcode twice.
4. Tap Downtime, then Scheduled.
5. Select Every Day or Customize Days, and set the start and end times.
6. Turn on Block at Downtime.

From then on, in Apple’s words, restricted apps “can’t be opened during downtime”. They appear dimmed, with an hourglass icon. Apps under Always Allowed stay available, so look at that list too.

And a daily app limit? Apple’s iPhone guide describes this switch for Downtime only. Its Mac guide for macOS 26 describes a matching one on an app limit: select “Block at end of limit” to block the app when the limit expires. Open one of your limits under Settings > Screen Time > App Limits and see whether your iPhone offers it.

“One More Minute”

None of the Apple pages listed at the end of this guide mentions One More Minute, and none describes a setting that removes it. Once blocking is on, reach the limit once on purpose and read what the screen still offers. That is the only way to know what your version of iOS leaves you.

On iOS 27: Time Allowances

On iOS 27, limits are called Time Allowances, and hours are set in a Screen Time Schedule. Apple says you can use the apps in a category “until they reach either the category’s allowance or the daily total.” Its iPhone guide stops there. It does not describe the screen that appears at that point, or a way past it, and Block at Downtime is not in it.

What it does document is the passcode: Settings > Screen Time > Passcode & Management > Lock Screen Time Settings. On iPhone, Apple presents it as a code to enter before changing the Screen Time settings you chose. Its Mac guide for macOS 27 says more about a setting of the same name on the Mac: there, it requires a passcode “to change Screen Time settings and to allow more time when limits expire.”

So set the passcode, let one category run out, and read the screen.

What the passcode does not change

The passcode is four digits that you chose. It puts a code where there was a tap; it does not put the decision in someone else’s hands.

Apple’s iPhone guide places the blocking switch under Downtime, which runs on hours. It does not say what the switch does to an app limit reached outside those hours, so test that case on your own phone before you count on it.

If a passcode and Block at Downtime do the job for you, there is nothing to add: both come with the iPhone and cost nothing. Our comparison with Apple Screen Time covers the other differences, and the guide to blocking Reddit on iPhone applies all this to one app.

If you would rather not have the button at all

Upchin is a separate iPhone app that uses Apple’s Screen Time technology. You pick the apps to block, one by one or by whole category. Two of its protections, Delay Lock and Schedule, show a block screen that carries no way to continue.

Delay Lock has no daily budget to run out. Its default rule, Quick friction, leaves you sixty seconds in the app and then blocks it for thirty. You can write your own rule with other lengths. While the block runs, nothing on the block screen reopens the app: it lifts on its own when the time is up.

Schedule closes the same apps during hours you draw in advance, with several slots in a day if you want them.

There is one door on the block screen, and you build it beforehand: an app you marked as important shows a second button that opens it for two minutes at most.

Not every Upchin block is that firm. In the lighter mode used by the Express widget and Motion lock, tapping the button on the block screen lifts the block: that is their design, and they are not what this guide recommends against Ignore Limit.

Nor is Upchin a wall. The Back IRL button, on Upchin’s home screen, ends a Delay Lock block in one tap and interrupts a scheduled one for five minutes, and no passcode stands in front of it. What changes is where the way out sits: not on the screen that just stopped you, but in another app, a few gestures away. If you want a wall you cannot open yourself, Upchin is not that.

Upchin runs on the iPhone only, on iOS 26 or later. A subscription starts with 7 free days with every feature; after that it is paid, and it can be cancelled at any time.

Which one, then? Screen Time with a passcode if blocked hours are what you need, at no cost. Upchin if you want the app to close shortly after you open it, on a screen that offers no way to carry on.

Five ways to hold a limit, compared

Method	At the limit	The way past it	Cost
Screen Time limit, as set up by default (iOS 26)	A screen you can ignore	On that same screen	Free
Block at Downtime (iOS 26)	Apps cannot be opened during Downtime	Changing the settings, behind your passcode	Free
Time Allowance (iOS 27)	Not described in Apple’s iPhone guide	Not described; a passcode locks the settings	Free
Upchin Delay Lock	The app closes after the grace period, for the length you set	Back IRL, inside Upchin	Paid after a 7-day trial
Upchin Schedule	Your apps stay closed during your slots	Back IRL, for five minutes	Paid after a 7-day trial

What goes wrong most often

Treating the button as a bug. Nothing needs repairing: on iOS 26, Apple describes ignoring as the default.

Looking for Block at Downtime before setting a passcode. Apple ties the choice to a Screen Time passcode. Set the passcode first.

Leaving the app under Always Allowed. An app on that list stays available during Downtime and after a limit is reached.

Counting on Block at Downtime outside Downtime hours. Apple documents it for the hours of Downtime. For a limit that runs out at another time of day, test before you trust it.