About Lock In Squad
Lock In Squad is a free app blocker for iPhone and Android, made by Eli Young. You pick the apps to block and start a timer or stopwatch, and ending a session early takes a hold of 1 to 10 seconds. It first appeared on the App Store on November 12, 2025.
Who makes it
Eli Young is the founder of Lock In Squad and the developer named on its App Store and Google Play listings.
As the story goes on Why Lock In Squad, the idea came from a friend at Swarthmore who tracked focus time by hand with a stopwatch and Google Sheets. Eli took up the same habit and has logged every minute of his focus time since March 2024. Writing it all down was tedious, phone distractions kept breaking his focus, and the blockers he tried were either too strict to leave or too easy to ignore. He spent more than a year building Lock In Squad, which logs sessions by itself and puts a pause between you and quitting.
What the app does
- It blocks the apps you choose during a focus session. On iPhone you pick apps, categories and websites in Apple's Screen Time picker. On Android you pick apps from a list and add the websites to block, which are blocked in Chrome, Samsung Internet, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Opera, DuckDuckGo and Vivaldi but not inside other apps such as Instagram. On both, you can switch to a whitelist that blocks everything except the apps you allow.
- Each session runs as a timer or a stopwatch and starts when you tap Lock In. There is no scheduled blocking.
- Ending a session means holding the Lock Out button for 1 to 10 seconds, a delay you set in Settings.
- It keeps a streak on the work days you choose and shows your focus history as a heatmap.
- With a free account you can add friends, lock in together in a group session, keep a friend streak and see where you rank on a weekly leaderboard.
- You earn minutes for the time you lock in and spend them on your own lock, safes and colors in the Shop.
- It runs on iPhone, iPad and Android. Home screen widgets show your own lock with your streak and today's focus time.
- It is free with ads, and a $4.99 purchase, paid once, removes them. There is no subscription.
How it works walks through setup on each phone.
Releases and store names
- First App Store release
- November 12, 2025
- Current version
- 2.0.7, released on the App Store on December 17, 2025. Google Play shows the same date as its last update.
- Store names
- Lock In - App Blocker on the App Store and Lock In on Google Play, until the next update renames them. Once installed, the app shows up on your phone as Lock In.
Many unrelated apps on the App Store are also called Lock In. Ours is Lock In - App Blocker by Eli Young. Dates are from Apple's App Store data and the Google Play listing, checked on September 22, 2026.
Official links
- App Store: Lock In - App Blocker
- Google Play: Lock In
- Instagram: @trylockinsquad
- TikTok: @trylockinsquad
- X: @trylockin
- Email: contact@lockinsquad.com
For help with the app, use the contact page or read the FAQ.
Questions
Who makes Lock In Squad?
Eli Young makes Lock In Squad. He started it after logging his own focus time with a stopwatch and a spreadsheet and finding that phone distractions kept breaking it up. He is the developer named on both the App Store and Google Play listings, and you can write to contact@lockinsquad.com.
Is Lock In Squad the same app as Lock In?
Yes, when the developer is Eli Young. The App Store lists our app as Lock In - App Blocker and Google Play lists it as Lock In, until the next update renames both. Many unrelated apps on the App Store also use the name Lock In, so check the developer before you download.
When did Lock In Squad come out?
The app first appeared on the App Store on November 12, 2025, under the name Lock In - App Blocker. The current version, 2.0.7, came out on the App Store on December 17, 2025, and Google Play shows the same update date. Version 2.1 adds friends, group sessions, friend streaks, iPad support, widgets with your own lock, VoiceOver and TalkBack support and, on Android, website blocking and a Browsers row that blocks every browser at once.
Is Lock In Squad free?
Yes. Lock In Squad is free on iPhone and Android, with ads. An ad shows when you end a stopwatch session or leave a timer early, and a $4.99 purchase, paid once, removes ads for good. There is no subscription, and blocking, streaks and stats all work in the free version.
Try Lock In Squad free
Free on iPhone and Android, with no subscription. The stores list it as Lock In until the next update.
