What changes on a new phone?
Updated September 2026
Sign in on the new phone with the same Apple Account and your lock comes back from the server: the term, its end date, your day count and your keyholder, exactly as they were. Two things are done again on the new phone, because they cannot travel with you: granting Screen Time, and picking the apps. Until both are done your keyholder's card reads Checking in, so the gap is visible rather than silent. Deleting and reinstalling the app on the same phone follows the same path, and neither is a way out of a term.
What comes back on its own
The lock does not live on your phone. It lives on Fold'em's server, and the phone's job is to put it back up. So the first thing the new phone does after you sign in is ask the server what is true, and what comes back is the term you committed to, its end date, your day count carried straight through with no break, and the keyholder who holds your key.
None of that is redone, negotiated or reset. A phone that has just been set up cannot ask for a shorter term than the one on the server, and a term that is still running is still running.
What has to be done again, and why
When you pick apps, Apple hands the app an opaque token for each one. Those tokens are made on one phone and are meaningful only there, and Fold'em never uploads them, so there is nothing to send to the new phone even in principle. The same is true of the Screen Time permission, which is granted per device, and of the web shield, which is a setting on the phone itself.
So the new phone repeats exactly those: grant Screen Time, pick the apps, turn the web shield on. Everything else it reads back off the server.
While that is outstanding, your keyholder's card does not claim you are protected. It reads Checking in, which is the same face it wears whenever the phone has not confirmed lately, and it goes back to Protected once the pick is done and the shields are up.
Moving to the new phone
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Install Fold'em and sign in with the same Apple Account
Take the link for an existing account on the first screen rather than starting a new setup. Signing in with a different Apple Account gives you a different account, not your term.
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Fold'em names what is missing
A sheet opens over Home with the heading Restore protection and the line "This phone needs one thing back", listing only the pieces this phone is actually short of. It does not lock you out of the app while you work: SOS, Home and Settings all stay reachable.
Restore protection
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Grant Screen Time and pick the apps again
The grant is the same one prompt as the first time. The pick reopens Apple's picker, counts what you choose against the fifty app ceiling, and needs at least one app before it will close: a lock with nothing sealed is not a lock. Turn the web shield back on in the same pass and the phone is holding again.
Picking the apps again
What this does not do
A new phone does not restart, shorten or pause your term, and it does not reset your day count: both are read back from the server, which is also why deleting the app is not an exit. It does not move your keyholder's Wallet pass for you, since that pass lives on their device and not on yours. And Fold'em cannot rebuild your old app list, because it never knew which apps were on it: it counts picks and never reads identities. Picking a smaller list on the new phone is therefore possible, and it changes nothing about the term, the wait to leave early or who holds your key.
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