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Leaving early

How do I leave early?

Updated September 2026

You ask inside the app, and the request goes to the server rather than to a switch on your phone. If you have a keyholder they either keep the lock or approve in person, by standing with you while you scan the code on their Wallet pass, and an approval starts a wait of at least 72 hours counted from the moment they said yes. Without a keyholder the request approves itself and the wait is fourteen days. Nothing about the block changes while any of that runs, and at the end the server marks a release you still have to take.

An exit is a request, not a switch

There is no control anywhere in Fold'em that ends a term on the spot. What the app offers is a request that is written to the server, and every step after it is decided there. Your phone renders the count and the steps; it never shortens them, and it never opens anything on its own.

Where you ask depends on whether somebody holds your key. With a keyholder, open Circle, tap them, and take Ask to unlock in the row of round actions on their page. Solo, open Settings, then Term & money, then End protection early. One door per state is the rule, so the solo row is drawn only for somebody with no accepted keyholder.

The form itself is built to be slow. A block headed Before you slide names how many days are left on the pledge you signed and how long the exit takes either way, and above the commit control sits Ride it out instead, open SOS, deliberately the larger and the earlier of the two. The commit control is a slider, not a button, and it sends the request only when you release it at the end.

What happens after you ask

With a keyholder, the request opens and they are told. They have seven days to answer it. They can keep the lock, which is a decision they can make from anywhere, or they can approve, which they can only do face to face: you scan the approval code carried on their Wallet pass with the scanner inside your own app. There is no remote approval anywhere in Fold'em.

An approval starts a wait of at least 72 hours, and the clock starts at the moment the approval lands, never at the moment you asked. It is longer than 72 hours when a floor was written on your account: changing keyholder, a keyholder stepping away and removing a keyholder each raise a floor of fourteen days, so a change in your circle is never a faster way out than going solo would have been.

If your keyholder says nothing at all for seven days, the request approves itself and is recorded as though you had no keyholder. That is not the same as their approval. The wait that follows silence is fourteen days, not 72 hours.

When the wait ends, the server marks the release available and holds it for seven days. Those are two different sevens: seven days for your keyholder to answer, and seven days for the release to wait for you once it exists.

The road out of a term, when you have a keyholder You ask to leave early on the Shield tab. Your keyholder has seven days to decide, and can keep the lock or approve in person by scanning your pass. On an approval a wait of at least 72 hours starts from the moment they say yes. A second arm leaves the same decision: seven days of silence approves the request as if you had no keyholder, and the wait that follows is fourteen days, not 72 hours. Both arms end at the same place, where the server marks the release ready and the phone holds every shield until you take it, for up to seven days. The two sevens are different: seven days to decide, seven days for the release to wait for you. LEAVING EARLY You ask on the Shield tab Maria decides 7 days to decide Keep the lock APPROVED 72 h at least 72 hoursfrom the yes SILENCE, 7 DAYS 14 d fourteen daysnot 72 hours The release is ready the server says so Held 7 days for you every shield stays up Two sevens: 7 days to decide, 7 days to take it.
With a keyholder, an early exit runs: you ask, they have seven days to keep the lock or approve in person, then at least 72 hours count from that approval, then the release waits seven days for you to take it. Seven days of silence approves it instead, and the wait becomes fourteen days.

Asking, and watching it run

  1. Open the door for your situation

    Circle, then your keyholder, then Ask to unlock. Solo, Settings, then Term & money, then End protection early. Both open the same request form, and both are drawn as the destructive action they are.

  2. Slide to send it

    The slider commits when you let go at the end. From that moment the request exists on the server, the safe on your Home screen reads EXIT REQUESTED, and the process opens as three steps: the request, the decision, and the apps opening.

    The Early exit sheet over the Home wall, with three steps in outline: Request sent, Approved automatically, Apps open.

    The exit sheet, before a request exists

  3. Watch it from anywhere it appears

    The same sheet opens from three places: the What happens next card on Home, the running row on the Circle root, and your keyholder's page in Circle. It reads its position from the one request on the server, so it always opens at the step the process is actually on.

  4. The wait counts down in the open

    Once an approval lands, the middle step carries the decider, the time they decided, and the count under it. The safe on Home changes from EXIT REQUESTED to the date the apps open. Nothing about the block moves while this runs: every app you sealed stays sealed and every site stays blocked.

    The exit sheet with the second step reading Sam approved, Apps open in 65 hours 59 minutes 51 seconds, and Cancel the exit at the foot.

    The wait, counting down

  5. Take the release, or let it pass

    At the end the third step becomes the live one and an Open the apps control appears, on the sheet and on Home's card. Taking the release is what ends the term. If you never take it, the release closes after seven days and your protection simply carries on.

If they keep the lock

A denial is told to you plainly, with no reason attached, and it is not permanent. You can ask again after 48 hours, and the server is what enforces that gap rather than the screen. A keyholder who denies over and over cannot trap you either. A denial does not restart the clock on a run of requests, and once that run has been going for 30 days the next request skips the keyholder and takes the solo fourteen day wait instead.

What this does not do

Asking to leave early does not weaken anything while it runs, and there is no state in which asking makes the block softer than it was. It does not shorten your term by itself, it cannot be sped up by support, and it cannot be approved by anyone from a distance. It does not survive a term that ends underneath it: if the term completes or is replaced while a request is open, the request closes with it rather than banking a wait you could spend later. And it reaches only this phone. A second device, a desktop and a betting shop are outside what any of this touches.

Still stuck? Email support@foldem.app and we answer within two working days.