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How do I reach SOS from a blocked app?

Press the second button on the block screen: it is the escape, and it opens Fold’em.

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Updated October 2026

The full answer

Where it lands is a choice you made in advance, and the default is the SOS screen. The escape carries up to three destinations; the other two open the dialer on your keyholder, if you have one, or on the helpline for your country.

The two buttons on the wall

When you open a blocked app, iOS draws Fold’em’s block screen over it instead of the app. On each of the six walls Fold’em ships it carries a line, a mark and two buttons. The first is the calm dismiss and on the default wall it reads Stay folded: the app stays closed and nothing is recorded. The second is the escape, and it is deliberately the quieter of the two, because the prominent button on a wall should be the one that keeps the wall up.

The escape cannot dial and it cannot open a link. A block screen extension is allowed to do exactly four things when a button is pressed, and only one of them opens the app that owns the shield, so every destination below is something the app runs after it opens.

Where the escape lands

The escape carries up to three destinations, and pressing and holding it shows the rest as a menu. A plain press always fires and always resolves to the one you chose.

  • Ride it out is the default and the universal fallback. It opens the SOS screen. It depends on nothing, so it can never become unavailable.
  • Call your keyholder opens the dialer on the number stored for them. It needs a keyholder with a name and a usable number.
  • Call a helpline opens the dialer on the number for your country. It needs a resolved organisation that has a phone number.

A destination whose data has gone falls back to Ride it out and its label falls back to SOS, because a wall offering to call somebody who has left the circle is worse than a wall that says SOS. You choose which destination the wall carries in Settings, under Preferences, then Block screen, then Customize, then SOS button: Where it goes lists the three, with a tick on the one in use. A destination with nothing behind it is shown dimmed rather than hidden, so the screen never quietly drops a choice you could have.

SOS: where it opens, and what it holds On the left, the SOS widget, a black square with a white life preserver and the word SOS. SOS opens from the SOS bar under every tab, from the SOS widget and from the block screen. On the right, the SOS screen on its dark canvas. Its header carries a breathing button on the left, the SOS mark in the middle and a Lockdown button on the right. It opens on the guide library: Before the next bet., Make a little space between the urge and what comes next., a control reading Before, During and After, and four short recorded guides: Ride the urge, Ground yourself, Let the decision wait and Choose your next step. At the foot, Talk to someone, which holds a call to the people with you, a helpline and Ask for support, and I’m ready to leave. WHEN IT IS BAD RIGHT NOW SOS It opens from every tab, the SOS widget, the block screen SOS Lockdown Before the next bet. Make a little space between the urge and what comes next. Before During After Ride the urge Ground yourself Let the decision wait Choose your next step Talk to someone I’m ready to leave SOS: where it opens, and what it holds On the left, the SOS widget, a black square with a white life preserver and the word SOS. SOS opens from the SOS bar under every tab, from the SOS widget and from the block screen. On the right, the SOS screen on its dark canvas. Its header carries a breathing button on the left, the SOS mark in the middle and a Lockdown button on the right. It opens on the guide library: Before the next bet., Make a little space between the urge and what comes next., a control reading Before, During and After, and four short recorded guides: Ride the urge, Ground yourself, Let the decision wait and Choose your next step. At the foot, Talk to someone, which holds a call to the people with you, a helpline and Ask for support, and I’m ready to leave. WHEN IT IS BAD RIGHT NOW SOS It opens from every tab, the SOS widget, the block screen SOS Lockdown Before the next bet. Make a little space between the urge and what comes next. Before During After Ride the urge Ground yourself Let the decision wait Choose your next step Talk to someone I’m ready to leave
SOS opens from the SOS bar above the tab bar on every tab, the SOS widget and the block screen. It opens on short recorded guides for before, during and after a bet, with breathing and Lockdown in its header. Talk to someone holds a call to the people with you, a helpline and Ask for support, which tells every one of them at once.

What happens when you press it

  1. Press the second button

    The block screen writes one small routing note into the space it shares with the app, then asks iOS to open Fold’em. The open happens whether or not the note was written, because a failed note must never stop Fold’em opening.

  2. Fold’em opens and reads the note

    The app reads the note once, deletes it, and acts on it only if it is less than five minutes old and your protection is still on. A note read while nothing is blocked is thrown away rather than acted on, so a stale press cannot open anything later.

  3. It lands where you chose

    On the default setting you arrive on the SOS screen, and the app waits up to two seconds for your circle to load before it reads a call destination. If your circle has not answered by then it takes Ride it out rather than guessing, so the wrong number is never dialled.

    The SOS screen, where the block screen’s escape lands: Before the next bet over four guides and Talk to someone, with a Lockdown button at the top.

    Where the default escape lands

What is recorded

Nothing is kept. The routing note only tells Fold’em where to open, and Fold’em deletes it once it has read it. Pressing Stay folded records nothing either.

What this does not do

The escape does not open the blocked app you were opening, and it does not shorten any wait. It never places a call by itself: on the two calling destinations, iOS opens its own dialer with the number filled in and you press call. It reaches only this phone, so a blocked app on a second device has no escape at all. It cannot appear on a wall that iOS never drew: with Screen Time permission withdrawn there is no block screen and no button on it. And it is not guaranteed to be there on a wall you wrote yourself, because a wall built from your own words can be saved without the escape button; the six walls Fold’em ships always carry it.

Not the answer you came for?

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