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What is the app deletion lock?

Updated September 2026

It is an optional restriction that stops apps being deleted from the phone while it holds, so that deleting Fold'em stops being the easy way around the block. It is off unless you turn it on, and it is device wide rather than an exception for Fold'em: while it holds, no app on the phone can be deleted, ours included. Turning it on is one tap and takes effect immediately. Turning it off changes nothing on its own, because it opens a 72 hour wait on the server that your keyholder is told about.

What it actually restricts

Deleting a blocker is the oldest way around one. Every app Fold'em seals is still an icon that can be held down and removed, and Fold'em itself is an icon on the same home screen. The deletion lock closes that door by asking Screen Time for its own restriction on removing apps, and Screen Time is the same system that holds the app shield.

The restriction is device wide, and Fold'em says so rather than dressing it up. It does not carve out an exception for its own icon or for the apps you picked: while the lock holds, no app on this phone can be deleted at all. That is a real cost, and the setup screen puts it in front of you under the heading Honest cost before you turn it on.

It is one choice among several and it stands alone. It has no effect on which apps are sealed, on the web shield, on your term, on an exit or on your circle. It only changes whether the delete option appears when you hold an icon down.

The deletion lock, and the 72 hour window that opens it The Fold'em app icon carries a small lock, so the app cannot be deleted from the phone. You ask to turn the lock off and give one of three reasons. A 72 hour window counts down on the server, not on the phone. When it ends the icon loses its lock and can be deleted. Your keyholder is told that the lock was turned off, and the reason you gave. THE DELETION LOCK F Cannot be deleted while it is on You ask and give a reason one of three reasons 72 h On the server not on the phone F Then it can go F Deletion lock turned off Reason given: changing phones Kept or turned off, they see it either way
The deletion lock keeps Fold'em on the phone. Asking to turn it off starts a 72 hour window on the server, and your keyholder is told, with the reason you gave.

Where you choose it, and where you change it

  1. During setup, as one step of six

    The lock step shows the Fold'em icon held down with the delete option already gone from the menu, and one switch reading Lock app deletion. The switch starts off and leaving it off needs no interaction at all, so nothing is turned on for you. Under it sits the cost line: while this holds, no app on this phone can be deleted, ours included, and turning it off later takes 72 hours.

    The setup step headed Make it undeletable, showing an app icon whose hold menu has no delete option, and a switch reading Lock app deletion turned on.

    The lock step, switched on

  2. Later, on the Shield tab

    The App deletion lock sits under the two shield tiles, in More protection, above the Games category row. Its line reads that apps cannot be deleted without a 72 hour wait. The row works the same way while your term is running, while an exit is pending, and after a term has run out, because the restriction is applied in all three; it does not appear at all when there is no active setup behind it.

    The Shield tab with its web and apps tiles above a More protection section, whose first row is App deletion lock with its switch turned on.

    The row on the Shield tab

On is instant, off is not

Turning it on is one tap. The restriction is applied on the phone straight away through the same path that applies every other part of the block, and the server copy is written afterwards on a queue that keeps trying until it lands. Tightening is never held up by a bad connection. The single exception is turning it on while a window to remove it is already counting: that has to cancel the window on the server in the same move, so it needs a connection.

Turning it off does nothing by itself. The switch opens a 72 hour window instead, stamped by the server rather than counted by your phone, and the restriction stays fully applied for the whole of it. Keep it locked ends the window at any point while it runs. Only when the server grants the release does the phone apply the block again without the restriction. That window, its three reasons and what cancels it are covered in how to turn the deletion lock off.

Your choice is mirrored on the server, which is what makes a reinstall useless as a shortcut: a fresh install reads the mirror and comes back with the lock as it was, never weaker. Anyone who installed Fold'em back when the restriction was unconditional reads as having it on, so an update never quietly loosened anybody's phone.

What your keyholder sees

They are told when the window opens, when it is cancelled, and when it completes, and the opening event carries the reason you picked from three: freeing up space, changing phones, or other. There is no free text on this path anywhere, so nothing you type can reach them.

They see it, and that is all they do with it. There is no approval to give and no decision to make: the keyholder is an audience for this one, not a gate. If you turn the lock back on afterwards, that is written too, so a lock that comes back is never a silent reversal of a feed that already said it went off.

What this does not do

It is not proof that Fold'em cannot be removed from the phone. It is a Screen Time restriction, so it rides the same permission the app shield does: switch Screen Time off in iOS Settings and the restriction stops holding along with everything else Screen Time was carrying. That switch is also the loudest thing you can do in Fold'em, because it turns your keyholder's card to Protection off within seconds.

It does not block anything. Sealing apps and blocking sites are the app shield and the web shield; the deletion lock only stops icons being removed, so a phone with the lock on and nothing picked blocks nothing.

It reaches this iPhone only. It cannot stop an app being installed on a second phone, and it has no say over a computer.

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