What happens if I turn Screen Time off?

What stops, and what does not

The app shield is Apple's Screen Time doing the blocking, at the operating system level, on the apps you picked. Fold'em asks for that permission once and holds the block through it, so when the permission goes away the block goes with it. There is no second mechanism underneath that keeps the apps sealed.

The web shield is a different layer and is untouched by this. It answers gambling domains through a DNS setting rather than through Screen Time, so sites keep failing to load while the apps are open. So does the deletion lock's own record on the server, and so does your term.

Fold'em does not wait for you to open it to find out. iOS tells the app the moment the permission changes, in either direction, and the app takes a reading and sends it straight away rather than at the next foreground. That is why the state and the pass usually turn within seconds rather than hours.

What your keyholder is told

The server writes Revoked, their pass turns to Protection off, and the letter goes out headed that protection is off on your phone. It carries the time it happened and one line saying that this can be a hard moment, or just Screen Time being reset for another reason. There is no accusation in it and no ask.

Neither of you can turn that letter off. The alert preferences setting in your app covers milestones and elevated attempt counts; the tamper letters are not on it and are always on. What your keyholder sees is the state of the permission and nothing about what you did while it was off.

The count freezes, and never pays itself back

While the permission is off, Fold'em opens a paused stretch and every earned figure is worked out as though the clock had stopped at the moment it opened. On the progress surface the money kept holds where it was and carries the line Held while protection is off, and the Days held run stops adding.

The stretch closes only when two things are true: the permission is granted again, and the app pick has been done. Granting the permission while the apps are still unpicked keeps it open, because the shield is not back yet.

When it closes, the paused time is subtracted permanently. The figures carry on from the value they froze at with no jump and no back credit, and every day inside the stretch shows in the run as a hole rather than a held day, so the number and the picture agree.

The countdown is the exception, and deliberately. Days left, the total, and the end date all run on the real clock, because the deadline belongs to the server and a paused permission does not move it. Turning Screen Time off buys no time; it only loses days you would otherwise have held.

A lapsed subscription works differently and is worth separating. The shield keeps holding through a lapse, so those days are genuinely held and they count.

The way back

Home says it plainly. The safe reads NEEDS ATTENTION, and a card under it names the one step, titled Grant Screen Time access with the line Blocking returns the moment you do. When more than one thing is down, the card counts them and takes them one at a time.

What this does not do

Turning Screen Time off does not end your term, does not open an exit and does not shorten a wait. The record the block lives on is on the server, and nothing you can switch in iOS Settings reaches it.

It does not give the days back. The paused stretch is subtracted for good, and the holes in the run stay holes; there is no way to earn a lost day back later.

Fold'em also cannot switch the permission back on for you. It can ask, and Apple decides, which is why the way back is a step you take rather than something the app does quietly on your behalf.