A gambling app still opens
Updated September 2026
The app shield seals exactly the apps you picked and nothing else, so an app that opens is almost always one that was never on the list. Adding it takes one tap and holds for the rest of your term. The standing fix for apps you have not thought of yet is the Games category, which catches every App Store game including ones installed later. If the Shield tab's apps tile reads Down instead of a number, the shield itself is not holding and that is a different problem.
The shield seals the apps you picked, and only those
When you set Fold'em up you picked apps in Apple's own picker, and those picks are what the shield holds. There is no wider net behind them and no name matching: Fold'em cannot look at your home screen and decide that something looks like a sportsbook, because Apple hands the app a set of sealed tokens rather than a list of names.
That boundary is now a choice rather than a limit. Since iOS 26.4 the system can hand an app the names of what is installed, under a wider permission. Fold'em does not ask for that permission and does not call that interface, so all it ever knows is how many apps you sealed, never which ones. The guided checklist that helped you find them names ten sportsbooks and casinos plus three browsers as search suggestions, and the counter pill counts your picks; even there, the app is counting, not reading.
Why a new install is not caught
An app you installed after you sealed is not in that set, so nothing stops it. There are two answers and they are different in kind. Adding the app by name is exact and takes a tap. Sealing the Games category is the standing answer: it shields every App Store game on the phone, including ones that land next month, without you opening Fold'em. It is off until you seal it, it catches nothing filed outside Games, and it is the one part of Fold'em whose release runs on your phone's own clock rather than the server's.
A betting site opened in another browser
If what opened was a browser rather than a betting app, the fix is the same shape. The Safari filter reaches Safari only, so Chrome, Firefox and Edge are sealed as apps instead, and all three are standing entries on the checklist for exactly that reason. A browser that opens is a browser that was not picked.
Adding it
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Read the apps tile first
Open Shield. A number over Apps blocked means the shield is holding and the app simply was not in the set. Down over Screen Time not approved means the permission behind the shield is off, and adding an app would change nothing until that is back.
The apps tile, holding
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Open the apps sheet and add
Tap the apps tile. The sheet says what the seal is and what you may do to it: sealed until your term ends, and you can add while it runs, never remove. The add well opens Apple's picker with what you already sealed ticked inside it, so nothing you have already picked can fall out by accident.
The apps sheet
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Save
What the picker returns is staged, not applied, until you press Save at the foot of the tab. From that moment the new app is sealed for the rest of the term, and there is no way to take it back out before the term ends. The cap is fifty apps, counted apart from your sites, and the app tells you which kind was cut if a save runs into it.
What this does not do
Adding an app does not reach a second phone, a laptop, a shop or cash, and no app on any phone can. It does not remove the app or touch what is inside it, and it does not delete an account you hold with a bookmaker. Sealing the Games category does not catch a sportsbook filed under Sports or Finance, which is why adding by name still matters. And none of this is reversible before your term ends: adding is one tap in, and the way out is the exit process, not the sheet.
Still stuck? Email support@foldem.app and we answer within two working days.