Screen time for iPhone

Yesterday shapes your screen time today.

Munen does not block. It adds a short pause before the apps that distract you, and every night it scores your day on your phone and sets tomorrow's pause. A rough day makes the next one a bit firmer. A good week eases it up. Never more than one step per day, and you can always see why.

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Free plan, no time limit · iPhone · No ads

Munen home screen showing today's zone and the breathing orb
Why it's so hard

It's not a lack of willpower

These apps are engineered by thousands of people to hold your attention. The fight was never fair.

01

"Just one minute"

You open it to check one thing and, before you notice, an hour's gone. Again.

02

The guilt that follows

You end up worse than you started: tired, scattered, with that sense of having wasted your time.

03

Blockers don't stick

Rigid walls breed resistance. You switch them off by day three and you're right back where you were.

A day with Munen

Nothing changes in the moment. Everything changes overnight.

Munen screen for this step of the day
Munen screen for this step of the day
Munen screen for this step of the day
Munen screen for this step of the day
01

Morning

You open Munen and see your zone for today. It came from yesterday, and you can read why.

02

During the day

You tap a distracting app. A short pause shows your own reason and the alternative you wrote. Then you decide.

03

Night

Your phone scores the day on its own: screen time, night use, app opens. No cloud, no grade, just a zone.

04

Tomorrow

The pause moves one notch, at most. A rough day makes it a bit firmer. A good week eases it. Then it starts again.

Not another blocker. An ally that reads your day.

Rigid blocks breed resistance and get switched off. Munen scores how your day actually went, every night, on your phone, and starts the next morning with a slightly different pause before the apps you flagged. It never punishes you while you are still in the middle of a bad day. The choice is always yours; Munen only makes it conscious.

On purpose

It never punishes you mid-day

Every screen-time app reacts in the moment. Munen waits for the night. That delay is the point: a bad hour does not turn into a wall, and a good week is felt the next morning.

Your state, not a grade

From Pause to Flow

Munen mirrors how your day is going as a qualitative zone, a kind reflection, never a grade that judges you.

What Munen does

Calm tools, not punishments

Shields in your own words

Before a distracting app opens, a short pause shows the reason and the alternative you wrote yourself. The pause length comes from yesterday's zone.

Focus mode

Concentration blocks for what truly matters, scheduled or on demand.

Your life, reclaimed

See the time you win back and your weekly progress. Small wins that add up.

Journal and weekly summary

Write whenever, tag how you feel. Each week you get a summary of your entries: an overview, what you handled, a pattern it noticed, and one thing to try next.

Premium
Why Munen

Built to be on your side

What's yours stays yours

Your journal, your reflections and your metrics are stored on your phone. Only when you turn on an AI feature is the text needed to generate that response sent out. We spell it out, no fine print, in the privacy policy.

No lectures, no guilt

Guilt never changed a habit. Every screen is meant to walk with you, not scold you.

No black boxes

Your zone comes from clear signals of your use, such as screen time, nighttime use and app opens, computed on your phone. You can always see why.

What we build onThe research behind the friction

Munen didn't invent these ideas. It borrowed them from published, peer-reviewed research. These studies are about the problem and the mechanism, not about Munen; we don't promise you their results.

  1. Limiting social media to 10 minutes per platform per day for three weeks reduced loneliness and depression in 143 undergraduates.

    Hunt, Marx, Lipson & Young (2018). No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37(10), 751–768.

  2. Subtle interaction friction cut usage time 15.6% more than a timed lockout, with a 25.3% higher user acceptance rate.

    InteractOut: Leveraging Interaction Proxies as Input Manipulation Strategies for Reducing Smartphone Overuse. CHI 2024.

  3. Across 184 datasets, autonomous motivation, deciding for yourself, is associated with better health outcomes than external pressure. That's why Munen pauses instead of forbidding.

    Ng, Ntoumanis, Thøgersen-Ntoumani, Deci, Ryan, Duda & Williams (2012). Self-Determination Theory Applied to Health Contexts: A Meta-Analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 325–340.

Compare

How Munen compares

Most screen time apps block or pause at a fixed intensity. Munen adjusts the pause to how you actually used your phone yesterday. Here is how that plays out against the apps people ask about most.

All comparisons →
Pricing

Free for the pause. Premium for the depth.

No trial clock on the free plan. It is the full app for up to three apps, for as long as you want.

Free

No time limit

$0/ month

  • The pause and its nightly adjustment, for up to three apps
  • Zones, journal, focus sessions and achievements
  • Two weeks of history
  • A taste of the AI: three coach messages and one journal analysis a week
  • SOS with written grounding steps
Download free

Premium

14-day trial

$4.99/ month

$39.99/ year$3.33 / month

  • Unlimited apps
  • Friction intensity
  • Zone changes every four hours instead of once a day
  • Unlimited history
  • A coach for every day, and an SOS written from your own patterns
  • The weekly summary, built from your entries
Start the trial

Prices in USD; they may vary by App Store region. No ads on either plan.

FAQ

What people ask before downloading

What is Munen?

A screen-time app for iPhone that remembers how yesterday went. Instead of blocking, it adds a short pause before the apps that distract you, and the length of that pause adjusts every night based on how your day actually went.

Is Munen just another app blocker?

No. A blocker keeps you out, which is why you end up switching it off. Munen never decides for you: it adds a mindful pause, reminds you of your own reason, and lets you continue. The final choice is always yours.

How much does Munen cost?

The free plan is the full app for up to three apps: zones, the nightly adjustment, shields, journal, focus sessions and achievements. No time limit. It also includes a taste of the AI: three coach messages and one journal analysis a week, plus SOS with written grounding steps. Premium is 4.99 USD a month or 39.99 USD a year, with a 14-day trial, and adds unlimited apps, friction intensity, zone changes every four hours instead of once a day, unlimited history (the free plan keeps the last two weeks), a coach you can talk to every day, AI-personalized SOS and the weekly summary built from your own patterns.

Which devices does it work on?

iPhone only, on iOS 17.2 or later. Munen uses Apple's Screen Time APIs, which have no equivalent on Android, so there is no Android version today.

What happens to my journal and my data?

Your usage metrics, reflections and progress stay on your phone, and so does the scoring that sets your zone. The optional AI features (coach, SOS and the weekly summary) send the text they need to an AI provider; nothing else leaves the device. It's spelled out in the privacy policy.

How does Munen decide how much friction to apply?

With a transparent calculation on your phone from clear signals: screen time, nighttime use, app opens and long sessions. That calculation places you in one of five zones, from Pause to Flow, and each zone sets how long the pause lasts. The scoring runs on your phone and your usage data never leaves it. Only the optional AI features (coach, SOS, weekly summary) send text to the cloud.

See all questions →

Your phone can feel different

Use it with intention. Then put it down.

Free plan with no time limit. No ads. iPhone only.

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