How to Set Screen Time Limits You Can't Just Ignore

By the Snitch team, behavioural science experts from Imperial College London #iphone#friends

You hit your limit and tap "Ignore" without reading it. Why that button exists, and three ways round it: a passcode, someone else's passcode, and friends.

Made by the team behind Snitch. Options 1 and 2 are free. Option 3 is our app. How we write these guides

You set a 30-minute limit on TikTok. You hit it. iPhone offers Ignore Limit, then One More Minute or Ignore Limit for Today. You tap “Ignore” without even reading it.

Sound familiar? The limit isn’t the problem. The “ignore” button is.

Note (On iOS 27?)

Apple renamed App Limits to Time Allowances in iOS 27, and moved the passcode under Passcode & Management. The steps below use the iOS 26 names, which you’ll still see if any of your Apple devices isn’t on iOS 27 yet.

Why “Ignore Limit” exists

Apple designed Screen Time so adults stay in control of their own phones. That’s fair, but it means the person setting the rule (calm you, at 2pm) and the person breaking it (tired you, at midnight) both hold the same key.

Option 1: A passcode, plus Block at End of Limit (free)

  1. In Settings, then Screen Time, set your App Limits.
  2. Tap Lock Screen Time Settings and set a passcode.
  3. Open each limit and turn on Block at End of Limit. (It only appears once a passcode is set.)

Now, instead of “Ignore”, you get Ask For More Time, and more time needs the passcode. But if you set it, you know it.

Option 2: Give the passcode to someone else (free)

Ask a partner, flatmate or friend to type in a passcode you don’t know. Now you have to ask them for more time.

It works, but it’s clunky: they have to be physically with your phone. And if they forget it, you can only reset it with your Apple Account if you set up Screen Time passcode recovery. (More on the passcode swap.)

Option 3: Social limits (Snitch)

Snitch makes option 2 work remotely, and for a whole group. You and up to 4 friends share a daily time pot. Ask for more time from your own phone, and the group decides. Go over, and it eats into their time.

The bigger point

Limits work best when someone other than tired-you holds the key. Whether that’s a passcode-holding flatmate or a group of friends, bring someone in.

Try Snitch with your friends →