Tab 1
Categories
The lists of apps and websites you want blocked. Nothing here blocks anything on its own — a category is a list, waiting to be used by a window.
Help Guides
How Clarity OS works, and how to tell it is working.
Clarity blocks the apps and sites you chose, for a stretch of time you chose, on terms you set while you were thinking clearly. This guide follows the four tabs of the iPhone app, so you can read it with your phone in your hand. v1 protection runs on iPhone; the web app is where you manage your account and your lists.
Start here
The four tabs, and what each one is for
Almost every question about Clarity is really a question about which tab you are standing in. Here is the map.
Tab 2
Windows
When protection runs. Start one now, set one for later, or build a repeating schedule. This is also where you choose Flexible or Strict.
Tab 3
Today
What is happening right now: the countdown, whether you are actually protected, and the controls for ending a window. Progress lives here too.
Tab 4
Account
Permissions, optional safeguards, Always Allowed, your subscription, and the readiness check.
First run
A calm path to your first window
Six steps. The only one people skip is the fourth, and it is the one that keeps your phone usable once a Strict window is running.
- Create your Clarity OS account, then sign in on your iPhone. Protection runs on the phone, so the phone has to be signed in.
- Allow Screen Time access when the app asks. Apple's Screen Time is the machinery Clarity uses to block apps and websites — without it, nothing can be blocked.
- Build at least one category: the apps and websites you want out of reach. Account → Choose apps and websites to block is the quickest way in.
- Set your Always Allowed list. These are the essentials that stay reachable during every window — a phone call, maps, an authenticator app, your wallet.
- Start a window, or schedule one. Pick Flexible if you want to end anytime, Strict if you want one you cannot talk yourself out of.
- Check the Today tab. Trust Protected only when a window is active and Clarity shows blocking as verified live on that iPhone — not merely because something is scheduled.
Categories
Deciding what gets blocked
A category is a named list of apps and websites. It does nothing by itself — it waits to be picked up by a window. Build them calmly, well before you need them.
Websites
Whole domains, not pages
Add a site like example.com and Clarity blocks that whole domain through Screen Time, in browsers and in apps. iPhone can apply up to 50 distinct selected domains at a time across every window that overlaps.
Apps
Picked in Apple's own picker
Clarity hands you Apple's app picker. Clarity never sees which apps you chose — Apple keeps that private and gives Clarity only an opaque token to block with.
Careful with categories
A whole category blocks more than you think
Apple's Social category quietly includes Messages, FaceTime and WhatsApp. Travel includes Uber and Maps. Utilities includes authenticator and password apps. Picking individual apps avoids blocking something you need.
While a window using a category is active, you can add apps to that category but you cannot remove them. That is deliberate: loosening your blocks mid-window is the move Clarity exists to make harder.
Windows
Deciding when protection runs
A window is a stretch of time with your chosen categories applied to it. You can have more than one running at once, and ending one never ends the others.
Templates
Start from a shape that fits
Deep Work, Sleep, Family Time, Reading, Commute, or build your own. A template only suggests a duration and a starting set of blocks — you decide what it actually uses.
Timing
Now, Later, or Repeat
Now starts right away. Later starts once, at a time you pick. Repeat runs on the days you pick.
Length
Fifteen minutes to a day
A repeating window has to run at least 15 minutes and cannot exceed 24 hours. Windows that cross midnight are fine — Clarity treats them as wall-clock times, not dates.
You choose Flexible or Strict while creating the window, and the choice cannot be changed once it starts.
Today
When Clarity says Protected
A scheduled window is an intention. Protected is a claim about right now, and Clarity only makes it when a Protection Window is active and Clarity has verified that the required blocking is live on that iPhone. If enforcement is missing, stale, or unconfirmed, you get Needs Attention instead — not a green Protected claim.
This matters more than it sounds. A person who believes they are protected and is not is worse off than a person who knows they are unprotected, because they have stopped watching. So Clarity never reads Protected from schedule math alone, from a self-report, or from an optional safeguard being switched on, and it will say Needs Attention rather than guess in your favour.
Today → Progress
What Progress shows you
Progress reports your window history. It does not score you, and there are no streaks to break.
Recorded time
Time in windows recorded as kept: completed at the planned end or through an allowed met goal. Overlaps count once. Early-ended and unknown outcomes add no time. This is window history, not proof of blocking, attention, or time saved.
Kept windows and milestones
Your first kept Start Now or scheduled window is recognised after Clarity records its end. Milestones then recognise kept windows on separate days, without requiring a streak. Longer or overlapping windows on the same day do not earn extra days. A difficult week does not erase earlier milestones. Days use UTC, a fixed world clock, so travel cannot change them. Driving is separate. Turn off Show progress feedback in Progress on iPhone, or Today on the web, to hide this feedback without changing protection. The choice stays on that device or browser.
Optional Plan and Keep ratings
Ratings are hidden unless you choose to show them. Clarity does not score total phone use, productivity, or how many apps you block. Plan measures how much of your recorded window duration was set in advance. Keep measures how much finished as intended, with Strict windows given extra weight. Both use the last 28 days and need 3 eligible windows or 3 weighted hours. They are estimates with limits: longer and overlapping windows can move them more. A lower rating is not a reason to restrict more. Start Now counts fully toward milestones. The combined Clarity Score is withheld while its design is reviewed. Steer is unavailable in this version; waiting or sharing Screen Time will not unlock it.
Screen Time
A read-only report from Apple Screen Time, shown only on that iPhone. Distracting apps means the apps and categories in your own categories — never a judgement Clarity made. Clarity never uploads or logs this report.
Account
Permissions, safeguards, and the small print
Some of these harden your setup and some filter between windows. None of them replace an active, verified window.
Selected website blocking
Shows whether Screen Time access is granted on this iPhone. If it says Needs Screen Time, blocking cannot run — tap through and allow it.
Adult filter
Optional adult-site filtering and SafeSearch, using Apple's automatic filter plus a DNS profile. It stays on between windows until you turn it off. It is separate from your own categories, and it is not what paints Protected. Turning it on switches off iCloud Private Relay, and iPhone will report Private Relay as unavailable because of a technical problem — that is this setting, not a fault. You cannot switch the adult filter off while a window is running; that waits until the window ends.
Always Allowed
The essentials that stay reachable during every window. On a Flexible window you can add to this list mid-window. During a Strict window you can take things off, but you cannot add anything new until it ends — so set it before you start.
Browsing Lock
Optional. If you switch the Clarity DNS profile off while a window is running, this blocks all websites on that iPhone until you switch it back on. It is deliberately honest about its limits: it notices by watching time spent in apps you choose rather than by watching the clock, so up to about three minutes of use can pass before it catches on, it watches roughly two hours of use per window, and a window that starts while Clarity has not been opened is not watched at all.
Recovery Delay
Optional. Clarity sets a Screen Time passcode you do not keep, and you can ask for it back after a 24-hour wait. Having Recovery Delay configured is not the same as being protected right now.
Check readiness
Walks the setup again and tells you what is missing. Your saved categories are kept — only the setup answers are cleared.
Your subscription is handled by Apple. To change or cancel it, open iOS Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions. If a trial or subscription lapses, your saved windows and categories are kept, but new windows cannot start.
Getting out
Flexible vs Strict
This is the most important choice in the app, and it is a rule rather than a style. Pick it deliberately when you create the window.
Flexible
End anytime: it is meant to be easy to leave. You can end the window early, and you can add to Always Allowed mid-window, with no waiting and no cooling-off. Flexible windows do not need an Emergency Exit, because ending one is never hard. Flexible is not locked and it is not escrow-hard — if you need something you cannot argue your way out of in the moment, choose Strict instead.
Strict
Locked from the moment it starts. You cannot end it early, remove anything it blocks, shorten it, or delete it. You can still block more, extend the end time, and take things off Always Allowed. Emergency Exit is the break-glass way out — unless you chose to give it up for that window, which cannot be undone once the window begins.
Emergency Exit lives on the active window in the iPhone app, on the Today tab. It is not an Account-wide toggle, and there is no master switch anywhere that turns protection off.
Troubleshooting
Fast checks when something feels off
An app or site is not being blocked
- Check it is in a category attached to the window that is actually running.
- Check Always Allowed — anything on that list stays reachable by design.
- Confirm Screen Time access is still allowed for Clarity in Account.
- Remember the limit: up to 50 distinct selected domains can be active at once across overlapping windows.
- If you blocked a whole Apple category, the app may not be in the category you assumed. Pick it individually instead.
A window did not start
- Check the start time and time zone on the schedule.
- Clarity refuses to start a window that would push the active website total past 50 rather than silently blocking fewer sites. Today will say so — trim a category and try again.
- A scheduled window will not start if your trial or subscription has ended. Nothing is blocked for that window, and Today says so plainly.
- If the phone was offline at the start time, open Clarity so it can sync and apply.
- Confirm Screen Time access is still granted on the iPhone that is meant to enforce.
Every website is blocked and I do not know why
- If you have Browsing Lock turned on and the Clarity DNS profile was switched off during a window, this is that lock doing its job.
- To restore browsing, turn the DNS profile back on: Settings → General → VPN, DNS & Device Management → DNS → Clarity OS Web Protection.
- Sites come back at the next check, or straight away if you open Clarity. Ending the window is not what lifts it — switching the profile back on is.
- Today names the lock and the fix rather than leaving you guessing.
iPhone says iCloud Private Relay is unavailable
- Adult filter and Private Relay cannot both run — Apple allows one custom DNS setup at a time.
- iPhone reports this as a technical problem, which is misleading. Nothing is broken.
- Turning the adult filter off restores Private Relay. Your own categories do not depend on it and are unaffected.
Status looks wrong
- Protected means two things at once: a window is active and Clarity has verified that required blocking is live on that iPhone. One without the other is not Protected.
- Needs Attention means something required is missing, stale, or unverified. Follow the warning on Today — it names the one thing to fix.
- Turning permissions off in iOS Settings drops honest status until you restore them. That is the app refusing to lie, not a bug.
- Self-checks and Escape Drill answers never paint Protected. Neither does a schedule existing, or an optional safeguard being switched on.
I need to stop a window
- Flexible: tap End window on the active window in Today. It stops straight away.
- Strict: use Emergency Exit on that same active window. You type END PROTECTION to confirm, it takes effect 15 minutes later, you can cancel during those 15 minutes, and you get one per rolling 7 days across all your windows.
- If you gave up Emergency Exit when creating that Strict window, there is no early way out. That choice is made before the window starts and cannot be reversed.
- If a window is goal-enabled, meeting the goal can end it only after Clarity confirms it through its server. Step counts and sensors on their own never unlock a Strict window.
- Ending one window does not touch your other windows, and it does not stop a repeating window.
Still stuck
Jump to the right place
Manage your account and lists on the web, or write to us and a person will read it.
