Anchor
Setup guide
Set up your first morning.
Do this tonight and Anchor works tomorrow. You need an iPhone on iOS 26.1 or later and one barcode in another room.
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Install Anchor and allow its permissions.
Get Anchor Morning on the App Store. To check your iOS version, open Settings, then General, then About.
The download is free, and a plan unlocks the app: $6.99 a month, $39.99 a year, or $79.99 once. Try it free on Monthly and Yearly, then the plan renews. Lifetime has no trial.
Anchor asks for a few Apple permissions: alarms, Screen Time, and the camera so it can read your code. Allow them. The alarm, the scan and the app lock depend on them.
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Pick your code.
Register a barcode or QR code that lives in another room, like the coffee bag in your kitchen. Only that code ends the alarm, so a random box won't work. An NFC tag works too.
Choose something that will still be there next week. If it's packaging you'll use up, print a QR code and tape it by the coffee maker instead. You can register a new code anytime in Settings.
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Set tomorrow's alarm.
Choose the time and how many snoozes you get: 0, 1 or 2. Once they're used, only a scan or an emergency override ends the alarm.
If someone sleeps next to you, turn on Quiet Walk. Tapping I'm Up silences the ring for sixty seconds while you walk to your code. If you haven't scanned by then, it rings again.
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Choose what locks when you're up.
Group the apps that pull at you first thing, like social, video and news, and set them to lock after your alarm, for 15 minutes to 8 hours. An hour is a good place to start.
Calls and texts always work, and Anchor never locks the whole phone.
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Before bed, plug in your phone.
A phone that's dead or switched off can't ring. Force-quitting the app doesn't matter, because the alarm lives in Apple's AlarmKit.
Check your code is where you want to be standing when you're awake, not on the nightstand.
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Tomorrow, get up and scan.
When it rings, walk to your code and scan it. The alarm stops and the apps you picked stay locked for the time you set.
If you truly can't scan, you have three emergency overrides a month, shared across alarms and blocks. They refill on the 1st.
Once you trust it
All of these are optional. Add them one at a time.
- Set in Stone. Locks tonight's alarm for the two hours before it rings, so a half-asleep edit can't move it. A scan still ends it.
- Schedules. Lock the same apps every week at the same time, like weeknights after 9. You choose whether a scan can end it early.
- Hardcore Mode. While a block runs, apps can't be deleted, Anchor included.