What gets blocked, and what doesn't
Blocked
- Reels in Instagram and Facebook
- Shorts in YouTube
- Spotlight in Snapchat
- The video feeds in TikTok, X and Reddit
Untouched
- Your home feed, stories, search and profiles
- Messages and DMs, with notifications
- A reel a friend sends you in a chat. It plays; swiping from it into the Reels feed is still blocked.
- Everything else on the phone
How it can see Reels
A screen recording that nobody watches.
When you wake Donzo, your iPhone starts a screen broadcast into it, and it reads the screen on the phone: is this the Reels feed? If yes, it uses Apple's own Screen Time to put a black screen over the app. That is the whole trick, and it is why it works inside the real Instagram and the real YouTube, not inside a browser copy of them.
What happens to the recording: nothing. No frame is saved and no frame is sent. Donzo has no server, no account and no analytics; there is no networking code in it at all. Its App Store privacy label says Data Not Collected, and that is true of the whole app, not just the screen.
The dot
One tap back to your feed.
The dot at the top of the screen is Donzo, awake. After a block, tap it: the app you were in opens again on its home feed, not on the reel. Phones without a Dynamic Island get the same buttons in a Home Screen widget.
When the phone locks, Donzo falls asleep, and the guarded apps wait behind a black screen until you tap the dot and wake it: three seconds. That is on purpose. Reels stay locked until you decide otherwise, and you never end up there on autopilot.
Only at home, if you want
Locked at home. Normal everywhere else.
Turn on Only at home and Donzo works only while your phone is at home. Out of the house, Instagram and YouTube open as normal, Reels and all. Walk back in and the lock is back.
Set home with one tap, from wherever you are standing. Your location is checked on the phone, by the phone; Donzo keeps the home point and nothing else, and sends nothing anywhere.
Why not the usual ways
Not a browser, not a VPN, not a whole-app limit.
- Safari extensions only work in Safari.Reels live inside the app, where an extension cannot reach.
- "Instagram in a browser" apps are a browser.No notifications, videos that stall, logins that get flagged. Donzo leaves the real app alone.
- Screen Time limits block the whole app.You still need the DMs. Donzo blocks one tab, not the app.
Price
Free for your first 50 blocks.
$14.99once, yours for good
$2.99a month, if you'd rather
Paid through the App Store. Donzo learns only whether you bought it. Nothing else leaves the phone.
Requirements
iPhone with iOS 17.4 or later. The one-tap dot needs a Dynamic Island: iPhone 14 Pro, and every iPhone 15, 16 and 17. Other iPhones use the Home Screen widget instead.
Early beta through TestFlight. Leave your email above and the invite comes when it opens.