📱 What Is StayFree?

StayFree might sound a bit pretentious as a name, but I’ve been using this app for more than two years. It’s one of my favorite screen time tracking apps for boosting productivity, tracking digital habits, and it has extremely flexible settings that can meet virtually any need. Best of all — it’s completely free and cross-platform.

I spent quite a while looking for an app that could be installed on my MacBook, my Windows PC, and my Android phone, and then synchronize everything into one place. StayFree solved exactly that problem. The result: a complete, objective picture of where and how you spend your time across all devices.

Key Features at a Glance

🌐 Cross-Platform Tracking — The Core Value

The core insight of StayFree is simple: your distractions aren’t limited to one device. Instagram on your phone, YouTube on your laptop, LinkedIn on your MacBook — StayFree captures all of it in one unified view.

Your phone’s default screen time settings also show this data, but with a critical flaw: you can’t exclude productive apps. If you spend five hours using Google Maps for work navigation, that inflates your “screen time” meaninglessly. StayFree lets you add any app to an ignore list, leaving only the genuinely wasted time visible.

📸 StayFree dashboard — daily nonproductive time broken down by app and category

⏱ Daily Usage Limits

The most straightforward blocking mode: set how many minutes per day you allow yourself in a specific app or website. Once the limit is reached, StayFree can notify you, show a pop-up, or fully block further access for the rest of the day.

StayFree’s website blocker blocks the entire domain — so if you block Twitter, you can’t access it through any URL on that domain. This includes social networks accessed via the browser.

Daily Usage Limits — app-level and website-level blocking with domain-wide coverage

Three action types when a limit is exceeded

StayFree offers progressively stronger responses when you hit your limit: a notification, a pop-up reminder, or full blocking for the rest of the day. Personally, I only use blocking — everything else is too easy to ignore.

What you see when a blocking limit is reached — clean, no-bypass screen

📂 Category Usage Limit

Instead of blocking individual apps, Category Limits let you block an entire category — social media, news, entertainment, shopping. The key advantage: blocking “Social Media” blocks both the Facebook app and facebook.com in the browser simultaneously.

StayFree comes with built-in categories for the most common needs, and you can create custom categories with any combination of apps and websites.

Category Usage Limit settings — block by category, time, or number of sessions

📅 Scheduled Focus Mode

Same blocking logic as Category Limits, but triggered by time rather than usage. Create a recurring schedule: “Block social media weekdays 7:15 AM – 5:00 PM.”

Scheduled Focus Mode — every weekday 7:15 AM to 5:00 PM

⚡ Limits On The Go

Every time you open a flagged app, StayFree asks: “How long do you want this session to last?” You set a time (say, 10 minutes), and the app blocks you when it’s up. You also set a Cool Down Period — the minimum gap required between sessions.

This addresses the single most common failure mode: “I’ll just quickly check Twitter for 5 minutes” that becomes 40 minutes.

🎯 In-App Blocking — Block Parts, Not the Whole App

One of StayFree’s most sophisticated features. Instead of blocking an entire app (which often backfires — people delete the blocker instead), you can block only the most destructive parts of an app.

Instagram — block Reels, Stories, or Explore independently

YouTube — block Shorts specifically (the most time-consuming feature)

🔑 Keyword Blocking — The Unique Feature

This is the feature I haven’t seen implemented anywhere else, and it’s one of my favorites. The logic: add words to a blacklist, and the moment any of those words appear on your screen — in any text form — StayFree instantly blocks the screen.

This works everywhere: searching for the word in your phone’s app drawer, typing it in notes, looking it up in your browser. The block triggers the instant the word appears on screen.

Keyword blocking — any blacklisted word appearing on screen triggers an instant block

🚨 Instant Focus Mode

A one-tap nuclear option: you’re in the middle of a distraction spiral, you’ve had enough, and you need everything blocked right now. Instant Focus Mode does exactly that — blocks all your flagged apps with a single tap, no schedule needed.

This is for reactive moments rather than planned routines. If you’re a planner, you’ll use Scheduled Focus Mode more. But for those moments of “I cannot believe how much time I just wasted” — this button is invaluable.

🎯 Productivity Usage Goals

This feature works the opposite way from all the others: instead of limiting how much time you spend on something, you set a minimum goal. Want to spend at least 15 minutes a day on Duolingo? StayFree will remind you if you haven’t reached it by a set time.

⚖️ Pros & Cons

🆚 StayFree vs Competitors

👤 Who Is StayFree For?

❓ FAQ

🏆 Final Verdict

StayFree earns an 8.8/10 — the highest value score in this category, and the clearest recommendation for anyone who wants comprehensive tracking and blocking across all their devices without paying anything.

The combination of keyword blocking, in-app blocking, and true cross-platform sync is simply not available anywhere else at this price. If you own a mix of devices and scroll through social media on your phone, StayFree should be your first install.