On Google Play · iPhone coming
That is the whole problem. Skerrick does not ask permission at the door. It lets you in, gives you 3 minutes, and calls time mid-scroll.
On iPhone? It is not out yet.
Leave an email and we will tell you once, on the day it reaches the App Store.
3:00
In the app, per visit.
30 min
Away, and it refills.
0
Accounts, emails or logins needed.
The difference
A gate at the door arrives when you have the least reason to turn back. By the time you genuinely want to stop, you are already twenty minutes in and nothing is going to interrupt you.
At the door
You get stopped before you have opened anything, at the moment you have the least reason to stop and the most reason to tap through. On iPhone, Screen Time’s own sheet offers to ignore the limit for the rest of the day. On Android, Digital Wellbeing’s pause screen links straight to the switch that turns the timer off. Most gates in this category work the same way.
Mid-scroll
Skerrick lets you in and calls time three minutes later, while you are still holding the phone. On Android the cut-off lands over the app. On iPhone a notification says so. Either way it arrives at the moment you actually wanted to stop.
How the ration works
01
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. One of them is the problem. Choose it and leave the rest of the phone alone.
02
3 minutes a visit by default, counted whenever the app is in front. Reels, Stories and DMs all spend the same minutes.
03
On Android the cut-off lands over the app where you are. On iPhone a notification tells you, and the app opens on the cut-off until the ration refills, 30 minutes after you leave.
The longer version of how it works, including what happens when you close the app halfway through.
The cut-off
The counter hits zero halfway through whatever you were looking at. The number is there if you look, but nothing taps you on the shoulder: no warning, no five-minute grace, no negotiation at the point where negotiating always wins.
On Android the cut-off lands over the app right there. On iPhone, which will not let one app close another, a notification tells you, and the next time you open the app with nothing left, Skerrick is waiting on the cut-off.
Skerrick is a British and Australian word for the tiniest possible amount. It is almost always used in the negative, which is the only way anyone ever says it, and it is exactly what you have left.
Not a skerrick left.
You opened Instagram 11 minutes ago.
Refills in 29 min.
When you push through
Ask for sixty more seconds and you get them, after a wait. The second time that day the wait is longer. By the fourth it is ninety seconds of staring at a phone that is doing nothing.
The count resets at midnight. Where the ladder starts does not: it is read off your own last week, so it climbs while you keep pushing through and falls back when you stop.
| Push-through | Wait | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 5s | Barely anything. That is the point. |
| 2nd | 20s | Long enough to notice you are waiting. |
| 3rd | 45s | Long enough to put the phone down. |
| 4th | 90s | Most people never get here. |
Why it escalates
A published field experiment (PNAS, 2023, N=280) found that a short delay with an explicit dismiss option led users to abandon about one in three app opens. That is a real, measured effect, and it is the reason every app in this category ships some kind of pause.
PNAS, 2023, N=280
A follow-up study across 1,039 real users over roughly thirteen weeks found the effect fades. People habituate, and push through more as the weeks pass. A pause that never changes becomes part of the routine, and tapping through it becomes automatic.
Follow-up study, N=1,039, roughly 13 weeks
What it counts
Skerrick cannot see whether you are in Reels or your DMs, so it rations the app you pick, and limiting Instagram is how it limits Reels. The app itself is never blocked, so you can still answer a message, inside the same minutes.
On iPhone you can ration Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X, Snapchat, Reddit, Threads and Pinterest. On Android, any app on the phone.
Pricing
Not a trial, not a crippled demo. One feed of your choice with the whole mechanic, for nothing, for as long as you want it.
£0forever
One feed, with the whole mechanic.
Not a trial. It does not expire, and the cut-off is not watered down. If one feed is your whole problem, this is the whole product.
14 days free
£29.99per year
Or £4.99 per month, with no free trial. The yearly plan works out at about half the monthly rate.
Billed through the App Store or Google Play. Cancel there whenever you like, and inside the first 14 days of the yearly plan you are not charged at all.
Get Skerrick
Skerrick for Android is on Google Play. The iPhone app is still being built, so there is no App Store link yet. Leave an email and you will hear from us once, on the day it arrives.
On iPhone? It is not out yet.
Leave an email and we will tell you once, on the day it reaches the App Store.
Questions
Nothing outright. It rations the whole app you pick, not one screen inside it. You get three minutes in Instagram per visit by default, and the clock runs whenever Instagram is in front, whether that is Reels, Stories or your DMs. Limiting the app is how it limits Reels, Shorts and For You. The app is never blocked or deleted, so a message still gets answered, inside the same minutes.
Because it cannot see which screen you are on. On iPhone, Shortcuts only tells it when an app opens and closes. On Android it only knows which app is in front. Seeing more would take accessibility access, which lets an app read everything on your screen, and Skerrick does not ask for it. So the ration covers the whole app.
Three minutes in the app per visit by default, and you can change that. The clock runs whenever the app is in front, whichever screen you are on. When the ration runs out, Skerrick calls time: on Android the cut-off lands over the app where you are, and on iPhone a notification tells you. It refills after thirty minutes away from the app.
A full-screen card says 'Not a skerrick left', with the countdown at zero. On Android it lands over the app, mid-scroll. On iPhone, which does not let one app close another, a notification says it instead. Tap it and the card comes up, and if you open the app again with nothing left, Skerrick comes to the front on the card. From the card you can put it down (on Android that takes you back to the home screen), or ask for sixty more seconds and wait out the delay first.