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App Picker Crashes

Refocus relies on Apple Screen Time technology to display the “app & website picker.” Unfortunately, this technology can have issues and the crashes are one of them. All apps have this issue - there is no Refocus alternative that is able to fix this problem entirely (only Apple can!).


How To Avoid App Picker Crashes?

  1. 🚨 Update to iOS 26. Apple has greatly improved the performance in the latest iOS version. 🚨

  2. Try the “Reset Fix” in the section below

  3. Keep trying!

    1. Often it will self-correct after a few crashes.

  4. Use the search bar (access by by pulling down)

    App Picker Crashes image 1

  5. If pressing on the “Other” category causes a crash, then searching for “Other” in the search bar is another way to see the category apps & websites.

  6. Try searching for specific, rare, letters (ex. “x” or “q” or “z”). This will reduce the amount of results the picker has to display - reducing crashes.

  7. Instead of typing in the keyword in the search bar, copy it from another place, and paste it in the search bar. This will, again, reduce the amount of results the picker has to display - reducing crashes.

  8. Update iOS

    1. Apple is aware of this issue and is trying to improve it so new iOS versions can introduce a more-stable behavior.

  9. Clear websites

    1. The more websites are displayed, the more likely it is to crash. If you see over 300+ websites, consider clearing some. Go to Apple “Settings” app > Safari > Clear History and Web Data > Confirm. Then, go to Apple Settings > Screen Time > turn off Refocus permissions. Then, go back and use Refocus (it will ask to enable permissions again). More directions below if this does not work.

  10. Delete apps

    1. The more applications you have, the more likely it is to crash. If you have over 300+ apps, consider deleting some.


“Reset Fix” For App Picker

This is a new method that seems to dramatically reduce App Picker crashes

  1. Update iOS to iOS 18+ (open Apple “Settings” > “General” > “Software Update”). (the steps below may still help on iOS 17 too)

  2. Open Apple “Settings” app > “Screen Time” > press “Turn Off App & Website Activity” at the bottom

  3. In the “Screen Time” settings, ensure “Share Across Devices” is turned off

  4. In the “APPS WITH SCREEN TIME ACCESS” section, turn off all Screen Time access (including Refocus)

  5. Open the “Refocus” app and it will ask you for Screen Time permissions. Grant them.

  6. At this point:

    1. Your Screen Time history may be reset to zero

    2. The app picker should no longer display old, deleted apps

    3. The app picker may be less likely to crash, and may perform better

    4. You can re-enable Apple Screen Time if you wish

Similarly, the “Clear Websites” step is also an easy way to improve performance.

⚠️ If you don’t see your apps/websites clear up, then follow the “How To Clear Websites” step below. There’s a chance the steps above don’t work if you use multiple devices.


How To Clear Websites

It can sometimes be tricky to get websites to clear, so if the directions above don’t work, here is a full reset guide.

Across all your devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac), do the following:

  1. In Apple “Screen Time” settings, turn OFF “Share Across Devices”

  2. In Apple “Screen Time” settings, turn OFF Screen Time (toggle all settings off)

  3. In Apple “Screen Time” settings, under “Apps With Screen Time Access” > toggle access OFF (including Refocus)

  4. For Safari settings, turn off “Share Across Devices” (this is different than the Screen Time setting)

    1. iPhone & iPad: open Apple “Settings” app > press “Safari” > toggle OFF “Share Across Devices”

    2. Mac: open Safari.app > in menu bar press “Safari” > “Settings…” > “Websites” > check OFF “Share Across Devices” (bottom left corner on macOS 26)

  5. Clear websites

    1. iPhone & iPad: open Apple “Settings” app > press “Safari” > press “Clear History and Website Data” > press “Clear History” (while ensuring ALL history is cleared)

      1. Clear Timeframe: “All History”

      2. Clear For Profile: “All Profiles”

  6. At this point:

    1. Across all devices, Screen Time should be disabled

    2. Across all devices, Safari “Share Across Devices” should be disabled

    3. Across all devices, Safari website history should be cleared

  7. Restart all devices

  8. Turn on iPhone, and wait a little bit for iPhone to turn on fully

  9. Open Refocus

  10. Grant Refocus permissions

  11. See that websites are cleared

It’s important you do this across ALL your devices as the “App & Website Picker” shares data across all your devices.


Apologies For The Poor Experience

Refocus has filed over five different bug reports to Apple about this issue. If you are an Apple beta tester, or an Apple developer, you can also file feedback using https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/ (Developer Technologies & SDKs > iOS + Family Controls Framework + Activity Picker). There is no app that can avoid these issues so this is unfortunately the best we can have on the iPhone.

Why only Apple can fix this? The app picker you see is rendered in a separate process. Refocus can’t access it. Refocus can’t modify it. From the standpoint of Apple engineering decisions, this is for privacy reasons. Apple Screen Time technology is very unique, and is engineered to protect your privacy. Unfortunately, it’s this very uniqueness that is likely causing a lot of bugs. When you see this “crash,” it’s likely a breakdown of interprocess communication (XPC) between Refocus app process and Apple’s separate process to render the app picker. The separation of processes protects your privacy because Refocus can’t access the app picker process.