Dumb Phone
How to Convert an iPhone into a Dumb iPhone
Keep your GPS and camera. Make your iPhone dumber by restricting the more intrusive features like web browsing and the App Store.
Modern iPhones have awesome features, like Apple Maps and a sharp camera. But some of us want to re-wire the bad habits caused by the iPhone, but don't want to go back to using a flip phone. What if we could just make our smart iPhone into a dumb iPhone?
Fortunately, there are ways to maintain access to features we can't live without (like your GPS and high-resolution camera), while greatly restricting the more intrusive smartphone features (like web browsing and the App Store).
Here is an overview of what we'll cover in this dumb iPhone guide:
User Experience Customizations for a Dumber iPhone Experience
The first area where you can get some quick wins to make your iPhone a bit dumber is by making some simple customizations that make your phone far less appealing and intrusive.
There are far more effective options (such as device supervision) if you are intent on achieving the most restricted setups. We'll get into some of the more interesting stuff later on, but this is a great way to get started.
Hide Apps from Siri, Search, and the Home Screen
Most people will try to hide apps using app groups. However, you can go further with this concept.
On some iOS versions (14+), you can hide apps from your home screen, search, and Siri. We recommend hiding all non-essential apps on your iPhone to reduce clutter on your Home Screen.
If you're using an App to filter content on the internet, it's usually a good idea to hide it from the home screen and also from search.
Make your iPhone Less Appealing with Grayscale Mode
Enabling Grayscale mode will make your iPhone feel less interesting. Images, videos, and general iPhone usage won't be as interesting because the lack of color reduces the dopamine you get from using it.
To do this, open your iPhone's settings page. Search for "Color Filters" - it should be under Accessibility Settings.
Limit and Customize Notifications
Notifications are the pop-ups that appear on your phone's lock screen and they often cause your phone to vibrate or make a sound. They are one of the most problematic aspects of the modern smartphone. Notifications are designed to make you feel a slight sense of anxiety so that you are always checking your phone to complete your notification "Todo list."
Most people put their iPhone on silent, but a true dumb phone setup needs to go much further than this.
A true dumb-phone experience is mostly notification-free, with only phone calls or text messages triggering a notification. The iPhone has many ways to customize notifications, so mix and match some of the below ideas.
We'll get started by customizing the behavior of all notifications on the iPhone.
Next, if you still want to receive notifications from some apps on your iPhone, consider limiting those notifications on a schedule. I highly recommend using the iPhone's notification summary feature to delay when you receive notifications to specific hours of your day.
Finally, you should limit notifications for apps on your device.
Advanced Restrictions for a Dumb iPhone
While many quality-of-life changes can be made using only a combination of the Settings app, parental controls, and the App Store, advanced techniques can be used to more directly control features on your iPhone for a highly minimalist setup.
One of these advanced restrictions is supervised mode, and it unlocks the ability to use an Apple Config Generator to manage restrictions on the Settings app directly.
This unlocks more powerful restrictions than are typically possible otherwise, such as supervised app blocking , supervised website blocking , and settings protection . For adults setting restrictions on their own devices, this is much more powerful than parental controls, since your restrictions can't be removed from your iPhone without outside help.
For many of these techniques, there are alternatives you can consider, but supervised mode may be required. I've written comprehensive guides on each of the topics, and these better explain their nuances.
Block Non-Essential Apps
You can customize your own Supervised App Allowlist to completely restrict all apps except the ones you add to your allowlist.
As an example, I went ahead and blocked all but a small collection of apps on my iPhone. I wanted to keep things focused, so I didn't include any web browsers or the App Store. Here's what my app library looked like afterwards:
Later on, you might find that you need to edit your list to include another app, such as Apple Photos or Reminders. Using the Tech Lockdown dashboard, I'll update my list like this:
Afterwards, I installed this Allowlist onto my iPhone by scanning a QR code.
As of iOS 18, it's possible to download apps from outside of the Apple App Store through third-party app stores. Luckily, this allowlist approach will apply regardless of where the app is downloaded from.
If this Allowlist approach is too restrictive, you can use a blocklist approach instead, where all apps are approved unless you add them to your restricted apps list . This works for the App Store app itself and any other app available on the App Store.
I can also go further by specifying an age rating for apps, and I won't be able to use any app above the specified age rating.
Manage Safari
One of the biggest limitations of using Screen Time or standard app settings to make your iPhone dumber is trying to completely remove and manage Safari. There might be cases where you'd like to completely hide Safari so that it can't be accessed, or instead, more effectively block specific websites.
There are ways to completely disable Safari on Apple devices, including iPhones. This will completely hide Safari from your iPhone's home screen, hide it from being opened in the App Library, and block the Safari app if it's ever opened.
Disabling Safari is ideal if you want a truly minimalist setup that removes one of the largest sources of temptation.
If you need a more powerful option that blocks specific websites or all adult content on multiple web browsers, your iPhone will need to have supervised mode enabled. Supervised mode unlocks the ability to use supervised website blocking , which will also apply to Safari.
This approach works on most of the common web browsers, but you can also combine it with supervised app blocking to block apps that aren't compatible. I'll explain how to do this in the next section.
Protect Settings That Could Be Used to Disable Dumb Phone Restrictions
There are some cases where you need to ensure that dumb iPhone restrictions can't be disabled. For example, you might want to prevent your iPhone from being Factory Reset.
This is possible, but it is also possible to use supervised mode to protect settings on your iPhone and ensure they can't be disabled easily.
Restrict Adding VPNs
Another useful dumb iPhone configuration if you have supervised mode enabled is to remove the ability to add new VPN connections.
Normally, a standard iPhone would have the option to add a VPN from the settings page.
However, if you install the Config Preset on a supervised iPhone , this option is removed.
As of iOS version 18 and up, apps will not longer be allowed to add VPN configurations as well.
This is an ideal approach if you want to enforce a content filtering VPN while preventing conflicting VPNs from overriding it.
Disable the App Store
Another great way to remove distractions is to disable the App Store .
The App Store could be used to download apps that are distracting, addictive, or problematic.
Prevent Deleting Apps
Although it seems counterintuitive, a core part of achieving a dumb iPhone is to prevent the apps that you have approved from being deleted.
On standard iPhone devices, holding an app icon and choosing delete shows you three options. One of them is to delete the app entirely.
However, it is possible to disable the option to delete the app, restricting apps to only be removed from your home screen while remaining in your app library. This requires supervised mode , but it is much more effective than on-device configuration options.
This is very relevant if you need to enforce a content filtering VPN ; deleting the app usually means that any VPN or network settings are also removed.
A simple way to do this is by using Screen Time settings on your iPhone and prevent apps from being deleted:
However, a more enforceable way to do this is to use a Config File created with an Apple Config Generator . Config Files can enable multiple restrictions on your iPhone at once, which are incredibly difficult to disable later.
Filter your iPhone's Internet for a Distraction-Free Experience
If you're looking for a way to filter content on your iPhone, a DNS Content Policy lets you apply rules to your iPhone's internet usage in a more comprehensive way compared to iPhone Screen Time. This is a great way to block apps or websites, enforce SafeSearch , and schedule internet usage.
You can enforce a content filtering VPN connection on your iPhone, allowing you to comprehensively block unapproved websites.
Here are some DNS Content Policy ideas you can use to customize the internet access on your new dumb iPhone.
Block YouTube Thumbnails
Make YouTube less interesting by blocking clickbait thumbnails.
For example, I can update my Tech Lockdown Content Policy to include a Block rule for YouTube images:
This causes YouTube thumbnails to not display, whether in the browser or the app.
Schedule Internet Usage
Another strategy I use for a dumber iPhone experience is to schedule when I can use distracting websites and apps that tend to make my iPhone feel way too appealing.
For example, I unblock news and certain social media apps on my lunch break. Otherwise, these websites and apps are blocked:
You can use this same approach to block the entire internet at night on your iPhone.
Block Categories and Apps
You can block hundreds of categories of online content:
Or pick specific apps that should be blocked:
For example, within my Tech Lockdown Content Policy , I've created a few rules that always block TikTok , Security Threats, and Adult Content and even enforce SafeSearch on Google, Bing, and other supported search engines.
Default-deny Blocking Approach
One option that is particularly relevant to a dumb phone setup is a default-deny approach.
This means that you block everything by default, but selectively allow access to a few apps. For example, you could block the social media category but allow access to only LinkedIn on your iPhone:
You could apply this same concept to broader categories by blocking access to all categories and only allowing access to a useful app like Google calendar:
To prevent myself from simply logging in and bypassing these rules, I lock my Tech Lockdown profile.
This ensures that I can't compulsively make the Content Policy less restrictive but I can still add to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are some of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to creating a dumb iPhone.
How strict of a device can I get without device supervision?
You can get a moderately restrictive setup using a standard, out-of-the-box iPhone. For example, you could enable grayscale mode, set limits for apps, enforce a screen downtime, hide apps from the home screen, and disable the App Store.
This approach isn't perfect. Most of these restrictions rely on Screen Time, which is too easy to disable, unfortunately.
I can't Supervise an iPhone, what else can I do?
Device supervision is the recommended dumb iPhone approach, but you can also hack together some dumb phone configurations with Apple Screen Time .
You can enable "default-deny" website blocking in the Web Content section of Screen Time. This means that you specifically set which websites the iPhone is allowed to visit and everything else is blocked.
You can also disable the iPhone's app store so that new apps can't be downloaded in the iTunes & App Store Purchases section of Screen Time.
Once you disable installing apps, the App Store icon will disappear from your app list.
Important note about disabling Installing Apps
A better way to disable the App Store is to use the supervised device mode we talk about later on because it allows automatic app updates.
You can also go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions > Apps, then set this to Don't Allow.