What CardGate does
A small, slightly annoying detour between you and the dopamine. Half the time you forget what you opened the app for and put the phone down. The other half, you memorise one new word.
Flashcard intercept
Launch a blocked app and a full-screen card appears first. Pass it, the app opens for a configurable cooldown. Fail it, study the card and try the next one.
Bring your Anki deck
Drop in an .apkg with media, cloze deletions, image occlusion, and LaTeX. Paste CSV or TSV. Sync from AnkiDroid every twelve hours. Or hand the model a chunk of notes and get a deck back.
Three quiz modes
Flip and self-grade, type the answer with forgiving fuzzy matching, or multiple choice with AI-generated distractors. Cards containing images or audio fall back to flip automatically.
Earn-time mode
Hard blocks too punitive? Switch to Earn Time: thirty seconds of app access per correct card. Study now, scroll later, same currency. Most users settle here by week three.
Per-app schedules
Different rules for different hours. Twitter locked 09:00–18:00. TikTok always. Reddit only on weekdays. Each app gets its own window, not a single global one. Premium
Focus sessions
A pomodoro timer with a whitelist: while the session runs, every app outside the list is gated regardless of your normal block list. Sized for a study sprint, not an all-day block. Premium
The card is the whole product
Anki users are the original audience. Real .apkg files import with their media, cloze deletions, image occlusion, and LaTeX. If a deck refuses to import, ninety percent of the time it's Anki's "support older versions" export setting — flip it on, re-export, try again. People have spent an hour debugging this. Don't be one of them.
Spreadsheet people paste CSV or TSV. AnkiDroid users get live sync every twelve hours; inserts, updates, and deletes all carry over. And if you don't have a deck yet, paste a chunk of notes (a textbook chapter, a vocab list, a meeting transcript) and the model returns a deck you can study immediately.
Paste-back AI generation is free and uses your own ChatGPT or Claude account. The in-app one-tap version is pay-as-you-go: ten cards for €0.99, a hundred for €4.99. No subscription gate around AI itself. Premium subscribers get monthly credit grants on top of any packs they buy.
Card selection isn't pure random and it isn't pure difficulty-ranking either. Never-seen cards weight highest, then ones you've been getting wrong, then ones you haven't seen in weeks. It's two pages of code with no machine-learning model behind it, on purpose. You can read what it's doing.
Where your data lives
All flashcards, blocklists, quiz history, and statistics stay on the device. CardGate doesn't contact a server for its core function.
- No account, no email collection, no registration. Nothing to sign up for.
- No analytics, telemetry, or crash reporting. The app doesn't phone home for diagnostics or usage tracking.
- Decks, quiz history, blocklists, earned-time pools, and settings live in app-private storage. Removing CardGate erases this data.
- Android uses the Accessibility Service to read the foreground app's package name. That is the only signal it reads — not screen content, not input, not other accessibility events.
- The only data that leaves the device is text you explicitly paste into the AI generator (when you use it) and the standard store receipt for any purchase.
FAQ
What platforms does it run on?
Android 8.0 and up; iOS 16.4 and up. Tablets supported on both. The two platforms have feature parity for the blocking mechanic with one architectural difference: Android uses an Accessibility Service to detect foreground apps, while iOS triggers the gate via Apple Shortcuts personal automations. Same outcome, different plumbing — iOS will move to Family Controls / Screen Time when Apple approves the entitlement for the app.
Will my Anki .apkg deck import?
Yes, including media, cloze, image occlusion, and LaTeX — provided you export from Anki with the "support older versions" option enabled. Without it, Anki writes a newer-format file that CardGate cannot read. If a deck won't import, that's the first thing to check.
CSV and TSV files import without any special setting. AnkiDroid users can link the AnkiDroid app and skip the file dance entirely; CardGate syncs from it every twelve hours.
What about the AI card generator — does it cost extra?
Two ways to use it. Paste-back is free and uses your own ChatGPT or Claude account: CardGate gives you a prompt template, you paste your notes into your AI of choice, then paste the result back. The card text never touches our servers.
One-tap direct mode handles the round-trip for you and runs on pay-as-you-go credits: ten cards for €0.99, a hundred for €4.99. No subscription required for credits. Premium subscribers get monthly and yearly credit grants on top of any packs they buy.
Why does Android need the Accessibility Service?
It is the only API Android exposes for detecting which app is in the foreground from a third-party app. CardGate uses it to check the foreground package name against your blocklist, and only that. The service does not read screen content, text input, button taps, or any other accessibility event from any app's UI. The implementation is small enough that an interested user can audit it.
What does Premium actually unlock?
Free tier: one blocked app, one deck up to 500 cards, flip and multiple-choice quiz modes, Anki .apkg import, AnkiDroid sync, CSV import, paste-back AI generation, streak, stats, home-screen widget, and Earn-Time mode.
Premium: unlimited apps, unlimited decks, unlimited cards per deck. Adds the type-in quiz mode, configurable cooldowns, per-app schedules, focus sessions with a whitelist, SM-2 spaced repetition (in Labs), unlimited emergency bypasses, and unlimited streak protection. €2.99 monthly, €19.99 yearly, or €29.99 lifetime. Lifetime is the actual best value, not a decoy — most paying users end up there.
Can it block websites or the browser?
No, and this is a hard architectural limit rather than a missing feature. Phones do not let third-party apps gate the system browser. If your distraction is Twitter through Safari or Chrome, CardGate is the wrong tool; a content-blocker extension is what you want there. CardGate gates apps, not URLs.
What if I just uninstall CardGate?
The blocks go with it. There is no uninstall-protection mode, no admin lock, no way for the app to make itself unremovable. Some testers asked for one. It isn't being built. A tool that traps you is worse than one you can quit.
How does my data leave the device?
For the most part, it doesn't. Flashcards, quiz history, blocklists, earned-time pool, and settings sit in app-private storage. The two exceptions: text you paste into the direct AI generator (which calls our partner provider on your behalf) and the standard store receipt for any purchase you make. No accounts, no email collection, no syncing of study material.
Details are in the privacy statement.
How can I report a bug or ask a question?
Email peakstate.apps@gmail.com. The same person who writes the code reads the inbox; replies usually come within a couple of business days. Deck-import problems with a specific .apkg file are easiest to resolve if you can attach the file.