Video

How to block Bigo Live on iPhone

Two ways, both on the phone in your hand. Option A is free and already built into iOS. Option B is Paused, if you'd rather it happen automatically and be harder to tap past.

Free · built into iOS

Option A — Apple Screen Time

No download, no subscription. Apple's own App Limits can block Bigo Live specifically, and Downtime can switch it off by time of day.

  1. Turn Screen Time on. Open Settings → Screen Time. First time? Tap Turn On Screen Time, choose "This is My iPhone", and set a Screen Time passcode — pick four digits you won't type on reflex at 11pm.
  2. Add an App Limit. Still in Screen Time, tap App Limits → Add Limit.
  3. Select Bigo Live. Apple sorts your apps into broad buckets and Bigo Live sits with the Entertainment apps. Tap the arrow beside Entertainment to expand it and tick Bigo Live only — or just type "Bigo Live" into the search field at the top, which is faster. Tap Next.
  4. Set the allowance. Choose how long Bigo Live gets each day. 30 minutes is a soft cap; 1 minute is effectively off. Tap Customize Days if weekends should be different, then tap Add.
  5. Turn on Block at End of Limit. Reopen the limit you just made and switch on Block at End of Limit. Without it, the "Ignore Limit" button hands the whole evening straight back to Bigo Live.
  6. Add Downtime for a time-of-day block. A daily budget isn't the same as "off after 10pm". For that, go back to Screen Time → Downtime → Scheduled and set the window (10pm–7am is the classic), then check that Bigo Live is not listed under Always Allowed. During Downtime it's blocked outright — there's no allowance left to burn.

The honest catch: it works, but it's four screens deep in Settings, the limit resets its own way, and if you know the passcode you can undo it in about six seconds. That's why so many people set an App Limit once and never think about it again.

Automatic · one tap

Option B — block Bigo Live with Paused

Same Apple blocking engine underneath, built for the one job: getting Bigo Live out of your evening without you having to decide again every night.

  1. Create a Block Schedule. Open Paused and create a Block Schedule — that's the recurring, automatic kind.
  2. Pick Bigo Live. Choose Bigo Live from your installed apps. While you're in there, add the rest of your video time-sinks too — TikTok, YouTube, Twitch — because Bigo Live is almost never the only one.
  3. Choose the window. Set the days and hours: 10pm–7am so the night is yours, 9–5 for work, or 7–9pm so dinner and the evening stay phone-free.
  4. Save it and forget it. That's the whole setup. From then on Bigo Live turns itself off when the window starts and comes back on when it ends — no willpower, no remembering.
  5. Use a Focus session when you need Bigo Live gone right now. One tap starts a Focus session: pick a length — 25 minutes, two hours, until dinner is over — and Bigo Live stays locked until the timer runs out.
  6. Let the streak do the rest. Every day you keep the block stacks your streak. That's the part that keeps this working in week three, once the novelty of a fresh limit has worn off.

What it can see: nothing. Paused blocks through Apple's Screen Time (Family Controls) framework, so it can stop Bigo Live from opening without reading your messages, your browsing, or anything you do inside the app. Your usage stays on your device.

Why Bigo Live is hard to put down

Live streams run 24 hours a day with gifts and chat, so there is never a natural end to the session.

Which is the point worth sitting with: you're not weak, you're up against a team of people whose job is the next tap. That's also why "I'll just be more disciplined" keeps failing and a dumb, boring wall — Bigo Live simply doesn't open between 10pm and 7am — keeps working. Put the decision somewhere your 11pm self can't reach it.

And block the neighbours while you're there. Closing Bigo Live and landing on the next video app in the same second is the most common way this falls apart — so block the cluster (TikTok, YouTube, Twitch), not the single worst offender.

Get Paused — free on the App StoreGet →