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Braintoll is a mobile app for Android and iPhone that puts a short flashcard review in front of the apps you tend to open without thinking. Pick the apps you want to interrupt, build a small library of learning cards — written by hand or generated by AI — and Braintoll asks you to review a few and rate your recall before it lets you through: pay the “toll.”

Willpower alone rarely works, because opening the app is a reflex, not a decision — by the time you notice, you’re already scrolling. What tends to help is a deliberate pause at the exact moment of opening: a lock screen, a delay, or a small task that requires a moment of focus. Braintoll uses the third approach — a quick flashcard review — so the interruption is useful instead of just an obstacle.

Spaced repetition is a study technique that schedules reviews right before you’re likely to forget something, instead of at fixed intervals — cards you know well come back less often, cards you struggle with come back sooner. Braintoll uses this to schedule your library automatically: your Again, Hard, Good, or Easy rating during each toll decides when that card resurfaces next.

Open a blocked app and Braintoll shows a card from your library instead. Reveal the answer, then rate your own recall: Again, Hard, Good, or Easy. Only Easy ratings count toward the toll — anything else puts the card back in the queue for another pass. You choose how many Easy ratings are needed and how many minutes of access you get afterward; “Keep my attention” returns you home instead, any time.

Braintoll can block any app installed on your phone — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, X, Snapchat, even your browser. On Android, Braintoll suggests the usual distractions first, and you can search all your installed apps. On iPhone, you pick them in Apple’s own list, which also lets you block websites or a whole category such as Social Networking. The free plan blocks one app or website; Premium blocks as many as you like, including whole categories.

Nothing bad happens — Braintoll just puts the card back into the queue for another pass in the same session, and you keep reviewing until enough cards are rated Easy. There’s no penalty, streak reset, or lockout for a slow recall; Braintoll only tracks how many cards you’ve marked Easy toward the current toll.

Yes, you can change Braintoll’s toll any time. “Easy answers per toll” and the length of temporary access afterward are both adjustable in the app’s toll settings, so you can make the toll quick and light or slow and deliberate — whatever keeps it useful for you.

Yes. A Braintoll toll can be as short as one card you know well, and once it’s paid the app stays open for the access time you choose, so reopening it in the meantime costs nothing. Once the access time is up, Braintoll asks for a new toll, even if you’re still in the app. If you’d rather not open the app at all, “Keep my attention” closes the card and takes you back to the home screen.

Yes. With active hours, Braintoll only asks for a toll during the time windows you set — for example weekdays from 09:00 to 17:00, or every evening. Outside them, your apps open normally. Without any active hours, Braintoll is on around the clock.

AI generation is one of four equal ways to build a set — alongside manual entry, built-in presets, and importing a deck you already have — and it’s the fastest: give it a topic, pasted text, or a PDF/PPTX/DOCX file, and Braintoll drafts a full set sized to fit the material, no need to specify a card count. Review and edit the draft before saving, so the deck stays yours.

Already studying in Anki? Choose Import, pick the deck’s .apkg file, and Braintoll brings the cards in with each one’s existing review progress, so a deck you’ve worked on for months doesn’t start from zero. Text prompts and answers come across; image and cloze cards don’t, and the import screen tells you exactly how many were left out before you save.

Yes. Braintoll turns documents into flashcards with AI. Upload a PDF, PowerPoint (PPTX) or Word (DOCX) file of up to 20 MB — lecture slides, a summary, a script — and it writes a set of cards from it. You can also paste text or just name a topic. Read and edit the cards before you save them: AI-written cards can contain mistakes.

Yes, learning vocabulary is one of the most common ways to use Braintoll. Write your own word pairs, start from a ready-made set, import an Anki vocabulary deck, or let AI create a set such as “Spanish verbs for travel”. Spaced repetition brings each word back just before you would forget it, and every toll becomes a few seconds of vocabulary practice.

On Android, there is no other way for an app to notice that you’ve opened another app, so Braintoll uses the Accessibility permission for exactly that. When you turn it on, Android warns that the app can observe your actions and retrieve window content; that’s the standard warning for this permission, which screen readers use too. Braintoll only reads the package name of the app in front of you, such as com.instagram.android, and compares it with your blocked apps on your phone. It never reads your messages, what you type, screen content, or browsing activity.

On iPhone, Braintoll uses Apple’s Screen Time instead, which you allow once with Face ID or your passcode. You pick the apps in Apple’s own list, and Braintoll only receives private tokens for them: it never learns their names, how long you use them, or what you do in them.

The only content that leaves your phone is what you explicitly submit for AI card generation. Optional crash reports and optional usage analytics (both off unless you opt in) contain technical details and counts, never your cards or what you type.

Braintoll needs no account. Blocking, studying, your library, Anki imports and the ready-made sets all work offline. Only AI card generation needs a connection, because your topic or document is sent to Braintoll’s generation service to write the cards. Your cards and statistics stay on your phone.

Similar underneath — both use spaced repetition with an Again/Hard/Good/Easy rating scale. The difference is when you’re prompted: Anki is something you open on your own, while Braintoll triggers automatically when you open an app you’ve chosen to block, so review happens at the exact moment you’d otherwise be scrolling, instead of requiring you to remember to study.

You don’t have to pick one: if you already have an Anki deck, import its .apkg file and Braintoll keeps each card’s review progress, so the deck carries on rather than restarting. Braintoll is not affiliated with or endorsed by Ankitects Pty Ltd, who make Anki.

Screen Time and Digital Wellbeing mostly show usage stats or let you set a hard daily limit that’s easy to snooze or ignore. Braintoll doesn’t set a limit — it puts a small, repeatable cost in front of every open: a flashcard toll you pay with Easy-rated recall, every time, not just once a day.

Yes, Braintoll has a free plan. It blocks one app and includes 3 AI card generations a month, with unlimited manual and preset cards. Premium removes the app limit and raises AI generation to up to 10 a day (30 a month).

Braintoll needs Android 8.0 (Oreo) or newer, or iOS 16.4 or newer on iPhone and iPad.

Yes. Braintoll is available on the App Store as well as on Google Play. The toll works the same on both; only how it appears differs.

On iPhone, Braintoll builds on Apple’s Screen Time, because iOS lets no app watch which app you open. A blocked app is covered by the Braintoll screen; tap “Pay the toll” and a notification brings you into Braintoll, where you answer your cards. Afterwards you open the app from your Home Screen, and it stays unlocked for your access time. When that time runs out, the Braintoll screen covers it again, even if you’re still using it — just as on Android.