A call blocker built by one developer is #4 in France's whole top free chart, one spot above ChatGPT. On iPhone it's not in the top 200 for "Bloctel", a term Orange ranks #2 for
Look at France's iPhone top free chart today and the top 5 is three AI assistants, Microsoft Teams, and one app from a solo developer in Toulouse. Saracroche blocks telemarketing calls. It's #4 overall, one place above ChatGPT, and #1 in Utilities, ahead of France Identité and Mondial Relay. It has 10,599 ratings at 4.9 stars. On Google Play it's #2 in Communication with 1.8 million installs since August 2025. It's free, the code is open source, and the whole iOS app is 3 MB.
Search is where it wins most. Saracroche is #1 on iPhone for "bloqueur d'appels", "bloquer appel", "démarchage téléphonique", and "bloquer les appels indésirables", in both France and Belgium. There's one gap. France's official do-not-call list is called Bloctel, and the App Store autocompletes "bloctel" to "bloctel gratuit" and "bloctel+". People type it straight into the store. Orange's call-blocking app is #2 for it and Begone is #3. Saracroche isn't in the top 200 on iPhone. On Google Play it's #1.
What the app does
Saracroche uses iOS's built-in call-blocking feature (a Call Directory extension, which you switch on in Settings) to block more than 15 million numbers. The list comes from the number ranges ARCEP, the French telecom regulator, reserves for telemarketing, plus numbers users report from inside the app. It also filters spam SMS, lets you add your own prefixes to block or label, and updates the list in the background. The listing says no data leaves the phone, and it's written plainly: "developed in France, in Toulouse, by a person who'd had enough of telemarketing calls."
The iOS version is 5.3.0, updated September 17, 2026. The Android version (com.cbouvat.android.saracroche) came out on August 14, 2025 and is on 5.5.2. The listing is localized in French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish.
Why now: France changed the rules
France's switch to opt-in telemarketing took effect in August 2026: companies now need your consent before they cold-call you. People went looking for what that meant for them. On Google Trends (France, one query, shared scale), "démarchage téléphonique" (telemarketing) hovered between 5 and 11 every week from May to July. It jumped to 39 in the week of August 9, and to 67 in the week of September 27. The fastest-rising related searches include "02 70" and "05 68", which are telemarketing prefixes. People search for the number that just called them.
Here's the part that matters for an app. Compare "saracroche" and "bloctel" on the same scale:
Both terms were queried together, so they share one scale. 100 would be the highest week for either term in the period.
When the rules changed in the week of August 9, "bloctel" jumped to 36 and "saracroche" dropped to 7. People reached for the official registry they already knew. By the week of October 11 it had flipped: "saracroche" at 41, "bloctel" at 11. That week, the app was searched almost four times as often as the government list. The top related searches for "saracroche" are "application saracroche", "saracroche android", and "saracroche iphone", which means people hear the name somewhere else and come to the store to find it. Getting there was word of mouth, not store search, but many people still start from "bloctel", and that's the term this article is about.
Charts: France only
| Store | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| App Store FR | All apps, top free | #4 of 100 |
| App Store FR | Utilities, top free | #1 of 100 |
| App Store BE | Utilities, top free | #93 of 100 |
| App Store CA | Utilities, top free | not in top 100 |
| App Store CH | Utilities, top free | not in top 100 |
| Google Play FR | Communication, top free | #2 of 199 |
The drop-off after France isn't a marketing problem. The block list is built from French number ranges. A Belgian or Canadian user gets the app's search ranking (it's #1 for the same French terms in Belgium) but not the same value, because their telemarketers call from different numbers. A top free chart counts new downloads, so it follows the news cycle. The law change pushed French users to the store, and other French-speaking countries had no such trigger.
The bigger names in the niche are much lower. Orange Téléphone, the call-blocking app from France's largest carrier, is #54 in Utilities with 24,000 ratings at 4.3. Truecaller is #63. Begone, the closest indie competitor, is #34 in Productivity.
Search: where Saracroche ranks
| Keyword | English | App Store FR | App Store BE | Google Play FR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bloqueur d'appels | call blocker | #1 | #1 | #1 |
| bloquer appel | block call | #1 | #1 | #1 |
| démarchage téléphonique | telemarketing | #1 | #1 | #1 |
| bloquer les appels indésirables | block unwanted calls | #1 | #1 | #1 |
| bloquer appel spam | block spam call | #1 | #1 | — |
| appel indésirable | unwanted call | #1 | #1 | — |
| spam telephone | phone spam | #1 | #3 | #1 |
| anti spam | anti-spam | #2 | #5 | #1 |
| bloquer sms | block SMS | #2 | #7 | not in top 30 |
| bloquer telephone | block phone | #4 | #7 | — |
| stop démarchage | stop telemarketing | #4 | — | — |
| appel masqué | hidden-number call | #5 | #5 | — |
| numéro démarchage | telemarketing number | #5 | — | — |
| spam appel | spam call | #8 | #8 | #1 |
| sms spam | spam SMS | #11 | #28 | — |
| numero inconnu | unknown number | #13 | #15 | — |
| bloctel | France's do-not-call list | not in top 200 | not in top 200 | #1 |
| bloctel gratuit | Bloctel free | not in top 200 | — | — |
| call blocker | (English) | not in top 200 | not in top 200 | not in top 30 |
| spam blocker / spam call blocker | (English) | not in top 200 | not in top 200 | — |
| arnaque | scam | not in top 200 | — | — |
"—" means we didn't check that combination. Google Play only shows 30 results, so "not in top 30" there means a user scrolling won't reach the app, not that it isn't indexed. On the App Store we check down to 200.
For a 2025 app, this is about as good as search gets. It's #1 for every French phrase that describes the job, including the long autocomplete phrase "bloquer les appels indésirables". That's the first suggestion Apple shows after "bloquer", ahead of "bloquer application" and "bloquer pub".
The gaps follow one rule. On iPhone, Apple ranks an app only for words in its title, subtitle, and hidden 100-character keyword field. It doesn't read the description. Saracroche's title has "bloqueur d'appels" and its description is full of "démarchage", "spam", and "SMS indésirables", but the word "Bloctel" doesn't appear in anything Apple indexes, so the app isn't in the top 200 for it. Google Play does read the full description, which is how the same app is #1 for "bloctel" on Android.
Who owns "Bloctel" on iPhone
| Keyword (App Store FR) | Saracroche | Orange Téléphone | Begone |
|---|---|---|---|
| bloqueur d'appels | #1 | #12 | #2 |
| bloquer appel | #1 | #4 | #3 |
| démarchage téléphonique | #1 | #2 | not in top 200 |
| bloquer les appels indésirables | #1 | not in top 200 | not in top 200 |
| spam telephone | #1 | #2 | #4 |
| bloquer sms | #2 | not in top 200 | #10 |
| anti spam | #2 | #1 | #5 |
| spam appel | #8 | #3 | #1 |
| bloctel | not in top 200 | #2 | #3 |
| bloctel gratuit | not in top 200 | #2 | — |
| call blocker | not in top 200 | #4 | #3 |
| numéro démarchage | #5 | #2 | — |
| arnaque | not in top 200 | #2 | — |
Orange Téléphone has 24,000 ratings, more than twice Saracroche's 10,599, and it's built by France's biggest carrier. Saracroche still beats it on every phrase about what the app does. Orange's lead is in words around the job: the name of the official list, "arnaque" (scam), and the English "call blocker". Begone, a 2021 indie app with 3,000 ratings, takes "spam appel" at #1 and "call blocker" at #3.
Before you copy this for your own app: Apple's guideline 2.3.7 bans putting other apps' names and trademarks in your metadata. Bloctel isn't an app. It's a public service the government runs to help people opt out of telemarketing, and both Orange and Begone rank for it. The safe form is descriptive, such as "en complément de Bloctel" (works alongside Bloctel), not presenting the app as Bloctel.
15 of 39 search results launched in 2025 or 2026
Search "bloqueur d'appels" in France and 39 apps come back. 15 of them, Saracroche included, came out in 2025 or 2026. Most are small. Behind Saracroche, the three biggest newcomers are BlocAppel (406 ratings), Callapp (346), and STOP Démarchage (109). One 2026 launch, "Halte : bloqueur d'appels", copies Saracroche's title format word for word. Another, "HangUp : identifiez les appels", comes from NordVPN, a big security brand moving into the niche this year.
The clones don't threaten Saracroche's head terms right now. It holds #1 with a 10,000-rating lead. What a crowd like this does is fill the long tail: "stop démarchage", "numéro démarchage", "appel masqué". On those Saracroche is #4 or #5 today, and a single good keyword field from a competitor could push it down.
Is "Bloctel" worth chasing?
| Term | Google Trends FR (May–Oct 2026, shared scale with "saracroche") | App Store autocomplete | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| bloctel | 4–36, usually 8–17 | "bloctel gratuit", "bloctel", "bloctel+" | Real store demand, held by Orange |
| saracroche | 2–41, at its peak in October | the app's own name | Brand search, already #1 |
| démarchage téléphonique | 5–67, spikes on news (separate query) | — | Owned, #1 on both stores |
Yes, and for a specific reason. "Bloctel gratuit" (Bloctel free) tells you the person typing it wants a free tool to stop telemarketing. Saracroche is exactly that. These people already know the problem and the official fix, and they're checking whether an app does it better. Saracroche is #1 for it on Android and missing on iPhone, and the only cost of fixing that is a few characters in the keyword field.
What we'd change
- Add "bloctel" to the iOS keyword field. It's the only high-intent French term where the app is missing on iPhone while ranking #1 on Android. Phrase any visible mention descriptively ("en complément de Bloctel") to stay within guideline 2.3.7.
- Add "arnaque" and "fraude". Orange is #2 for "arnaque". Saracroche blocks the same calls, and scams are a big reason people install a call blocker.
- Use the English (U.K.) localization for English terms. The French App Store indexes the English (U.K.) metadata as well as the French. Putting "call blocker, spam blocker, spam call" there would let the app rank for the English phrases French users type, like "spam call blocker", without spending French characters.
- Protect the long tail. "Stop démarchage" (#4), "numéro démarchage" (#5), and "appel masqué" (#5) are where the 2025–2026 clones compete. If "numéro" and "masqué" aren't already in the keyword field, add them so the phrases match across fields.
- Name the prefixes. People are searching for "02 70" and "05 68" on Google right now. A screenshot caption or the Play short description saying "bloque les préfixes 0162, 0270, 0568…" answers the exact question those people are asking.
- Don't chase Belgium or Canada yet. The app is already #1 in Belgian search, and the list doesn't cover Belgian telemarketers. More countries means new number lists, not new keywords.
Data pulled from live App Store and Google Play search, autocomplete, charts, and Google Trends via Pumf.it on October 16, 2026. Search positions change daily. Google Play search is visible only to the top 30. Install counts on Google Play are Google's global figure. Google Trends values are relative within each query (0–100), and only terms queried together share a scale. This is a read of public store data, not a critique of Saracroche, Orange Téléphone, Begone, or any other app named here. A free, open-source call blocker built by one person is now one of the most downloaded apps in France, and the gaps described here are metadata work, not product flaws.