Saracroche is a free, open-source, ad-free iOS and Android app that automatically blocks 16 million telemarketing numbers. Built by a developer from Toulouse, it already has 600,000 users and has now added SMS filtering. It is a genuine alternative to BlocTel, which no longer convinces anyone.
You have registered your number with BlocTel. You have reported calls to 33700. You have blocked numbers individually. Yet the calls keep coming. Saracroche takes a radically different approach - and it works.
We first covered it at the end of 2025. Saracroche was created by Camille Bouvat, a developer from Toulouse. Its name references a schoolyard joke: “Hello, who’s this? It’s Sarah. Sarah who? Sarah hangs up.”
Saracroche blocks 16 million telemarketing numbers
The app now blocks almost 16 million numbers, using the official ARCEP list and reports from its users. In practical terms, if a listed number calls you, your phone will not ring at all. Its database is refreshed daily over Wi-Fi, while the app works offline without affecting battery life or accessing your contacts. On iOS, it takes up just 2.1 MB.
Camille Bouvat based the app on tools such as Orange Téléphone, which have become paid-for services. His alternative remains free. No information is shared and its source code can be viewed online. So how does this young developer make money? It is funded solely through user donations. There are no adverts, no data sales and no subscriptions.
600,000 users and an important new feature
We explained all of this a few months ago. What puts Saracroche in the spotlight now is, first and foremost, its success. To date, more than 600,000 people are using the app. That is an impressive figure for an app built by one person with no marketing budget. Its creator receives messages from people saying they have rediscovered their phone and, after years of frustration with relentless calls, are leaving it on ring mode again.
The other piece of good news is technical: Saracroche has gained a new feature. Since version 4.1, it also filters unwanted SMS messages, including fake delivery notices, parcel scams and text-message phishing. The addition has become essential as telemarketing has increasingly moved to this channel in recent months.
Why Saracroche remains useful despite new rules
A law introducing tighter controls on telemarketing is due to come into force this summer. Businesses will have to obtain explicit consent before making a call. On paper, that sounds encouraging, but like Camille Bouvat, we expect the new rules to be quickly circumvented. Why such pessimism? The history of BlocTel has shown that industry professionals often failed to follow the rules, with no safeguards put in place to enforce the law.
What we think
Install Saracroche as soon as you can if you have had enough of telemarketing calls. The app has all the qualities of a successful service: it is free, effective, respectful of personal data and, on top of that, developed in France.
Its only limitation is structural: numbers that have never been reported can still get through. However, with 16 million numbers blocked and a community continuously expanding the database, the net is tight enough to make a real difference day to day. It is probably the most useful app you will download in 2026, while waiting for the law expected this summer.
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