How to Set Up Alerts and Notifications

Alerts are the part of AlcoLog that talks back to you. In Tracking Mode they cover logging reminders, water, motivational nudges, check-ins, and consumption limits during a session. In Sober Mode the same tab holds a shorter set: an evening check-in, milestones, a morning pledge, and your own notes on the evenings you used to drink. This tutorial walks through both, and which alerts are free vs Premium.

# Step 1. Open the Alerts tab

Tap the Alerts tab in the bottom navigation. If iOS notifications are off for AlcoLog, a Notifications are off banner sits at the top: tap it to turn them on (or to open iOS Settings if you declined earlier). Until you do, the reminder switches are dimmed and nothing fires.

In Tracking Mode, below the How alerts work info card, the screen has seven sections, top to bottom: Medication, Location Triggers, Check-In, Logging Reminders, Hydration Reminder, Motivational Reminders, and Consumption Alerts. A Reset to Default button sits at the bottom.

Medication and Location Triggers are links: the first opens the medication screen, the second opens the Locations Manager, where automatic session start and end are set up under Location Triggers (the same screen as Settings > Locations Manager > Location Triggers). Your home location is never a session trigger. Each reminder section has its own switch with its settings underneath. Turn a switch off and that reminder stops; turn it on and its settings drive the behavior.

Automatic session stop is not on this screen. It lives in Settings > Session Control (see customizing display, haptics, and session control).

# Step 2. Set the basic reminders

Check-In has one switch, Check-in reminder. Left as it is, AlcoLog sends a gentle reminder after your first session, at an upcoming slot shown, until you have logged a few sessions, so tracking becomes a habit. Pick your own Days and Time to make it a weekly reminder instead. This is the only Tracking Mode reminder that fires when no session is running.

Logging Reminders has one switch, Remind to log drinks. Turn it on and pick an interval under Remind me every… (10 minutes to 1 hour), and you get a repeating reminder to log your drinks at that interval while a session is running.

Hydration Reminder has one switch, Remind to drink water. You can trigger it After time interval (10 minutes to 1 hour), After number of drinks (set with the Every stepper), or both. Useful for pacing if you’re trying to alternate.

Motivational Reminders has one switch, Motivational note alerts. Turn it on and pick an interval under Send a note every…, and a random note from your motivational notes arrives as a notification at that interval during an active session, a different one each time (never the same note twice in a row if you have more than one) (see adding motivational quotes and notes).

All of these are free. On a fresh install, Remind to log drinks starts on at 1 hour and Remind to drink water starts on at every 30 minutes or every 3 drinks.

Reset to Default at the bottom of the screen puts every alert back to those fresh-install values: Units on at 8, Calories, Cost and Drinks off, Motivational note alerts off, Check-in reminder on at its default days and time, and the Sober Mode alerts back to their defaults. Your location triggers and saved locations are left as they are.

If you tend to forget to tap End Session at the end of the night, turn on Auto-stop after inactivity in Settings > Session Control instead. The Session Ended notification then arrives on time, at your last drink plus the time you set, even with AlcoLog closed, and the session is recorded as ending at that moment.

# Step 3. Set up Consumption Alerts

Scroll to Consumption Alerts near the bottom of the Alerts tab. This is where you set limits that warn you mid-session.

Four metrics are listed: Calories, Cost, Drinks, and Units. Each has its own switch, and turning one on shows its limit underneath (Calorie limit, Cost limit, Drink limit, Unit threshold). Units is free; Calories, Cost, and Drinks are Premium. Free users see those three with a PREMIUM badge.

Below them, Raise limit after alert sets what happens when you hit your Units or Drinks limit: the limit raises so you’re warned again before the next milestone. Free users get a fixed 25%; Premium users can set anything from 5% to 100% in 5% steps. Cost and Calorie limits do not auto-raise; once breached, they stay red so you can see how far over your plan you’ve gone.

# Step 4. Set your unit threshold

Turn on the Units switch, then use the Unit threshold stepper underneath. The default is 8. Pick a number of units that feels like the line you don’t want to cross in a single session (UK guidelines: 14 units a week is the long-term limit; 6 to 8 in one go is a heavy session for most adults).

When you cross that threshold during an active session, you get a notification and an alert in the app. Alerts only fire while a session is running. If you end a session and resume it within your resume window, the counters pick up where they left off; after the window expires they reset for the next session.

# Step 5. Where alerts show up

The limits you set on this screen drive more than notifications:

• The Alerts card on Home during a session, which you can swipe between bars and dials. Tap an active alert there to jump straight to its settings on this screen.
• The Live Activity on the Lock Screen and the expanded Dynamic Island, where each tracking line fills toward your limit and turns red when you reach it.
• Your Apple Watch, which shows your consumption alerts and can adjust them (the Watch app is Premium).
• Notifications on iPhone and Watch when a limit is crossed or a reminder is due.

Most of these are passive: you see them when you glance at your phone or wrist. Notifications are the active part.

# Step 6. Alerts in Sober Mode

When Sober Mode is on (see using Sober Mode), the Alerts tab shows only what can fire without drinking sessions. Logging reminders, hydration reminders, location triggers and consumption alerts are hidden, not switched off: they come back as they were when you turn Sober Mode off. The Sober Mode alerts are free.

The Sober Mode section has three switches:

• Evening check-in: a nudge to do your evening check-in, at 9:00 PM by default. Change it with the Time picker. It stays quiet on days you’ve already checked in, and it keeps coming every evening for weeks, even if you don’t open AlcoLog in between.
• Milestones: a note on the morning you reach a milestone. There is no time to set: it arrives at 9:00 AM on that day.
• Morning pledge: off by default. Turn it on for a daily “Today, I’m choosing not to drink.” at 8:00 AM, or at the Time you pick.

Below it, Motivational Reminders keeps its Motivational note alerts switch, but the timing changes. Instead of an interval during a session, a random note from your motivational notes arrives on the evenings you used to drink most, an hour before your sessions used to start. AlcoLog works this out from your recent sessions (Friday and Saturday at 6:30 PM if there’s nothing to go on), and you can change the Days and Time yourself.

That’s the whole alerts loop. Pick what you want to be reminded about, set your limits, then leave it running. The defaults are sensible if you don’t want to think about it.

# What’s next

For a softer kind of nudge, adding motivational quotes and notes gives you control over what the Motivational note alerts send. To customize haptic feedback, see customizing display, haptics, and session control.