How to Use Widgets, the Lock Screen and Live Activities

AlcoLog puts your session on your iPhone without opening the app: widgets on the Home Screen, small widgets on the Lock Screen, and a Live Activity that follows a running session on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. This guide covers adding each one, what each widget shows, which need Premium, and how to control the Live Activity. Apple Watch widgets have their own guide: How to Use AlcoLog on Apple Watch.

# Step 1. Add a widget to the Home Screen

1. Touch and hold an empty part of the Home Screen until the apps jiggle.
2. Tap Edit in the top corner, then Add Widget.
3. Search for AlcoLog, or scroll the list and tap it.
4. Swipe through the AlcoLog widgets. Each one shows its name and a one-line description, and some come in more than one size.
5. Tap Add Widget, drag it where you want it, and tap Done.

Session Control is the first AlcoLog widget in the gallery. It’s a small widget with a Start Session button, which changes to End Session (with a live ACTIVE timer) once a session is running. Tapping it opens AlcoLog and starts or ends the session for you. If you ended a session a few minutes ago and are still inside the resume window, Start Session picks that session back up instead of starting a new one.

# Step 2. Pick the widgets you want

Every widget below is listed by the name you see in the widget gallery. Most refresh as you log, so a session’s numbers stay current without opening the app. Tapping a widget opens AlcoLog on the most relevant screen.

Free

• Session Control (small): start or end a session from the Home Screen.
• Session Tracker (small): live session stats with drink pills and weekly progress.
• AlcoScore (small): your 28-day AlcoScore with its band.
• Weekly Overview (small): a circular gauge of this week’s units against your limit.
• Your Note (small): one of your motivational notes, refreshed daily at 6am. If you have more than one note, tap Next Note on the widget to see the next one without opening the app. Add notes first with How to Add Motivational Quotes and Notes.
• Session Dashboard (medium): units, drinks, calories, cost and water in five columns. Before your first session it reads Tap to start tracking, and tapping it starts one.
• Weekly Summary (medium): a 7-day bar chart with your progress percentage.
• Full Session (large): the full session dashboard with AlcoScore, streak, and weekly progress.
• Weekly Heatmap (large): a day-by-day breakdown with units, calories, AlcoScore, and streak.

Premium

• Quick Add (small): Add Drink opens AlcoLog’s Add Drink screen, starting a session first if none is running. Another logs your session’s last drink again exactly, with the same size, ABV, cost and brand. It’s dimmed until you’ve logged a drink in a running session, and a tap after the session has ended does nothing.
• Favorites (small): your first 3 favorite drinks plus water. There’s also a medium Favorites with 5 favorites plus water. Slots you haven’t filled with a favorite are dimmed.
• Favorites Quick Add (medium): Beer, Wine, Cocktail and Spirits buttons plus Water. If you have a favorite of one of those types, it takes that type’s button.
• Sober Streak (small): days without drinking and progress toward your personal best. It’s free while Sober Mode is on, when it shows your Sober Mode count.
• Drink Count, Session Calories, Session Cost (small): one session number each, with a breakdown or per-drink average. Between sessions they show your last session.
• Insights Mini (small): your top AlcoScore helper and harmer at a glance.
• AlcoScore + Insights (medium): the score ring with your top helper and harmer insights.
• Session + Score (medium): the active session on the left, the AlcoScore ring on the right.
• Spending Tracker (medium): cost broken down by drink type.
• AlcoScore Dashboard (large): the full AlcoScore with all 6 pillar bars and insights.
• Insights Feed (large): Proud Points, Pinch Points, AlcoScore helpers and harmers, your AlcoScore, and your streak.

On the Free plan you can still place a Premium widget. It shows blurred behind a lock with a PREMIUM tag and Upgrade in AlcoLog, and it unlocks as soon as you upgrade.

Tapping a drink button on Favorites or Favorites Quick Add opens AlcoLog and logs the drink straight away, starting a session first if none is running. A short Drink Added from Widget confirmation appears on the Home screen. A favorite logs exactly as you saved it, with its size, ABV, cost and brand. A plain Beer, Wine, Cocktail or Spirits button, or a dimmed slot, logs a standard drink of that type at your region’s usual size, so check it in the session if yours was different. To change one, see How to Edit or Delete a Drink or Session.

# Step 3. Add the Sober Mode widgets

If you use Sober Mode, three widgets are built for it, and all three are free (the Sober Streak widget from Step 2 is also free while Sober Mode is on):

• Sober Days (Lock Screen, rectangular): your alcohol-free days and your last seven days.
• Sober Progress (medium): your alcohol-free days, a milestone ring, and your last seven days.
• Sober Dashboard (large): days, the ring with how long to go until your next milestone, your week, and what you’ve saved since you stopped.

While Sober Mode is off, these widgets show Turn on Sober Mode in AlcoLog. While it’s on, the session buttons on other widgets (Start Session, End Session and the drink buttons) just open AlcoLog’s Home screen, because drink logging is paused in Sober Mode.

# Step 4. Add Lock Screen widgets

1. Wake your iPhone, then touch and hold the Lock Screen and tap Customize.
2. Choose the Lock Screen, then tap the widget area below the clock (or the line above the clock for the one-line widget).
3. Find AlcoLog in the list and tap a widget to add it. Tap Done when you’re finished.

The AlcoLog Lock Screen widgets are all free on every plan (the Full home screen widget set listed under Premium covers Home Screen widgets only):

• Units Gauge and Calories Gauge (circular): this session’s units or calories in a ring. Between sessions they show your last session, dimmed.
• Weekly Gauge (circular): this week’s units against your recommended limit.
• AlcoScore (circular): your 28-day AlcoScore in a ring.
• Session Summary (rectangular): units, drinks, calories and the timer in one strip.
• Session Info (inline, above the clock): one line with units, drinks and calories.
• Sober Days (rectangular): see Step 3.

# Step 5. Follow a session with the Live Activity

The Live Activity starts on its own when a session starts, whether you tap Start Session in the app, use the Session Control widget, log from a widget, or a session starts automatically at a saved location (if that happens while AlcoLog is in the background, the Live Activity appears when you next open the app). It ends and disappears the moment the session ends. It’s free.

• Lock Screen: a banner with the AlcoLog icon, a running session timer, Units, Calories, Drinks (with a pill for each drink type) and Cost, plus two tracking lines.
• Dynamic Island, compact: the AlcoLog icon on its own on the left and one number on the right. On the Free plan that number is your units.
• Dynamic Island, expanded: touch and hold the Dynamic Island to see the timer, the full stats and the two tracking lines, the same as the Lock Screen banner.

Tap the Live Activity or the Dynamic Island to go straight back into your session.

On the Free plan the two tracking lines are Log (your log reminder) and Water (your water reminder). Each fills as it counts down to the next reminder. A line shows Off and stays dim when that reminder isn’t set; turn reminders on in How to Set Up Alerts and Notifications.

# Step 6. Customize the Live Activity (Premium)

Tap the Settings tab, then Display & Haptics, and scroll to Dynamic Island & Live Activity. A preview at the top shows how your choices look. With Premium you can change:

• Show Live Information: turn this off to stop the Live Activity and Dynamic Island appearing at all. On the Free plan this row reads Disable Live Information and is locked, so the Live Activity always runs during a session.
• Compact Metric: the number in the compact Dynamic Island: Units, Drinks, Calories or Cost.
• Live Activity Line 1 and Live Activity Line 2: what each tracking line shows: Units, Drinks, Calories, Cost, Water or Log. A units, drinks, calories or cost line fills as you drink. With an alert set it stops at your limit and warns you as you get close; without one it keeps counting and fades out at the end instead of stopping.

The same screen has an Appearance section where Widgets can be set to System, Dark or Light, separately from the app. More on this screen in How to Customize Display, Haptics and Session Control.

# Step 7. If the Live Activity doesn’t appear

AlcoLog can only show a Live Activity if iOS allows it. If you turned Live Activities off for AlcoLog, or declined them:

1. Open the iPhone Settings app and scroll down to Apps, then tap AlcoLog (on older iOS versions, AlcoLog is in the main Settings list).
2. Turn on Live Activities.
3. Open AlcoLog. If a session is running, the Live Activity appears straight away; otherwise it appears when you start your next session.

If it’s still missing and you have Premium, check that Show Live Information is on in Settings > Display & Haptics.

AlcoLog doesn’t add any Control Center controls. To start or end a session without opening the app, use the Session Control widget.