8 Best Free Mood Tracking Apps in 2026 - Really Tested
EmoFlow-AI is our product. It appears in this list, disclosed, and judged by the same criteria as everyone else - where another app fits your case better, we say so in its card. No app paid for placement, and every fact here was checked against the app's own live pages and store listings on the date shown on its card.
In this category the word free does most of the lying, so that is where we started. We opened all eight apps on the day of writing, read their own pricing pages and store listings, and wrote down exactly where the free version stops. The short version: How We Feel is the only one that is genuinely free with nothing behind a wall, because a non-profit builds it. Finch puts its whole self-care core on the free side and sells decoration. Daylio is the category king and carries ads on the free tier, which its own website never mentions. Bearable gives you unlimited trackers but only the last 30 days of history. And Moodfit, sold everywhere as a free mental-health toolkit, gives you two features free by its own comparison table. Ours is here too, disclosed: the wheel and the AI reading are free with no account, and our coach is the paid part - we say so plainly in our card.
EmoFlow-AI·Updated August 9, 2026
How we compared them
Every app in this category tracks a mood. What actually separates them is what the word free means in each one:
Where exactly the free version stops - a feature wall, a history wall, or nothing at all.
Whether the free tier is paid for with ads, and whether the app admits that outside the app store.
What happens AFTER the entry - a chart, a report, an exercise, or a practice chosen for the state you just logged.
How much a check-in captures - one mood on a scale, or the feeling with its strength and what surrounded it.
Whether it runs in a browser at all, and whether an account is required before you can start.
All eight at a glance
App
Best for
What free really means
EmoFlow-AI (ours)
A free reading of what your mix of feelings may mean
Wheel + AI reading free, no account; coach paid ($9.99/mo) after 3 free sessions
How We Feel
Free with no catch, from a non-profit
Everything free - no ads, no in-app purchases at all
Finch
Actually coming back tomorrow
Core self-care free forever by their own help page; Plus $9.99/mo adds extras
Daylio
Two-tap logging and the biggest habit base
Free core with ads; Premium from $4.99 (prices only in the stores)
Bearable
Tying mood to symptoms, sleep and meds
Unlimited trackers free, but history stops at 30 days; $6.99/mo or $34.99/yr
Moodfit
A CBT toolkit if you pay once
Free = journal and prompts only; one-time purchase, not a subscription
eMoods
A report you can hand to a doctor
Free tier with all tracking; web plans $50-$100/yr, far above its app purchases
Pixels
A year of your moods as one grid
Free with ads (its own listing says both no ads and contains advertising)
1
EmoFlow-AI
When a chart of your moods is not the answer you were looking for · Web on any device, installs as a PWA - no app store needed · Wheel and AI interpretation free with no account at all; coach trial 3 sessions after sign-up, no card; Pro $9.99/month
We built the opposite of a tracker. A check-in starts on a wheel of 130 emotions in 7 families - several at once, because feelings rarely come alone - and also takes how strong it is, what is going on around it, and which part of life it touches. Then, free and without an account, an AI interpretation reads what that particular mix may mean, instead of drawing you a line chart. The paid part is the coach: it picks a practice from a checked CBT, DBT and ACT library, matched to that exact check-in, and walks you through it until the intensity settles. Being honest in a list titled free: the reading is free, the guiding is not.
The free tier needs no account and no card - the wheel and the AI reading work on the spot
A check-in captures the mix, its strength and its context, not one mood on a five-point scale
What you get back is a reading of what the combination may mean, not another chart to interpret yourself
The coach - the part that guides you through a practice - is the paid tier past the 3-session trial
No native App Store or Google Play apps: it installs as a PWA instead, which not everyone is used to
If you want mood tied to sleep, medication or symptom data, a dedicated tracker does that and we do not
Facts checked 2026-08-09
2
How We Feel
A free mood app with genuinely nothing behind a wall · iOS and Android; no web app found as of our check · Free in full - the store listings carry no in-app purchases and no ads
The cleanest answer to the word free in this whole list. Built by a non-profit with Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence and funded by donations, it asks nothing and sells nothing. You log a feeling from a mood-meter grid, and it offers step-by-step video strategies in four themes to work with what you logged - which makes it one of only two apps here that do anything after the entry. Their own pages keep quiet about how many emotion words it holds, so we will not quote the number that circulates in reviews.
Free in the fullest sense: no ads, no in-app purchases, funded by donations
Short video strategies after logging - it does not stop at the chart
Data stays on your device unless you choose otherwise, by their own description
No web version as of our check - the site sends you to the app stores
The size of its emotion vocabulary is not published on its own pages
Strategies are general themes rather than a practice picked for the specific mix you logged
The app you will still be opening in three weeks · iOS and Android; no web app found as of our check · Core self-care free forever by their own help page; Finch Plus $9.99/month or $69.99/year
A self-care pet that solves the hardest problem in the category: coming back tomorrow. You raise a small bird by doing your own check-ins, goals, reflections and breathing. What makes it belong in a free list is written on their own help page: all core self-care features are, and always will be, free - Plus unlocks customization, extra reflection prompts, more soundscape and breathing options and longer timers. So the paid tier sells variations and decoration, not the tool itself.
Their own help page commits to the core self-care features staying free for good
It guides: breathing, reflections and self-care exercises are in the free tier, not just tracking
The pet loop genuinely brings people back - 10M+ downloads and 609K reviews by its Play listing
No web version, and Finch Plus adds up quickly at $9.99 a month if you want the extras
Depth per session is modest - it is a habit companion, not an analysis engine
The emotional vocabulary is a mood scale with tags, thin for untangling a mixed feeling
Logging a day in two taps, for years on end · iOS and Android; no web version, and they say plainly it is not planned · Free core with ads; Premium from $4.99 by its App Store listing - no prices published on their own site
The category king, and the reason many people know mood tracking at all: pick a mood, pick activities, done in two taps, no writing required. The free version stays usable indefinitely, and Premium adds advanced stats, automatic backups, PDF export, unlimited moods and goals. Two things worth knowing before you install: the free tier carries ads by its Play listing, which their own website never mentions, and there is no web version - their support page states Daylio is not being developed for computers or the web.
A check-in takes two taps and no typing - the lowest friction in this list
Years of consistent history, correlations and charts on the free tier
Huge and alive: 10M+ downloads with a 4.7 rating by its Play listing
The free version shows ads, and their own site does not mention this anywhere
No web version, by their own statement, and no plan to build one
Charts are the end of the road: nothing is offered for the state you just logged
Seeing how mood moves with symptoms, sleep and medication · iOS and Android; no web app found as of our check · Free with unlimited custom trackers but only the last 30 days of history; $6.99/month or $34.99/year
The one to pick if your feelings and your body are tangled together - chronic pain, fatigue, medication, cycles. Their own FAQ is unusually straight about the free tier: unlimited custom symptoms, moods and health metrics, weekly reports and a customisable graph, all free. The wall is not on how much you log but on how far back you can look - historic data beyond the last 30 days, correlation reports, unlimited goals and custom experiments belong to the paid tier.
Unlimited custom trackers on the free tier - the wall is on depth, not on quantity
Weekly reports and a customisable graph without paying
Built for the mood-and-body picture that pure mood apps miss entirely
Free history stops at the last 30 days, and patterns need longer than that
Correlations - the reason to use it - sit behind the subscription
No web version, and no guidance after the data: it reports, you interpret
A CBT toolkit if you are willing to pay once and keep it · iOS and Android; we could not confirm a working browser version · Free tier is a mood journal and prompts; paid is a one-time purchase, from $19.99 a year to $89.99 lifetime by their site
Marketed as a mental fitness toolkit with CBT, breathwork and mindfulness - and worth including precisely because of what its own comparison table says. By that table the free tier holds two things: the mood journal and journaling with prompts. Gratitude, mindfulness, breathwork, CBT thought records, insights, personalised reports, articles and passcode protection are all on the paid side. Its pricing is genuinely unusual, though: their site states the purchase is one-time with no recurring billing, and offers a lifetime option - rare in a subscription-soaked category.
One-time purchase with no recurring billing by their own pricing page, including a lifetime option
The paid toolkit is broad: CBT thought records, breathwork, mindfulness, gratitude, reports
A 7-day refund window stated on their pricing page
By their own comparison table, free means a journal and prompts - the tools everyone praises are paid
Their site calls it a one-time purchase while its App Store entries are labelled a subscription
No confirmed web app, and a free user gets no exercises at all
Bringing a clear printed record to a doctor · iOS plus a real web app - the only browser version in this list · Free tier with all mood tracking, charts and reports; web plans $50-$100 a year, well above its in-app purchases
Built around mood disorders - bipolar, depression, anxiety - and around one job the others do not take seriously: producing something a clinician can read. The free tier, by their own pricing page, covers all mood tracking features, charts, printable and email reports, weather and daylight insights, and reminders. It is also the only app here with a working browser version. One oddity worth knowing before choosing a plan: the web subscriptions cost several times what the mobile purchases do, on the same product.
Free tier explicitly includes all tracking features, charts and printable reports
The only participant with a real web app, not just a marketing site
Reports built for a clinical conversation, including medication and sleep
Web plans at $50-$100 a year cost several times its in-app purchases for the same product
The framing is clinical - it tracks symptoms, it does not help you in the moment
Custom tracking points are a paid feature, and its Android presence we could not verify
Seeing a whole year of feelings as one picture · iOS and Android; no web app found as of our check · Free with ads by both store listings; Pixels+ $4.99 and cloud sync from $1.99 by its App Store entry
The prettiest idea in the category: every day becomes one coloured pixel, and a year becomes a single grid you can read at a glance. Sub-pixels let one day hold more than one mood, and tags and notes add context. An indie app, updated regularly, and genuinely lovely to keep. One thing to know first: its App Store description promises no ads and no tracking, while the same page is labelled Contains Advertising and Google Play flags Contains ads - a contradiction inside one listing.
The year-in-pixels grid makes long stretches readable in one glance
Sub-pixels for days that held more than one mood, plus custom tags
Actively maintained, with 1M+ downloads by its Play listing
Its own listing says no ads and also declares advertising - the free tier carries ads
Statistics are the whole output: nothing follows the entry
No web version, and cloud sync is a separate paid add-on
There is no single winner here, because free means five different things in this list. If you want a mood app that is free with no catch at all, take How We Feel - a non-profit built it, nothing is walled off, and it even offers strategies after you log. If the problem is remembering to come back, Finch will out-retain everything here and keeps its whole self-care core free. If your moods travel with symptoms and medication, Bearable is the honest answer, wall and all. We built EmoFlow-AI for a different complaint: the one where a year of charts still does not tell you what to do on a Tuesday evening. Our free tier answers a different question - not how has your month looked, but what may this particular mix of feelings mean right now - and it asks for no account to do it. The guiding part is paid, and we would rather say that here than let you find out on screen three.
Frequently Asked Questions
Genuinely free, with nothing walled off: How We Feel, built by a non-profit with no ads and no in-app purchases at all. Very close behind: Finch, whose own help page commits to keeping every core self-care feature free for good. Free but paid for with ads: Daylio and Pixels, both flagged in their store listings. Free with a wall you will hit: Bearable stops your history at 30 days, and Moodfit gives you a journal and prompts while its actual toolkit is paid. On our side, the wheel and the AI reading are free with no account, and the coach is the paid part. The pattern worth remembering is that in this category the word free usually means free to start, so read the pricing page before the app store reviews.
Some do, and the app store listing is where you find out rather than the marketing site. Daylio, the most installed app in this list, carries the Contains ads badge on Google Play while its own website never mentions advertising anywhere. Pixels is stranger still: its App Store description promises no ads and no tracking, and the same page is labelled Contains Advertising. How We Feel, Finch and Bearable show no ad badges in their listings. This matters more than it looks: an app you open specifically on your worst evenings is a poor place to be sold something, so it is worth a thirty-second check of the store page before you install.
That is the question that splits this list, and the answer is uncomfortable: of the eight apps here, two do anything at all after the entry. How We Feel offers step-by-step strategies, and Finch has breathing, reflections and self-care exercises in its free tier. Moodfit has a full CBT toolkit, but a free user gets none of it. The rest end at the chart - Daylio, Bearable, eMoods and Pixels give you data about yourself and leave the interpretation with you. Charts are genuinely useful over months, and useless at nine in the evening when your chest is tight. We built our product around that gap: the check-in leads to a reading of what the mix may mean, and on the paid side to a practice matched to it.
For noticing, yes - and noticing is not nothing. Logging your state each day teaches you the shape of your own weeks, and after a couple of months the patterns start speaking: which days go badly after short nights, which person keeps showing up before the bad evenings. Where a tracker stops is the moment itself. A chart cannot tell you what a mix of hurt and guilt and anger may mean, and it cannot walk you through anything while the feeling is at its peak. That is why the two apps here that guide - and our own coaching side - exist as a category above pure tracking. If you have tracked for months and still feel stuck, the missing piece is probably not more data.
No - and be wary of any app page that hints otherwise. Every tool in this list, ours included, is a self-help instrument: good for naming what you feel, noticing patterns, and practicing skills in the moment. Treatment is a different job that belongs to doctors and therapists, and going to one is a good move, not a failure. What these apps can honestly do is fill the space around that work, and one of them - eMoods - is explicitly built to produce a record you can hand to a clinician. Our own product draws the line explicitly: it does not diagnose, and when its safety system detects a crisis state, coaching stops and real crisis lines for your country appear instead.