Questions,
answered.

Tap the + icon in the top bar of the home screen. Give the counter a name and, if you like, an emoji, a unit, a color, a category, an initial value, increment/decrement steps and min/max limits. Tap Save.

On first launch the app also offers ready-made counters (water, workouts, pages, expenses and more) that you can pick with one tap.

A short setup in four steps:

1. A welcome with a real counter you can already tap.
2. What do you want to count? Pick as many presets as you like: they are created for real.
3. It does things on its own: a first automation is created on one of your counters, so you see a rule working right away.
4. Choose your style: Tonal, Soft or Vivid cards, with a full-size preview.

If you skip the choices, Counter fills the home with a few example counters, a calculated view and automations, so everything can be seen working. Delete them whenever you want.

On the home screen, tap the + or − buttons on each counter card. Open the counter for the big + and − buttons, your quick actions (for example +5 or −20), notes, and the option to set a specific value.

You can also count without opening the app: from a home screen widget, from tap zones, with NFC tags or with the volume buttons on the detail screen.

Quick actions are your own shortcut buttons, such as +3, +10 or −20. Set them in the counter editor by typing one or more numbers separated by a space; a negative number becomes a subtract button.

They appear on the counter detail screen and on the cards of its goals, so you can update a goal without leaving the Goals tab.

Categories let you organize counters into groups. When you create or edit a counter, you can assign it to a category. On the home screen each category is a collapsible section; when collapsed, it shows a strip with the colors of the counters inside.

Prefer a single flat list? Change the grouping in Settings > Appearance > Home appearance.

Open the counter editor (long press a counter or tap the edit icon) and choose a color from the palette. The color is used for the counter card, its number, its widgets and its charts. How strongly it shows on the card depends on the card style you pick in Settings.

Open the counter detail screen and tap the reset icon in the top bar. The counter returns to its configured reset value (default is 0). The reset is logged in the counter history.

You can set a PIN in Settings > Security to protect private counters. When a counter is marked as private, you must enter the PIN (or use biometric unlock if enabled) to view it. The PIN is stored securely as a hash.

Yes. Go to Settings > Security and enable Biometric unlock. You must first set a PIN before enabling biometric authentication. Once enabled, you can use your fingerprint instead of the PIN.

Go to Settings > Appearance > Home appearance. A live preview at the top shows the effect of the three choices below it:

• Grouping: by category, or a flat list.
• Arrangement: grid or list.
• Card layout: where the number and the buttons sit on the card.

Layouts that keep the buttons on the side need a wide card, so they are available only with the list arrangement: in grid mode they appear greyed out.

They decide how much of a counter's color shows on its card:

• Tonal: the card stays neutral; the color lives on an accent bar and in the number. The default.
• Soft: the whole card gets a light wash of the color.
• Vivid: the card is painted in full color.

Pick one in Settings > Appearance > Counter card colors: each option comes with a preview and a full-size sample card. The same choice is offered once at first launch, and once after updating to the new design.

Yes. In Settings > Appearance > Theme choose Day, Night or System default. You can also enable Dynamic color (Material You) on Android 12+ to use the colors of your wallpaper. Widgets follow the system theme.

View Counters are computed counters whose value is calculated from a mathematical formula referencing other counters. They update automatically when the referenced counters change, have no buttons, and their detail screen shows how the value is calculated, term by term.

Use the syntax c{id} to reference a counter by its ID. For example:

• c1 + c2: sum of counter 1 and counter 2
• c3 * 2: double the value of counter 3
• c1 - c2 + c3: combined calculation
• (c1 + c2) / 2: average of two counters

Standard math operators are supported: +, -, *, /, %.

When creating or editing a counter, set the Increment value and Decrement value fields. Each tap of +/− will change the counter by these amounts.

Yes. In the counter editor, you can set a minimum value and/or maximum value. The counter will not go below the minimum or above the maximum. If a value exceeds the range, it will be adapted automatically.

Go to Settings > Backup:

• Export: Saves all your data (counters, categories, goals, challenges, automations, logs) as a JSON file you can store anywhere. This is a full backup and includes your private counters.
• Import: Restores data from a previously exported JSON file.

This is useful for keeping your own backup or moving everything to a new device, even across different Google accounts. The history of a single counter can also be exported as CSV from its statistics.

Yes, if Android Backup is enabled on your device (Settings > Google > Backup). Counter uses Android's built-in backup to store an encrypted copy of your data in your own Google account, so your counters are restored automatically when you set up a new phone or reinstall the app. The backup lives in your Google account — we can't see or access it.

Two things stay on your device and are never sent to the cloud: your private (PIN-protected) counters and your PIN/biometric settings. To back those up too, use the manual JSON Export above.

Counter effects add feedback when a value changes: a sound, a vibration, or a voice that reads the new value out loud. Choose one in Settings > Behaviour > Effect on value change, or select None to disable them.

Every change to a counter is logged with the timestamp, new value, delta (change amount), and whether it was a manual action, reset, or automatic change. You can attach a note to any change from the detail screen.

The counter's History tab lists the log and lets you search through notes; the Overview tab turns it into a trend chart, an activity heatmap and the hours you count the most.

Each counter has an Overview that opens with a sentence summing it up ("You went from 0 to 924, mostly in the morning"), a trend chart you can zoom by day, week or month, a six-month activity heatmap, your busiest hours and the current and record streak.

The Statistics screen, reached from the home screen's top bar, does the same for all counters together: overall streak, changes in the last 30 days, most used counters and totals by category.

Events & Actions are the automations of Counter: rules that say "when something happens on a counter, do this". Each counter's detail screen shows its rules under What it does on its own and lets you add one on a single page: choose whether it fires on value change or at a time, pick the event, pick the action, fill in the parameters and save.

You can pause all automations at once from Settings > Behaviour > Automations.

There are 12 event types you can use as triggers:

• Counter Updated: Fires every time the counter changes.
• Reached Value: Counter reaches exactly a specific value.
• Reached Greater Value: Counter reaches or exceeds a value.
• Reached Less Value: Counter drops below a value.
• Multiple of Value: Counter value is a multiple of N (e.g., every 10).
• Between Values: Counter value is between two numbers.
• Even Value: Counter value is even.
• Odd Value: Counter value is odd.
• Prime Value: Counter value is a prime number.
• Palindrome Value: Counter value is a palindrome (e.g., 121, 1331).
• Reached Max Value: Counter hits its configured maximum.
• Reached Min Value: Counter hits its configured minimum.

Yes. Besides counter events, Counter has temporal (time-based) events that fire on a schedule, independently of counter changes. When creating a rule, choose At a time and pick one of:

• At specific date and time: Fires once at a date and time you choose.
• Every day at time: Fires daily at the configured hour and minute.
• Weekly on selected days: Fires on the days of the week you pick.
• Monthly on specific day: Fires once a month on the chosen day.
• Every N minutes: Fires at a regular interval.

Each temporal event targets a counter and can run any action: reset or change a counter, send a webhook, post to Telegram, fire a broadcast intent, and more. For example, reset a water counter every day at 8:00, or send a Telegram summary every Monday.

On Android 13+ time events need the exact alarm permission: without it the rule stays in the list but does not fire.

There are 13 action types, grouped by what they do:

On this counter

• Increment counter / Decrement counter: Change the counter by its configured step.
• Reset counter: Reset the counter to its reset value.
• Double counter value: Double the current value.
• Set counter color / Set counter title: Change the counter's look or name.

On other counters

• Increment another counter / Decrement another counter: Change a different counter, chaining them together.

Alerts

• Send notification: A system notification with custom text.
• Send popup message: A brief on-screen message while the app is in the foreground.

To the outside

• Broadcast Intent: An Android broadcast for Tasker, Automate or MacroDroid.
• Telegram Message: A message to a Telegram chat via a bot.
• Webhook: An HTTP request to a URL.

Create a rule, select Webhook as the action, and configure:

1. URL: The endpoint to call.
2. HTTP Method: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE.
3. Headers: Optional custom headers (e.g., Content-Type).
4. Body: Optional request body (for POST/PUT/PATCH). Supports template variables.
5. Authentication: Optional: Bearer token, Basic auth, or API Key.
6. Retries: Number of retry attempts on failure.
7. Timeout: Request timeout in seconds.

Example: To send a POST request when a counter reaches 100:

Event: Reached Value = 100
Action: Webhook
  URL: https://your-api.com/notify
  Method: POST
  Body: {"counter": "{{title}}", "value": {{value}}}

Full walkthrough: see the Home Assistant webhook guide.

To receive Telegram messages when events trigger:

1. Create a Telegram bot via @BotFather on Telegram and copy the bot token.
2. Start a conversation with your bot, then find your chat ID (you can use @userinfobot or @RawDataBot).
3. In the app, create a rule and select Telegram Message as the action.
4. Enter your bot token and chat ID.
5. Write your message text. You can use template variables for dynamic content.

Full walkthrough: see the Telegram guide.

The Broadcast Intent action sends a broadcast intent that can be received by Tasker, Automate, MacroDroid, or other automation apps on your device.

The intent includes counter data (ID, value, title) and you can add custom extras. This lets you trigger complex automations on your phone based on counter events.

Example: Turn on a smart light when a counter reaches a target value by chaining Counter → Broadcast Intent → Tasker HTTP Request to your smart home API.

Full walkthrough: see the Tasker and Automate guide.

Yes. You can create multiple rules for the same counter and event. Each rule can have a different action, so when the event fires, all matching actions execute.

Yes. When an action modifies a counter (for example Increment Another Counter, Decrement Another Counter, Double Counter Value, or Reset Counter), the resulting change can in turn trigger events configured on that target counter, which can execute their own actions, and so on.

Event propagation is configurable per rule: when you create or edit a rule, you can choose whether its action is allowed to propagate further events. By default, this lets you build chains of automations: for example, incrementing counter A triggers an action that resets counter B, which in turn triggers a Telegram notification.

To prevent infinite loops (e.g., counter A increments B, B increments A), the app includes cycle protection that detects repeating event-action chains and stops propagation automatically.

You can write NFC tags that increment, decrement, or reset a specific counter just by tapping your phone on the tag.

To set up an NFC tag:

1. Open a counter's detail screen.
2. Select the NFC write option.
3. Choose the action: Increment, Decrement, or Reset.
4. Optionally set a custom step value.
5. Hold an NFC tag near your phone to write it.

Once written, simply tap the tag to trigger the action, even from the lock screen if NFC is enabled system-wide.

You can enable or disable NFC reading in Settings > Behaviour.

Full walkthrough: see the NFC tags guide.

Tap zones turn the whole screen into one giant button per counter, so you can count without looking at the phone: ideal for scores, reps and anything you count while doing something else.

Open them from the home screen's top bar, pick the counters, and tap anywhere in a zone to increment it. Each zone is drawn in the counter's color, with the same card style as the home.

Counter offers two widget types for your home screen:

• Standard widget: Shows the counter name, value and +/−/reset buttons. Resize it and the layout adapts, from a full card with buttons down to a small tile with just the value.
• Compact widget: A minimal 1×1 widget showing the counter title and value. Tap to increment.

Widgets use the counter's color and follow the system day/night theme. To add one, long-press your home screen, select Widgets, and find Counter in the list.

The External Intent Receiver allows other apps to control your counters via Android broadcast intents. This is useful for advanced automation with Tasker, Automate, MacroDroid, or custom scripts.

Setup:

1. Enable it in Settings > External Integration.
2. Optionally configure an authentication token for security.

Supported commands:

• increment: Increase counter value (optional custom value).
• decrement: Decrease counter value (optional custom value).
• reset: Reset counter to its reset value.
• set_value: Set counter to a specific value.

Intent format:

Action: com.zipangulu.counter.ACTION_EXTERNAL_COMMAND
Extras:
  counter_id (long) - required
  command (string)  - required
  value (int)       - optional
  auth_token (string) - if authentication is enabled

Tasker example: Send Intent action com.zipangulu.counter.ACTION_EXTERNAL_COMMAND with extras counter_id: 1 and command: increment.

A separate read-only switch in the same section lets widgets and other apps read counter values.

Full walkthrough: see the Tasker and Automate guide.

There are four goal types:

• Reach value: Reach a specific target value (e.g., count to 100).
• Reach by date: Reach a target value before a deadline date.
• Stay within range: Keep the counter value between a minimum and maximum bound.
• Reduce value: Bring the counter below a specific target value.

Each goal can have a priority (Low, Medium, High) and can auto-complete when the target is reached. The goal card shows the progress, how much is left, whether you are on track for the deadline, and your quick actions.

Yes. The app monitors your goals in the background and sends a notification, once, when a goal is reached or when a deadline is approaching. Goals live on the Goals tab, split into active, completed and archived.

Challenges are live races between counters. Create a challenge, add two or more counters, and optionally set a timer. When the challenge starts, the selected counters can optionally be reset to zero, and the play screen shows the ranking moving in real time as you count.

Challenges are great for competitive counting games or timed exercises.

The Premium version removes all ads from the app. All features are available in the free version. Premium is a way to support development while enjoying an ad-free experience.

Counter does not send your counter data to our servers and never uses it for advertising. Your counters live on your device. If Android Backup is turned on, an encrypted copy of your non-private data is stored in your own Google account (Google Drive) so it can be restored on a new phone — we have no access to it.

Your private (PIN-protected) counters and your PIN/biometric settings are never included in that backup and stay only on your device.

Firebase Crashlytics and Analytics are used to improve app stability and understand general usage patterns, but no personal counter data is shared.

You can review the full Privacy Policy, also linked from Settings > Privacy.

Go to Settings > Support > Contact support. This will open your email app with diagnostic information pre-filled to help us assist you faster.

Yes. Go to Settings > Backup > Delete all data. This will permanently delete all counters, categories, goals, challenges, automations, and logs. This action cannot be undone, so consider exporting a backup first.

Counter follows your device's system language. To change the app language, go to your device's Settings > Apps > Counter > Language (on Android 13+), or change your device language in Settings > System > Language.

Supported languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese.