FAQ (iOS)

For Android FAQ click here.

This FAQ is divided in 2 parts: General Stuff and Troubleshooting!

General Stuff

What is HabitBull?

It’s an app to build positive habits or break negative habits. It can help you organize your life by giving you an overview of everything you need to do on a regular basis.

How does it work?

It’s based on Seinfeld’s productivity secret: Don’t break the chain! This means you build a “streak” of successful days. Each day you see the streak becoming longer and after a while you really don’t want to break the streak so you just keep going. It’s extremely motivating.

HabitBull helps you do this for any kind of habit, both negative and positive. It also allows for very complex setups while still maintaining a streak. For example: I want to go to the gym 3x per week. Or: I want to study 20 pages every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Or even: I want to drink maximum 2 beers during weekdays.

What do these colored dots mean?

A green dot means you’ve succeeded for the day. A red dot means you had to be successful for the day but you failed. A yellow dot means you didn’t have to be successful for the day and you failed so it’s okay. Green and yellow dots continue the streak, while red dots break the streak.

There are 2 types of habits: yes/no habits and number habits. For yes/no you can just tap the day once to make it green (successful), tap it a second time to make it red/yellow (unsuccessful) and a third time to make it blank again. For number habits you can tap a day and then a number picker shows up where you can choose which number you want to enter for the day.

How does the “number picker” work for number habits?

If you tap a day in the calendar for a number habit, then the number picker pops up. You can change the number in 4 different ways:

you can just type a number with the keyboard and then tap outside of the picker to confirm
you can use the – and + buttons to subtract or add 1 to the shown number
you can tap the “no data” button to set a blank value (tap a second time outside the picker to confirm)
you can tap the “like yesterday” button to set it to the same value as the day before (tap a second time outside the picker to confirm)

Do you have some tips for me to get the most out of this app?

I sure do! Here are a few important things to keep in mind:

Choose only one or two habits that you really really want to change. Only focus on these ones and stick to it. This is not a magic tool, it works for a lot of people but only if you are serious about it!
Next to these one or two “most important habits”, you can make a list of all the other habits you want to change. This is very useful to see the bigger picture of how you can improve your life. But only enter data for the most important ones, otherwise it’s too hard and you will give up after a while.
Set a deadline for yourself! I can’t stress this enough: without deadline you will fail. For example say: I will go for a run every day for the next 14 days. If I succeed for 14 days in a row then I win. It’s a fight against yourself. Chances are, if you succeed for 14 days you will continue after this as well. But if you say “I want to go running every day for the rest of my life” then there is no real goal.
As soon as you have downloaded this app, start using it. Create a habit and enter the data. Even if you fail you have to enter the data, right from the start. If you measure it, you change it. You will start noticing your behavior and you will start changing. The hard part is not to continue but to start. So you have a choice: do you start right now, or dismiss this advice and go on with your life as if nothing’s happened?

What are the different tabs for?

The Habits tab is used to add new habits or edit existing ones. It also gives a nice overview of the streak length and the success percentage for each habit. You can also change the ordering of the habits here. “By Score” means the habits are ordered on streak length, while “My Order” means you can order them yourself by dragging them up or down in the list.
The Daily tab is used to see all the habits that need to be done for the day. If the habit shows a small yellow dot it means it needs to be done today. You can swipe left and right to change the shown day. You can also tap the grey circles on the right to add data for the day.
The Weekly tab shows all the habits for the current week. You can also switch weeks by swiping left and right. Add data by tapping any day. Long tap any day to add a note. There are also some graphs and stats here, as well as a general discussion forum and motivational images. Tap like or dislike button to show next motivational image.
The Monthly tab is the most detailed. It shows a whole month for each habit separately. You can go to the next habit by tapping the colored bar. Tap any day to add data, long-tap any day to add a note. This tab also shows some graphs and stats. It also shows all the notes for the month and a discussion forum for the category that this habit belongs to.

What is the this “Streak Length” number?

It’s the number of consecutive days you were successfully doing this habit. For example if you have an everyday habit and you’ve done it for 18 days straight this number will be 18. If you have a 3x per week habit and you’ve done it successfully 9 times over 3 weeks this number will be 21.

What is this “Success Percentage”?

It’s the number of days you were successful (on a day where you needed to be successful) divided by the number of days you needed to be successful. For example. if you have a everyday habit and you’ve done it successfully for 8 days but you failed on 3 days then your success percentage will be 8/11.

What is my “HabitBull score”?

This is a metric for how well you are doing overall. It is not the average of all the success percentages: it also takes streak lengths and other stuff into account. Your goal is to keep this number as close to 100% as possible 🙂

Why do I sometimes see a notification while I haven’t set any notifications?

We sometimes remind you to use HabitBull, but you can disable this by going to More > Settings.

How can I add reminders at a specific time?

You can go to the monthly view and tap the “remind” button in the top menu. You can also disable the “general” reminder from the settings menu by going to More > Settings.

Do I need to register an account?

No. You can also use the app without registering by tapping the “I don’t want to register” at the bottom of the initial screen. In this case you will lose all your progress if you lose your phone or reinstall the app, so it’s not recommended. You will also lose your Premium status if you’ve bought the Premium in-app purchase, so it’s really best to register an account!

How does the syncing work?

Although syncing does happen automatically on some occasions, the most surefire way to ensure your habits are up-to-date is performing a manual sync. On your Profile Page, you’ll find a “Last Sync” time along with a circle of arrows that allow you to trigger a manual sync. If the Last Sync time appears to be out-of-date, tap that circle of arrows to trigger a manual sync and get your current device your latest habit information.

Troubleshooting

I can’t login!

Maybe you forgot your password? You can request a new password by tapping the “Oops I forgot my password” text.

If this does not work you might have registered using Facebook. In this case, simply tap the “Connect with Facebook” button to login.

I bought premium but it seems like it doesn’t do anything!

Are you sure? Try adding more than 5 habits. If this does not work, make sure you’ve registered a HabitBull account (do so from the profile page if you haven’t already), then logout and login with this account.

If you still can’t add more than 5 habits, please make sure you’ve registered an account, then send us an email at habitbull@appholdings.org.

I only have premium on one device! Do I need to purchase it on my other devices as well?

No. Please log in with the same account that you used to purchase premium. Your premium is linked to your HabitBull account and you can use this account on all your devices.

If you haven’t registered an account yet but you did purchase premium – no problem. Just go to the profile page and click the “register with email” or the “link to Facebook” button. Then log in on your other devices with this same account you just created.

If the problem is still not solved, please try logging out (from the profile page) and then logging back in with the device that already has premium, and after that logging out and logging back in with the device that does not have premium yet.

Syncing is not working!

Make sure you are logged in with the same account on both devices. To check this, go to the profile page on both devices. They should mention the same email address. If one or both devices say that you are not registered, it will not work.

Once you are logged in with the same account on both devices, you need to make sure you have premium enabled on both devices (see above), and also make sure you have a working Internet connection on both devices.

To test if sync is working, please tap any day in the calendar on device 1. Then tap the “sync” button from profile page on device 1. After this, tap the “sync” button on device 2. The day should now also update on device 2.

How do I delete a habit?

In the habit list. tap the habit you want to delete. Then in the top menu bar, an “edit” icon will appear. Tap this icon. On the new screen, near the bottom of the screen there will be a button that says “delete”.

I want a Chrome/web/Windows version

patience, my friend.

I want the app to be translated to my language

This is not a priority for us right now (more pressing issues), but rest assured that this will happen at one point.

I want a social feature so I can compete with my friends

We are working on it 😉

I want to change a yes/no habit to a number habit or the other way around

Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment. You can however easily add a lot of data at once by using the “range” function. You can find this in the overflow menu after tapping the three dots in the upper right corner of the screen. This enables you to easily edit large time periods.

I added a pinlock but now I can’t remove it!

Go to your profile page (tap the “More” tab and then tap “Profile”) and tap the little red pencil next to “Your Lockscreen Pincode”. In the popup tap “Remove Pinlock”.