AppClose Reviews

I like some things (that you can select certain kids for events, the way the calendar looks, options for viewing calendar), but the calendar is annoying. What’s the point of the calendar importing my iPhone calendar (where I already have the event I need entered) if I can’t just duplicate the existing event to share it or just plain share it? AppClose makes you create the event again in AppClose in order to share it even though the event you may want to share has been created on another calendar and has been imported to AppClose, and is sitting there staring at you while you’re in AppClose . Nope create the event here AGAIN just to share.

And I might be able to deal with this, but when I want to enter events such as my kids camps or sports practices, I can’t duplicate an event on an additional day. You have to re-enter the information day by day. For example, I tried entering my daughter’s tennis camp. This event is the same thing, same time four days in a row, but I have to re-enter all the information for every single day. If AppClose would at least duplicate events on separate days I would use it.

I ONLY need an easy calendar to share kids event & trips with my ex, & this is just too much for me to want to do.

I do like that it is free, it helps when the other parent refuses to co parent and doesn’t want to pay. I do like how we can request reimbursements and the like. I like being able to add the children information down and also being able to check the children in when we go somewhere or if the other parent showed up check them in as well. Which is nice if they are also using AppClose to check in since it captures your coordinates.

However one thing that bugs me which is why it is not a five star, is that it’s not logging correctly the last time the other parent was on. States one day as being last but shows the parent has viewed the message. Another thing is no area to just write notes and or add pictures, say a journal area. Add notes without reimbursement having to be added. It would be nice to jot down how a visit went, if the parent showed up for the birthday party after promising over and over. How a FaceTime visit went etc.

I had AppClose prior to the last major update a while back. I still have a badge for 15 notifications but there isn’t anything to review. Also, I needed to go back and get the photos of the documents my ex sent as part of the 50/50 reimbursement submission. There is no modern/current folder of these documents in AppClose , so when you make the reimbursement payment you cannot review the documents/photos in the history of payments made screen, you have to go to them in the calendar app by scrolling backwards. The problem is you scroll back far enough and only the tiny photo icons will load but not the the actual photos after you click the icon. Scroll back even farther and the photos AND icons don’t load. I thought the pint of AppClose was to maintain historical data, this was only going back a few years, what happens when we get to the end of child support and there are disputes over payments for all these years? I can’t tell a judge AppClose deleted all the photos.

After sending a second tech support email and writing this review I got a very prompt response and I am pleased with that. I like the calendars, file upload and custody schedule features. I do not like that any parent can choose which parent they are and create harassing events. Not everyone plays nice when they want to dissolve their holy matrimony. The quick and easy set up guide should include instructions on how to protect your user so that one parent cannot chose to enter information as the other parent.

I have contacted their customer support twice and have not received any advice. My soon to be ex-husband was able to create an event with my user. He set a month long event that indicated that he knew where I was staying in the Appointments calendar with a harassing note that disappeared when I accepted the event. I thought that he was finally updating his parenting schedule. He hadn’t sent me an event yet and I thought that it was about time. He initially set up the this app and sent me a link to our personal app, and was not sent the account number. I am waiting this app. Where is your customer service?

I’ve been co-parenting for 8 years now and thought it might be beneficial as our kids get older to have a shared calendar.

I saw this and thought I’d give it a go. After an hour of jacking around with it, my initial impressions aren’t great.

1) I wanted to play with it before inviting my ex to use it and that’s literally the second step when opening AppClose .

2) The date and time wheels frustrate me. Almost every time I would scroll the wheel to get the right time, it would pop back to where I started. I had to just gently flick it and hope it stopped somewhere near the number I wanted and keep doing it ever softer until it landed on the minute or date I wanted.

3) I wanted to put my ex’s parenting time on the same schedule as mine and I don’t seem to be able to do that.

4) I want to just copy over events from my calendar to the shared calendar and that isn’t possible. I have to retype each one.

5) I’d love it if they had an option to add access to the kids. My sons have phones and I’d like them to be able to put their events on the calendar so that we could just see it.

Considering just doing a family calendar app but I don’t want my ex seeing all my personal stuff like a grocery list. Maybe we just keep going without a shared calendar like we have been for 8 years.

I truly believe this downloading app should be the first step when dealing with a custody case. For me personally it has saved me time and time again with holding a Narcissist co-parent accountable.
I highly recommended to contact their support team if you have issues or even suggestions for AppClose . They were responsive to my questions and have updated AppClose in a timely fashion to rectify issues or even add new features that I suggested. I love the fact that it’s free, because so many of us are already dishing out thousands of dollars into a already stressful situation. It’s a huge positive to your app by simply making AppClose free and available to all.

I probably lost more time trying AppClose to understand my timeshare day schedule than I’d have spent marking manually on a sheet of paper until 2080.

It is unintuitive, really convoluted with inconsistent options. You cannot mark days manually (Custom only let’s you mark a simple range). Even basic things didn’t work out.

But even very simple things are full of bugs in the calendar. For example, you need to setup each holiday by hand. But by the 3rd Holiday entry, AppClose replaces your 1st Holiday entry with that of the 3rd.

It also sees “overlaps” where there are none with “Custom Scheduled”. Probably, a Fields Medal award must be awarded to any parent able to complete a schedule successfully-regardless of how many weeks they took to accomplish it.

I think AppClose has a lot of potential, but since it’s literally impossible to setup the calendar, and it in now way helps you with that and it is chock full of bugs and unintuitive (odd and also awkward) choices, then I must rate with one star. But, I feel that the creators may feel it’s just me or that’s two harsh. I will give an additional start for the courage to try to include a calendar, even if it’s the most horrible example of buggy, over bloated, massively confusing and horribly thought out calendar scheduling for co-parents.

The rest of AppClose seems fantastic. I haven’t tried because what drew me to AppClose was having a schedule shared with the coparent.

I like all of the features of AppClose! Makes it easy to co parent and record things that can be used in court. I would like it if when u enter information for the child if u could copy it or share it to the other child profile instead of having to type each thing over and over again. Like have it say share caregivers to other children’s profile or share doctor information to other child’s profile. Also on the calendar it would be nice to be able to set things on a weekly repeat. Like if I add soccer to the calendar and practice is every Thursday I would like to just have an option to add it to the the calendar every Thursday instead of having to go to each Thursday and add it again.
Loving AppClose besides those few issues!

My wife and I agreed to use AppClose even though our attorneys recommended a different one. So we changed our agreement to use it. Now it is changing the times in the parenting calendar my ex says she can’t properly merge the calendars, it just dumped all the stuff I spent over an hour inputting.

There is no option for every other week schedule. This is horrible, it’s wasting my time. No support just an email ticket system, no phone number to call. I hope they fix it quickly.

also I saw a response to one of the other reviews that was EXACTLY WHAT I AM SEEING, and the developer responded that it was just a competitor and they would report it. That is so petty... clearly reading the most recent reviews by date there are a lot of things to fix. It actually worked ok until I started sharing and now I can’t input things, things don’t show up and like I previously mentioned the times change. She reports she can’t merge the calendars and gets an error message when she accepts.

Edited to add as of 3.3 update. AppClose does not work or share properly on iPhones. The schedule is a pain to figure out and when shared it does not send proper schedule. It constantly freezes on my phone STILL after telling support about it over and over and documents disappear or are not received on the other end. If AppClose isn’t fixed ASAP I will be switching to takingparents.

Things that would be helpful for my husband and I:

1. Improved Notes: notes, along with any other uploaded information such as immunization records, report cards, etc need to be time stamped and give plenty of typing space.

2. Check-ins would be very helpful for proof of pickup/drop off times with the option to take photos.

3. Calling and video calling feature.

4. Ability to bring in third party to previous conversations.

5. A messaging filter to help effective communication without assertive words. (A feature coparenter has)

6. A way for the coparent to “accept” something that’s shared with them so that the sender knows it was received. For example, uploaded medical documents.


Things that need to be fixed for iPhone X:

1. Parenting schedule sharing options. When my husband shares his parenting schedule with me, It shows the coparent scheduled time not our own.

2. Freezes and force closes often when messing with calendar or main screen.

3. Messaging sometimes does not go through.

AppClose was working decently for a while. Now in the last month we can’t see all the information entered( schedule, info tabs, etc.) We are not all getting the messages that the other party is sending. The new messages notifications on AppClose keeps say we have unopened messages but even when you open it nothing new is there. All parties apps are updated properly. A notification will come through saying there is a message and it can take hours for the messages to show or if it shows at all. We one party send a message only half the group can see the messages even with 3 way chat that we have used for over a year now. We are ordered to use AppClose to communicate and it will only create problems if not everything that’s put in is being seen.

AppClose is missing key features or else it’s buggy. I can create a “circle” for my daughter, but I can’t share her information with my coparent - doctor names, school contacts, etc. More perplexing, there is an option to share a providers info (only when you add it, can’t be edited afterwards), however, this doesn’t work. I would like a shared space with versioning history for either parent to view or add. The calendar is not easy to use and more trouble than it’s worth. An app like this is only useful if your schedule changes, and that’s the most annoying interface. Weird glitches exist in the calendar - if you click around in the wrong order the remaining options disappear and you have to exit and start over. Don’t waste your time. Co-parenting is hard enough, this just makes it harder. Texting is easier.

If you are already trying to use AppClose it’s already not an easy time of your life and you want this tool to make things simpler for you. AppClose absolutely adds to your existing frustrations.
First not all messages you send to your x, reach your x. The calendar is garbage. You put in time for August 24 to September 5th from 5pm to say 4pm. It changes things to October and 730pm. The predefined schedules mixes the parents. You spend 90% your time with your child and AppClose will credit the 90% percent to the person that wants nothing to sacrifice with that child.
If you use AppClose with good intent in some custody battle it could backfire badly. Now you tell me is it worth losing a child to an untrustworthy parent because some lawyer spent $23k developing a penny pinching software project while spending millions marketing this thing?
Do not use AppClose. It just makes an already frustrating situation more dire

Dear developers,

I’ve been your loyal and very happy customer for a year now. I just wanted to leave a review about your update because I really love all the new features and wanted everyone to know how easy and useful everything AppClose offers! But instead, I saw several negative reviews right on top and I decided to write this...

Please don’t get discouraged by the unfair negativity. Please keep doing what you do best and keep AppClose alive and keep the updates coming. So many of us depend on you and so many of our lives as divorced parents have become easier because of your app. Like in any app glitches happen, but that’s okay. You listen to our feedback, fix things extremely fast and I am grateful for such amazing customer support. It seems like the people who have left these negative reviews haven’t used the application or given it a fair chance. AppClose was court ordered and ironically that’s one of the best decisions the court has made!

Thank you again for creating such a diverse app and keep up the great work!

The one thing I love about AppClose is it is free to use. The second is I can communicate with my ex with less stress and drama and able to use the expenses on here. It’s easy to share medical and schedule of the kids rather than talking to him directly. Please always keep them AppClose free and we will keep using it.

Update.....I just did an update for AppClose and it DELETED EVERYTHING I HAVE ON FILE! ALL PENDING PAYMENTS!!!!!! So unhappy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Update**
They fixed it after I submitted a ticket via the help button on the profile tab. Thank goodness. I was freaking out as the feature is SO important. Thank you!

I’m very concerned about AppClose as people are saying what’s wrong with it and the developer or person responding is saying it’s a competitor. That is concerning because I looked at my check in’s and saw them all, and I went back a few moments later to export them and they were gone. I absolutely need those and no one has contacted me back from the ticket I sent within AppClose . I’m feeling like the rest of everyone and may have to use another app. Please fix it!

(Update: developer has posted the response below. Rather than reaching out to me to resolve the issue they’ve written me off as a competitor. I am a single mom looking for solutions to manage custody schedules. Unfortunately, I’ve received the proof I need to look elsewhere for another app). My co-parent and I were trying to set up an account that met our needs. His app was showing him my PERSONAL calendar appointments from Google, even though I had prevented access to AppClose to my calendars and could not even see those appointments on my own app. When I tried to fix this, I couldn’t find a way since my personal calendar wasn’t even showing on my app. This would have been a problem had I scheduled confidential appointments on my Google calendar. Be careful!

These folks have a free app. That’s worth more than three stars in this day and age. They want to help. I set out to see how it worked. I spent over an hour trying to link photos on my iPhone to the profiles before I gave up. Something there is messed up.
Moving on, I imported my calendar and realized this is not what I am looking for, though I would like to find it here. I am looking for a “daytimer”type display that lets me see how my day stacks up next to others to see where needs may arise. Who feeds the pets, who needs a ride? Who will be at home, when? All this seems to is show a calendar by date. I guess I was thinking about my old daytime views and thought how that would be useful in getting my kids to add their schedules.

More a suggestion that a complaint. I just don’t need a group calendar, even with all the other things it does, I want to have a multi schedule day view. Then I would be able to love everything else too.

Thank you for your commitment to a free app.

This does what it says and you can share events, request payment (although why not integrate Venmo or PayPal - We tried using the built in payment app and it was more of a hassle.), etc with other parents. My complaint is the UX. Nothing works like you would expect. When you think you would swipe up or down it’s actually left or right. The calendar view is awful. Anyone who is an iPhone user is used to typical functions/actions but AppClose doesn’t seem to have any of them. The UX is honestly the only reason for 3 stars and not 5. I hope the next big upgrade fixes this.

It’s great for parents on a tight budget.

Would be nice to -have a place to take notes for documenting and maybe -an option to add or pay for a chat mediator/chat monitoring that can aid in communication without the nastiness. Maybe even a -place to upload the parenting plan and be able to make -recorded calls as some parents can text nice, but call with their unedited opinions. These are the things I’m looking for in an app and would be willing to upgrade my account to a new tier if one offered these options. Overall, great simple co parenting app.

I have been using AppClose for a month now. It’s a little confusing when trying to add things to the calendar, but I’ve been trying to just deal with that. I like that it archives everything. It’s important that I keep documentation of everything with my child’s father. I am, however, no running into not being able to schedule his supervised visitation to him or his mother ... it’s saying AppClose is having problems. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’ve been trying literally all week and the visitation is tomorrow. So how I just need to message and confirm I guess. It is frustrating having to work around these things.

I gave 3 stars because it works, but it could be more helpful. If these features are added/changed I will change my review.

1. Needs a group chat feature so that parents and step parents or other guardians can all be on the same page because some discussions need to involve everyone.

2. Call feature with optional recording would be wonderful.

3. The calendar to sync with iPhone calendar so that I don’t have to check both calendars.

4. Notifications to work on apple watch. I downloaded AppClose onto the watch and I can view messages but cannot reply and with or without AppClose on the watch it does not give notifications of new messages/requests. This can cause frustration as I do not check my phone a lot unless I receive a notification on my watch.

5. Notes section to record things that happened without having to keep it separate and have that exportable for court or record keeping like the messages are.

I installed AppClose today and all seemed great until I tried entering parenting time into the calendar. I could not use the templates/preset calendars as our agreement is not standard. However, our visitation schedule is not at all complex either. Each time I entered the details for a particular day which repeats every other week, I would tap ‘add’ and AppClose would shut down. I would restart AppClose to find that the details did not save. I did this about five times before uninstalling. The features seem incredibly useful, but the technology is a mess - at least related to customized calendars. This is too bad because if it worked, AppClose would have been perfect for our needs!

I was liking AppClose when I first installed it and it was better to communicate with my kids mother, but lately I’ve become frustrated because some of the messages that I’m supposed to receive or messages I’m sending out doesn’t go through, which causes miscommunication. Also, after checking the messages, the notifications doesn’t disappear but stays up, so it looks as if I still have unread messages. If other users are having this issue, I hope it gets resolved, otherwise I will have to seek another reliable app.

This definitely has made co-parenting easier. Has lots of options from calendars and pertinent info to ensure you are both on the same page. My only suggestions for AppClose are to fix bugs found in notifications-it doesn’t always notify you there is a message, and reminders only show up for the person who created the event and not for the other person. It would be nice if the reminder would apply to both. Otherwise AppClose has been a life saver

AppClose is nice but in recent months they have done some drastic changes to it. As a result, the calendar is very messy looking and the payments are never on time. When you contact customer customer support to see where your payments are from the other parent, replies come from different people with different answers and excuses. Sometimes they don’t respond at all. I love the idea of AppClose but lately the customer support has gone downhill considerably. Very disappointing. A year ago AppClose would have received five stars.