Less - Alcohol Tracker Reviews

I’ve been using Less since the start of 2020 and it’s really been helping me keep myself drinking this app! It is an easy way to remind myself to get those “drink-free day streaks” and when I do drink, I find Less makes me aware of how much I am drinking so I consume in moderation! The stats page is helpful to review from time to time, although the calendar function is a little slow. I like that I can look historically back on my years and also have the option to export my data should I choose. I really look forward to seeing my progress over time! It’s a great app for me and I appreciate how all of this is free, in a world that charges for nearly everything nowadays! It would be neat to be able to select a time frame (years, or custom dates) to view the total numbers (drinks and average $ spent on drinks) on the stats main dashboard, but as this is free, it’s simply a wish if there are future updates.

Great app, but when Less comes back from being in the background (say a day or two later) it often needs to refresh what day it is and the current daily tally. Pretty obvious when it’s my first drink of the day and there’s already two there. Possibly compounding this issue is using Siri to say “add a drink”. This is an awesome use of Siri, but I think it too it isn’t always targeting the right day. As an Apple Dev myself, I know this is difficult to test in a live environment because the Xcode Simulator isn’t going to leave something running in the background for days at a time. But devs, there is definitely something going on. And no, it’s not a case of forgetting that post midnight drinks count toward the next day. Gets 5 stars anyway, because I’m sure this will get resolved eventually and at that point, it’s perfect

I had recently started tracking my drinking in habit apps and realized I was drinking more than I thought. None of the apps I had tried were really well suited for this kind of thing though (they’re more for things like exercising more) so I’m glad I found Less. The only thing that frustrates me about it is that I can’t input the data I had tracked for the last couple of months. There’s a calendar view, but you can’t edit from it which seems like an oversight. In the last update they also changed the week to start on Sunday which I’m not a fan of, I wish they had made it a setting instead. Other than that though Less is great. It’s definitely been enlightening for me to see how much I was really drinking and caused me to cut back. I’m sure it will help a lot of other people too.

I really like Less , it was easy to set up. But there seems to be no way to change my daily limit. It says I go over the daily limit on different days, when I have a 6 drink a week limit and don’t drink all week until Friday or Saturday and have even 2-3 it tells me I went over my limit for that week. Even if I stayed at or under my weekly limit. I don’t want it set to have one drink a day for 6 days. Please let it change daily limits, doesn’t feel “guilt free” and “no judgement” tracking and having it tell me I go over, and it’s red. I’m trying to use this to be more mindful of overall consumption and give my body a break on more days of the week. Not to feel like I’m failing when I have 3 drinks on Friday and saved them up from the week.

i was really excited to find this app because it’s unique in that it will let you keep track of sober days without being a full-out sobriety app. it is also extremely cute! however (and i’m actually pretty bummed by this) because of the feature that forces you to see how many calories you are consuming, i am not going to be able to use it. i am trying to recover from an eating disorder and the calorie thing is a deal breaker. there is no way to turn it off or hide it— you’re forced to constantly think about the calories you’re consuming which, for someone in recovery, is absolutely counterintuitive. i would also guess that i am not the only person in recovery from an ED who is trying to use Less— a lot of us have more than 1 harmful coping mechanism. ultimately, i think the option to hide, turn off, or not include the calorie count would be a really useful addition.

I reinstalled Less, intending to start over and be more consistent since this is the beginning of the year. Firstly, Less literally forces me to “sign in with Apple”, then proceeds to access my old data BUT without the ability to delete that data! Despite the option being there (the buttons are non-responsive).
I loved the simplicity of Less but some aspects are SIMPLISTIC.
For instance, if someone starts using Less on June, it tracks how many drinks that person has had in THAT year. That is obviously ridiculous. If the user only started tracking later in the year then those stats are obviously incorrect! Compounded bu this failure to reset and start over this just makes Less all the more useless, and that is before I even get into the issue of NOT being able to access and delete my data!!
Disappointed...
I love ZERO, am a premium subscriber, but this one is subpar. Am now deleting it for good and looking for another option. Pity though it could have been great..

As other people have pointed out, there should be the ability to set daily limits, tell me how many calories/dollars I’ve saved by NOT drinking, etc. I’ve also experienced the “logged a drink one day, then had it vanish the following day” issue, and also noticed that I can only log one drink at a time via Siri—telling it “log two drinks” doesn’t get recognized. I’m also not sure why hitting my daily limit causes this app to mark it as “over limit” on the calendar. Overall, though—it’s a perfectly serviceable app that’s allowed me to keep track of (and cut down on) my drinks. That’s all I really need in the end.

Less is the one I am going to keep on my phone. I wish it was a little more aggressive with the notifications, to really get on my case to make me enter data because Less is no good without accurate data, and if I forget or get too drunk or whatever and end up not logging my drinks it will look like you have been drink free when actually perhaps you were on a bender. Also, would be nice to swipe between days, navigating to past days in attempts to enter missing data is a bit difficult. The design is beautiful, I do wish there was an option for a non binary character, but other than that I love my sailor friend. Get this if you have ANY inkling of concern about your drinking, this helps put many things in perspective—-but I am looking forward to some great updates

This is a beautiful app but there’s just not enough support to make me feel like it’s impacting my life and/or keeping me accountable. When I am under or over my weekly limit, Less doesn’t make me feel like I did a good or bad job, respectively, aside from some animations. I use the developers’ other apps Zero (for fasting) and Oak (for meditation). Compared to Zero, this app just does not get the attention it deserves. Less would be truly great if they added more features, added coaching, and updated the research section more frequently. I will continue to use Less and stand by the developers’ other apps; thus the four star rating. this app could be so much better.

I really like the simplicity of it, but for being a “judgement free zone” I really don’t like the red every where. I am a beer drinker only and even though I’m 4 drinks under my 10 drink a week limit, logging my 4th beer turns the counter red. Which having 4 beers on a Saturday night I don’t think is that bad, especially when I’ve had two beers the rest of the week. Plus in your rolling average it’s also red. Less is supposed to help control consumption, which I think it it does, and does well, I just don’t like the red everywhere on stats just because we have drinks. The people that are going to use Less, drink, so don’t make us feel bad for logging the drinks.

As another commenter said, the main issue with Less is the inability to change daily limits. While the drinking trends tracker appropriately labels days as “drink free,” “within limit,” and “daily limit,” on the monthly progress timeline, days that are at the daily limit are marked as “over limit” which feels very defeating. Additionally, I’ve learned that I need to have a weekly limit of 15 drinks to have the daily limit be 3 drinks. Ideally, I’d like my daily limit to be 3 and my weekly limit to be 7. One small change there and Less had everything I’d want in a simple accountability tool!

Been searching for a nice tracker to better be in charge of my drinking for a while and this is by far the nicest app. No unnecessary frills and the graphics are really cute and encouraging. I just wish the developing team could spend some resources on updating it. Less doesn’t always seem to synch well with the amount of drinks entered. And maybe add a few more fun features like severe weather, ship breaking, Leslie getting sea sick, etc to really show the severity. Plus aloe for better comparison on the weekly stats. Id love to keep using it and am recommending to all my friends.

If you track it, it will change. You might know how much you drink, but just having to see it in black and white leads to improvement.

One thing Less needs: set start date (or re-start date). Say you’ve been drinking 4-6 drinks a night every night and you decide to make a change on March 1. There’s not really a way to make that the start date of your new lifestyle of moderation. So for the rest of the year, Less acts like you had no drinks all of January and February – which isn’t true, you just hadn’t started yet.

I have been loving Less (much more simple and elegant than any other tracking app that I tested), but it has been 3 months since the last release and is starting to seem buggy. For example, yesterday I logged some drinks into Less , but today it showed zero drinks for yesterday. And logging via the widget has become almost always unreliable — it usually reverts to zero for any given day. And even though Less still shows that several drinks were recorded for last week, today I received a notification warning that zero drinks were logged for last week.

Less has aesthetically pleasing visuals and I like how you can view past alcohol consumption.

My main problem is that when you set a weekly limit, it’s automatically assumed that you’re spreading those drinks evenly over each day. So for example, if my weekly limit is 7 and I put that on one day I have two drinks, it says I’m over my daily limit.

But I don’t drink every day, or at least I’m trying not to ! When I do drink it’s probably a weekend where I’ll have several and it’s annoying that Less counts this as a breach if I’m still under my weekly limit.

I’m a light drinker (average 4 drinks or this app a week) but I wanted to watch my calorie intake (drinking always increases my weight) and wanted to try Less. I found it helpful in showing me the days I drink the most regularly (weekends) and it also shows approximate calorie increase and cost you have spent as well.
I found the character showing you on a calm sea (light drinking) and a stormy one (heavy) very clever and cute if you are more a visual person. I like Less and I think it’s appeal is pretty broad for both types of drinkers.

Let’s be honest. 2020 (and now 2021) have been rough on our livers. Now that we’re coming out the other side- it’s time to get healthy again.

this app is great because it’s designed for those who say “Hey, I want to cut back but let’s be honest- I ain’t quitting entirely.” It helps you practice conscious drinking. Just being aware of your consumption leads to this app consumption.

All in all, a great app! I’ve cut down my drinking about 60% to a level I’m much more comfortable with and I’m sure my doctor will be too. Give it a whirl!

I love Less, it’s really helped me to track my drinking and slow down. My main suggestion is that you should be able to change when the day changes mainly because I don’t track my days based on 12am -12am I usually start drinking in the late evening and go until 2-4 am which makes it kind of awkward logging my drinks for the previous day before I go to sleep. Otherwise it’s a great app that I’d highly recommend to anyone trying to show down control or track their habit. :)

I meet the definition of “moderate alcohol consumption”, rarely more than two drinks a day and definitely not every day. So I figured I was doing pretty well, but Less charted how quickly those drinks add up. Also, it revealed how I can easily slide from max 2 drinks, to occasionally 3 and sometimes more. While this likely wouldn’t be considered a drinking problem by anyone, it was affecting my energy levels, mood, and mental clarity. Less itself is simple and clean. It does one job: shows you your drinking habits over time. Definitely worth using.

I’ve worked in a bar the past 7 years and could never get sober no matter how hard I tried. Then I started using Less. The beginning was hard. I was still drinking heavily but at least I was tracking it. Once I saw how many drinks I was having a week/month, I snapped out of it. I love the design and ease of use. I love the streaks! Only downside is it’s extremely buggy. I wish the devs would update it more often. I would pay for Less! It’s probably saved my life.

I absolutely love Less. I was looking at other apps to cut back on my drinking a little and everything was too expensive or complex. The only thing that I would need for this to be five stars is for you to be able to change your weekly limit week by week: for example, last week my limit was 12 drinks, and I drank 12 drinks, this week I want to change the limit to 11. However, when I do that, it says last week I was over my limit. Can you fix this?

Less is not only easy to use but allows me to keep track of my alcohol intake daily. The use of notifications reminds me to check in by the end of the day and it has really helped me visualize how much I have been drinking. It’s allowed me to cut back and given me a reason to not have a drink the next day - even if that reason is as simple as holding a drink free streak. Using this to supplement kicking alcohol to the curb makes it such a great tool, the fact that it’s free also has allowed me to continue using it and making progress

Less helps you hold yourself accountable and track your drinking and it doesn’t cost a thing. It takes you to put forth some initiative to make it work, but as someone who has struggled with alcohol and was bummed by most apps asking for subscription. A subscription you might not be able to afford as you’re struggling with alcohol this helps you track yourself and hold yourself accountable. I think this probably serves the self conscious best and those who recognize their problems first and foremost will make the most from this. It made my day to see something like this is just free and readily available. Everyone please donate to this project or support their other applications this is a tool to help others. Support the paid projects they have

EDIT: Just wanted to revise this review to say that it seems to be totally working like normal again, just a couple of days after I first wrote this review. Even the drinks I had tried to input that kept getting reset, showed up. So, I guess it may have just been some kind of server issue? Aside from that problem I WOULD rate Less 5 stars and recommend it. I’ve been using and really loving Less for a while now. Its simplicity makes it easy to use and I ACTUALLY consistently use it (can’t say that for any of the other apps, they’re too complicated). However for three days now it just… isn’t working. It isn’t tracking my drinks. I put them in just like normal and then the number resets, it just doesn’t count them at all. I don’t know why this suddenly happened out of nowhere, but I worry that I’m just not going to be able to use Less anymore, which would be really disappointing.

It's a simple and useful app for what it does, but it has a few issues that keep it from being five stars: - You can only some times go back and edit past days. So if you have a drink or two at a party and want to record them the next day, many times you can't, so you have to record them on your current day. - If you change your goal, it retroactively adjusts all your past weeks in light of the new goal. So if, say, you were successful with a target of 5 drinks/week for six months, then you want to drop it to 4, this app will then show all your past weeks/months as over limit based on the new target. This creates a disincentive for lowering your target; they should be incentivising it. - You can see a total number of drinks for the year, but not an average drinks/week. So you can't see how you met your goal on average over time.

I love Less in concept but could be so much improved. Numbers are often inaccurate until you refresh. Weekly totally should say ‘daily’, monthly totals should be ‘weekly’, year should say ‘monthly’. Articles should update or rotate. Daily tally and calendar should be front and center. Give options for what is displayed at the top (eg. days drink-free instead of how many calories I’ve consumed which NO ONE wants to see.) or add how many calories and money I’ve SAVED by cutting back instead of consumed… or the ability to set that timeframe to week or month (a year is just way too long). But that said, I think this is brilliant. I love the art and how the language is around ‘this app’ and ‘drink-free’ and ‘streaks’. I appreciate that there is no imagery of wine glasses or language like ‘stop drinking!!’ Which is heavy-handed and counterproductive. Very nice app, just needs a few improvements!!

I have used Less for over a year. I started to log my drinks (1.5 ounces of alcohol) every day to be more aware of the amount I drank. Cause: as I got older, I felt the effects of alcohol more strongly, especially my sleep. My Dr. gave me a website to read and research to complete on alcohol & aging. The results: this app is Better. The easiest app (no cost & just the facts) to keep me aware of what I was drinking was this one. Numbers don’t lie. I am at a 7 drink weekly limit now after an 11 drink weekly limit. Couldn’t have done it without Less. Thanks!