How We Feel Reviews

by Niocr

HowWeFeel is… TWO thumbs down!! HowWeFeel gave me constant notifications and told me to do unspeakable things to the nuns across the street!! Can’t believe what’s going on. 👀👀

by Anetzzz

Update: developers emailed me acknowledging my initial feedback but HowWeFeel did not change for the better. I stopped using it because of how it still forces you to manually bypass Reasons, instead of letting the default be just log your emotions and manually choose to enter Reason. Now I came back after a month because of an intense emotional day, for one reason: to use the guided ‘solution’ option it had originally. When I first downloaded HowWeFeel if you out in an emotion it would link that to a suggested solution, a movement or a rethink or a video. Now there no suggestion based on your entered emotion. So we the people are who struggle are left to browse the solutions and wow somehow just know which one is going to help us? Sorry that is not helpful. I can get the same stuff with a google search. Had to delete HowWeFeel , it’s not living up to its potential. Initial feedback: Liking HowWeFeel, helps me be better tuned in to my actual emotions. Recent update forced you to open the Reason entry page. Previously you could opt to open this entry page. Please allow the norm to be a dual option: bypass or enter. I hate having to click extra when I don’t have a reason I want to enter. I also hate how this feels like data mining. Thank you for considering how the current UI impacts the feelings of users.

by Leeloominai_D

Two stars because it’s the only emotion app that i’ll actually use, the rest of them trigger that utter rejection thing my adhd brain does where i have to get it away from me asap before the boredom it induces becomes too painful. This one doesn’t do that, so yay there. Visually appealing. Emotional choices are limited and not customizable leaving HowWeFeel culturally prescriptive (white-washy/male supremacy-based/based on status quo, not inclusive etc) and not descriptive. None of the synch to health or weather options work accurately so if you use those features and actually look through the data you realize it’s all inaccurate and you have to go back in and add them manually which takes too long to bother with it if you’re already busy so basically just makes those features useless. The period reports were clearly designed by someone who has never had a period, so even if that part synchs who cares because the data it’s charting isn’t useful to anyone who actually has periods - so it’s like cool chart but who cares on that one. Seems like a good beta release with a lot of potential but it’s definitely not there yet. The feedback team is very responsive and assures me it’s still a work in progress, so we’ll see how it goes.

by Newtonswdc

No journaling app is complete without an export feature that sends our text entry data to a standard format like PDF, TXT or RTF. ** ** Because all our notes, epiphanies, realizations, etc, are stored on the DEVICE and not on their servers if something happens to the device or to HowWeFeel , we’re out of luck and all our notes may DISAPPEAR. What’s a worse way to make a person feel lost, confused, and miserable than to realize an entire year’s worth of journal entries is GONE FOREVER because they dropped their phone or HowWeFeel crashed unexpectedly? ** In fact, just now I was leaving a review through HowWeFeel and HowWeFeel FROZE on me. Thankfully no other data was lost this time but I think I’m making my point. ** I’m not saying the developers should find a way to store all the photos and audio recordings, that would be too cumbersome, just a way to store the date and time and all the notes we write for each entry and export that to a standard format like PDF, TEXT, and/or RTF. ** We should have multiple means of export like: Phone drive, email, Dropbox, etc. ** It would also be nice to include a feature that allows the ability to sync the data among multiple devices on a single Apple ID. I would be willing to pay extra for those export & sync features. ** Then HowWeFeel would be perfect.

by Psychicdaydreams

Sometimes I'm avoidant, bummed, spiraling, distracted, on edge, aroused, verklempt. (Not an exhaustive list.) But if I'm feeling any of those things and using HowWeFeel, I can't accurately describe... how I feel. Which makes me feel frustrated. At least if I ever get "canceled" I have an entry for that 🙄
I disagree with the categorization of some of the emotions as "pleasant/unpleasant," such as fragile (should be unpleasant), astonished (it depends), and impassioned/passionate (again, it depends). I also feel like it's in general missing the ability to clearly represent singular emotions that are by definition not clearly one or the other, such as bittersweet.
On a UX level, I didn't find it intuitive that emotions not listed on the grid would be available in search, and I didn't realize the plus allowed you to add a second emotion for a good week.
I've also kept experiencing this one annoying thing with trying to enter emotions where as soon as I tap away from the search bar, it autocorrects, and so the first few letters of whatever I was searching for changes to something else, so I have to go back and type it in again.

by Robinminttea

I love HowWeFeel! It’s helped me greatly with managing my emotions and better regulating them. Contrary to other reviewers, I like how they break down emotions. It helps me see them as normal things that aren’t going to last forever. However, I have experienced some annoying glitches, much like other users. During the check-in, after I select my emotion, sometimes the details page will just go dark and I have no way to record anything other than my emotion. Sometimes it won’t, but after I add a note and click “done” the screen will turn dark again. A helpful strategy that I use is to add my note and fill in the rest of the details before I click “done” (that’s possible). The creators of HowWeFeel haven’t responded to any complaints as far as I know, but I hope they fix things soon. Overall, HowWeFeel is wonderful and has made a huge difference in my life.

by Bookreader216

I am autistic and can struggle with labeling emotions in the moment, so this is a good way to center myself with that. However, I feel like there should be an option for a secondary emotion that you can add if there is one or if a feeling is more complex. Like if you’re feeling content and accepted in a moment and at the same time sad for all the time you didn’t get that. Or relaxed and unfocused in the moment and having a waxing and waning anxiety about the fact that that will come back to haunt you, but deciding not to care. Feelings are often more than one thing and only by taking in the whole picture can you get a full understanding of them. Heck, even with the options that are there, the fact that some form of grief isn’t an option is kinda wild even though that is it’s own thing? Or that there’s a humiliated option but not an embarrassed one? Or even like infatuated, flirty, flattered, romantic, or aroused, which is a spectrum of emotion that could technically fall under “compassionate” or “ecstatic” or something like that, but are also their own thing? Overall I think is this a fantastic starting point and I hope in the future they build in more features to capture a fuller range of the human emotional experience, creating a more precise tool for the people who use it.

by FLuffyEnChilada

HowWeFeel is very useful and really helps people understand better emotion. HowWeFeel really benefits people emotional health and tracks the reason and roots of certain emotions like a art. Useful optional lesson are beautifully explained as well and as someone who goes to school very useful to understand social drama. It really helps to add notes and experiences to each logged emotion so you can read back and reflect!
However it would be a little more beneficial if you could log a mixed feeling, maybe like a half and half? If you could also put in a little reflection log that would probably be beneficial to people who haven’t been doing that. HowWeFeel is great but it’s stuff I already do in my head, it makes it easier visually, so I’m just suggesting for people who don’t do it regularly. Also specific notification times on different days would make it nice if you could select specific days and times to notify.

by Envy!!

Other than one or two little things I absolutely love HowWeFeel, it’s the only mood tracker i’ve been able to use consistently. One, I wish that you could write in your own emotions. Sometimes I know exactly what I’m feeling and it’s a little disappointing when I can’t track the feeling I have in mind. Second, I’m not a huge fan of how the exercise and sleep tracking works at the moment. I don’t think that exercise minutes should automatically apply to all the entries earlier in the day. It’s a little frustrating when I’m trying to track how exercise affects my mood and I can’t get an accurate picture of that because when I worked out at 5pm, HowWeFeel applied that to all my emotions earlier in the day. The same thing goes for sleep. I think that automatically having exercise and sleep apply for the rest of the day makes sense, but you should have the option to change it, and have each entry be independent of everything that came before it.

by TermyYT

Hi devs, HowWeFeel is awesome and I can't thank you enough for making it one that is free and runs on donations. All the other apps of this kind usually have subscriptions and I can't afford them, so it's wonderful having an app of this quality at my fingertips. With that said, I did run into one immediate issue when using HowWeFeel on my iPhone XR: When scrolling down and tapping on emotions on the Check In tab, the emotion animation opens briefly and then immediately fades to black. I restart HowWeFeel , open up the emotion, and it seems to be fixed at first, but once the UI with the "Save" button appears, it quickly fades to black again and the only fix is restarting HowWeFeel again. Please fix this! It makes it hard to alter details of an emotion after its creation! Other than that, HowWeFeel looks good so far. Thank you for everything.

Update: I have discovered that this issue is only on specific models. I have an iPhone XR. Please fix it for this iPhone model!

by Dancingbrook

Couldn’t find a way to share these thoughts: 1) I saw a review, asking to be able to change the time entries, so one could log how they’re feeling at an earlier time, but I did not see the suggestion implemented in the version log, even though the response to review suggested developer would make that change. (Update: it seems the change was implemented but wasn’t listed in the version history) 2) When setting up HowWeFeel initially, I was given 4 times of day to check in; the labels on these times didn’t make sense for my way of thinking. I’d like to be able to check in when I wake up, late morning, mid afternoon, and in the evening. These times are based on my recollection of significant periods of time where I am aware of significant mood shifts, times of acute awareness. The labels offered, morning afternoon, evening and evening didn’t seem right. 3) Selecting one mood feels too constrained; I certainly feel more than one mood at a time. 4) It needs a lock, so someone using my phone isn’t able to access my info.

by SopStr99

Absolutely loving the graphic mood tracking. Most engaging mood tracker I’ve used so far. I’ve tried eMoods and Moodtrack but the simplicity of the check-ins have helped me be way more consistent using How We Feel. Also the visual representations of the data you put in are extremely easy to read and encourage you to add data for more and more comprehensive understandings of yourself.

The only reason I don’t give it 5 stars is because the meditations that were first shown to me were about things I’m actively trying to do less of (ie how to be more empathetic when I over-empathize). I’m going to try more of the practices later and if they’re good I’ll have to come back and revise this!

Overall this is an amazing free app I’d recommend to anyone who needs a mood tracker. And a great place to start if you need more tools for understanding your moods and how to relate to them in general.

by Kittypoop7

I have been using HowWeFeel for a couple weeks now and I really like it. It really makes me think about what I am feeling, and it’s nice to get a snapshot of how often I feel that way. I am currently going through a heavy bout of depression and am working with a therapist to get past it. This is a valuable tool and helping me understand what’s going on. The only issue I have is that I can’t always find an exact match to how I’m feeling because some feelings are not included as choices. For instance, sometimes I feel angst, guilt, shame, inadequate, bitter, pensive (I know I’m a real ray of sunshine these days), but they are not options so I have to pick something else, which doesn’t show an accurate picture of my moods. There are plenty of others to choose from, but sometimes none of them explain exactly how I feel.

by Threew33ks_4k!dz

HowWeFeel is simple. But the interface is cute and makes tracking moods less of a “blah” habit. A major perk of HowWeFeel is being able to add places, situations, and people in addition to the preset ones already loaded in HowWeFeel so you can better match the information you’re collecting to your own life and specifics. My spouse and I are using HowWeFeel individually but use the info to check in with each other throughout the day/week as needed regarding our individual mental health and how to better support each other. Additionally, as someone who lives with chronic pain, being able to add information about my pain alongside the notes of my mood(s), - you can add 2 per check in - the life moment/situation during that specific time, where I am located, and who I am with and have it time stamped is helpful to notice triggers and/or patterns in my illnesses to sort between things in my life may be helping or hindering the illnesses.

by Faruk Ramic

I struggle a lot with managing my emotions and figuring out what to do with journaling, self-talk, etc. I feel as though it was made 10,000x easier with HowWeFeel. It offers helpful tools and supportive instructional videos as you fill in your moods for the day. Keeping track of what causes what mood has always been very difficult for me to do on my own (and I even kept a Brene Brown Atlas of the Heart emotion chart with me, but that was too clunky and obtuse at times). With HowWeFeel I can let myself know that I can feel anger and it will change into something better, or if an emotion I’m having is not as extreme as I thought it would be. Please, I plead of you, get HowWeFeel and let your friends and family get HowWeFeel too because it will help you understand yourself and others way better than you’d expect. You can cry and play golf at the same time, it’s okay.

by Danie728

Wow. Without knowing it, I’ve truly needed something like this to help me identify my emotions. I struggle to identify emotions and differentiate them. Most of the time I can’t make sense of how I am feeling. This causes me confusion and frustration and a lot of self critique. I have no idea how I stumbled upon HowWeFeel, but I’m so glad I did. From the initial pick of the color, identifying my energy levels- this helps me narrow it down. I find the word that I feel best fits it and then read the description. This helps me ask myself “does that feel right?” often I need to adjust and read surrounding words but I always find something close enough (my suggestion in the search is maybe somehow provide alternatives with synonyms). With time I do feel like I am getting better at identifying what I feel in a moment myself and further to notice how often an emotion may swing within minutes and being able to document that always feels amazing.

by Coco Bakery

wow, I never write reviews for apps but I just love HowWeFeel so much. Its helped me drastically get in touch with my feelings, i've been able to become more mindful, as well as increase the joy in my life. I love the features like being able take a picture, the color coordination, and the analysis option where we can examine our feelings over time. I also loved the little videos in the beginning, i found them very helpful. Generally I love HowWeFeel, I use it alot and its improved my life and my relationships with the people around me.

If I could offer a suggestion it would be to configure a way to add more specific feelings. Sometimes i feel a very specific emotion and Im unable to properly document it. Being able to see the different emotions is extremely helpful though. Sometimes I also feel alot of different emotions all at once. I might just be a specific audience but those would be cool. Thank you for creating such a great app and allowing us to use it for free!
All Love,
Evie

by Rylee_Natalie

I love love HowWeFeel. I share it with my friends and family. I love the ease - 4 choices to start, definitions of each emotion, and minimal typing the whole way. Unless you want to type a description of your moment, all aspects that are tracked are pre labeled buttons like “home” “mom” and “resting.” Those buttons are customizable and you can delete ones that dont apply to you. Navigating the emotion page is so user friendly, hope it doesnt change. I also appreciate how you dont need to log certain things like what you were doing, or how much exercise you had. The exercise log is very discreet for those of us who are sensitive to even small pressures to work out.

My only suggestion is to be able to go back and edit the time of day an entry is. Sometimes when I am working, I want to log my emotions. I cant because Im not allowed to have my phone on me, but I want to be able to log it after work and then edit the time so it reflects when that emotion happened. I think that same idea could be helpful in a variety of situations, like not wanting to make an entry around certain people, not realizing how you were feeling until later, etc

by Roarsha-1

At first, I was skeptical of HowWeFeel that would be some kind of bloatware or something, but I’m pleasantly surprised how easy it is to use, and they provide you with reminders that aren’t just in your face all the time, it’s just a gentle reminder, like hey check in how you’re feeling at this time, and you can figure those times. It has a boatload of emotions and feelings that not only describe what a feeling means, but when you start getting into the groove of things, and use it frequently It actually brings up lessons on what that particular feeling or emotion does or gives more insight into how it can be good or bad for you. HowWeFeel has been very helpful in my journey of learning CBT on my own. It’s a great app, and I recommend it to anybody who’s trying to learn how to identify their feelings and learn coping skills, and strategies to deal with them!

by Flemfive

I think this is maybe the second time I’ve written a review in my life. I am an adolescent and family therapist and have had more success in getting resistant adolescents/families to track their mood hands down with HowWeFeel. Comments such as “it’s so smooth/slick/easy” “like how it reminds me”. Thank you thank you. Feedback from real world use. Experiences often come with numerous feelings and it would be great to be able to identify more than one (I just add these to my journal lines for now). Also feelings come with physical symptoms. As part of the “noticing” it would be great to add “where do you notice that emotion in your body?”. Again could also add that in the notes function but for new trackers the prompts would be helpful. Marc, love Permission to Feel and the great work your team is doing to change our relationship with our feelings. Kudos to you and the team. Much gratefulness. Please consider adding app usage for other platforms.

by Albie_Rod

HowWeFeel has been so good for my emotional and physical health. Before I would say major feelings ex:sad mad happy, but HowWeFeel dives deeper than just the regular used feelings. It gives you real options that you’re more than likely feeling but because we’re so used to using major feelings we’ve or might I say I have become numb to expressing myself. I’ve checked in 21 times and I can see my patterns develop, and see I hate Monday mornings haha. I’ve told all my family and friends about HowWeFeel as well, some use it some don’t. But it does help me personally check in with myself and friends. One thing I would add is when you add friends and they share feelings with you and vice verse maybe adding a direct text to them to check in or an emoji reaction like teams chat. Other than that I’m happy say this is my first review on an app and I’ll continue using it.

by Storyofagirl82

I am a middle aged woman that has been through the ringer of behavioral health before it was called “Behavioral Health.” I have seen many counselors, psychiatrists, and have been to more than 1 inpatient psychiatric care facility. I like that HowWeFeel allows me to track my mood over time. I love that HowWeFeel gives short videos (1minute or so) to guide me through my feelings. In childhood I was kind of discouraged from having feelings- being told “you’re too sensitive.” Or not allowed to be angry because it went against my religious beliefs at the time.
What I really like- I feel no judgment, just acknowledging the feeling I’m having at the time. I also like that you add what you’re doing while having this feeling, who you’re with, and a place to write a little note- ie “I feel sad today because it’s my mom’s birthday and she’s no longer with us.”
I told my counselor about HowWeFeel and he agreed that it is a very useful tool.

by Kur0taku

Edit: this issue has finally been fixed! Now been able to access my old entries, make new ones and keep it all backed up 🤩

This is honestly meant to be a 5-star review because HowWeFeel has done so much to help me connect with myself and my loved ones in the 3 or so months I’ve used it. An intuitive premise that is efficiently executed, I’ve found my experience using this to not only be really empowering, but also an essential aid in keeping myself regular with mental health check-ins - not to mention vastly expanding my vocabulary and toolset to express and explore difficult experiences and emotions. Ultimately, I’d gladly revise my star rating as soon as I get this one bug worked out - my app has been crashing on startup every time I’ve attempted to use it since the last update, and unfortunately I wasn’t aware if/that iCloud sync had been available when I started using it. I’d love it if I could regain access to HowWeFeel without having to lose the previous data I’ve accumulated, so fingers crossed that this gets noticed 🤞🏾

by Appiaha

Love HowWeFeel, it provides a convenient way to document my days and I love using data to really see how I have been feeling. I use it as my full on journal now! There are two things that would make it even better, 1) being able to record a voice memo without having to keep holding down the button at the same time. Sometimes I just want to press record, and talk while I’m multitasking and this would make it more convenient. 2) being able to have a log in so that we can access our journal anywhere - without this, if we have to delete HowWeFeel and redownload later for any reason (ie. Not enough phone storage), we won’t lose all of our entries. I’ve had to delete it a few times and it is frustrating to see that we lose all that data that we collected over a few months!

Otherwise, love HowWeFeel , it’s aesthetically pleasing and simplistic - I recommend it to my friends all the time. I hope the team continues to add new words!

by Sunshine245

I have only been using it for 3 days but I see a clear pattern in my feeling, thoughts, and time of day. I have post COVID syndrome at the moment so understanding what’s going on in times of energy vs fatigue, the negative thoughts and self-judgement, and even time of day and activities vs rest are so important and HowWeFeel has allowed me to see clear patterns to take action upon.
I love that each emotion has a definition, this allows me to find which emotion best describes my state while also expanding my feeling vocabulary.
In using the notes section I often find that my high feelings are actually secondary emotions. I use the notes section to write what’s going on for me at the moment, like a journal entry, which allows me to uncover the primary emotion by looking at the feeling word I actually use the most.
I am grateful for HowWeFeel, and I hope this review is helpful to others! ❤️

by MeelsM7

How we feel has been very helpful with figuring out how I feel when I’m asked, which has been something that I have found very frustrating, as well as when I have overwhelming feelings I might not know how to deal with yet! It’s also been very helpful in communicating my feelings more effectively with my family and friends!!
If I could change one thing about HowWeFeel I think I would add a feature that allows me to change the color of the feeling that I choose for the specific entry. Not for the overall category of the feeling but so I have more range to express exactly how I’m feeling whether that’s in a private or shared entry. For example when I am using HowWeFeel sometimes the word will describe how I’m feeling however because it is a harsh red color my brain immediately causes me to feel that it’s negative, that feeling “uneasy” is bad even if it’s just mild, and that gives me a little anxiety sometimes. (Which in itself is no big deal! But for the overall comfort of expressing how you feel I think it would be helpful!)

by Saladtuna

I love the simple design of How We Feel. The matrix of emotion words is really helpful and easy to use, I find it much easier to just open HowWeFeel and log my emotions than to journal. The best part of HowWeFeel is that all of the features are actually completely free, the lessons on understanding your emotions, de-stressing exercises, emotion word matrix, additional journaling features, and mood analysis are all free and there are no subscriptions to be seen. I really recommend How We Feel to anyone who already likes journaling and mindfulness, who is like me and is very bad at forming new habits, or just anyone who feels curious about understanding their own emotions better. The analysis tab lets you look at all your logged moods over time so you can start to see patterns emerge. Do you log being fatigued more often when you have a big project you’re working on? Do you log more positive emotions in summer and spring than winter and fall? Would also be useful for anyone starting on mental health recovery who would like to track their progress over time. Overall wonderful completely free app with tons of features you can use at your own pace.

by Hailstormxxx

This is such an amazing app, especially that it’s entirely free and there are no features locked behind a paywall. I love how the emotions are sorted, and the definitions are so helpful. Truly I cannot say enough nice things about HowWeFeel, and I have recommended it to all my friends.

I do have two suggestions though! One is the ability to edit the time stamp on logs, which I see you’ve already noted in another review, so that’s great! The other is a setting for what time the day resets. I am a night owl and I’m rarely in bed before midnight, but I don’t like that any check ins after 12am count towards the next day. It can end up making that day appear more positive/negative than it actually was.

Thank you for reading, and thank you so much for making what is the best emotion tracking app hands down.

by Hmbxoxoxo

HowWeFeel is nice if you don’t have the patience to keep a journal, you can either put in a little note of how you’re feeling, or just pick some emotions and go about your day. If someone isn’t used to understanding how they feel, HowWeFeel shows you how to understand what your emotions are trying to tell you and what you can do to fix it.

My favorite feature is the ability to share your feelings with others, and it’s not some weird intervention/therapy session. It’s very noninvasive, you can share as much or little with your friend’s or family. You can also not share.

The videos are quick, they offer captions, and even lists little activities on how to do things that fit how you feel. If you don’t want to watch the videos, you can just read a short list on how to do it.

by Red_bean212

The title says it. Because this isn’t the kind of thing that’s taught in school (despite its importance in both mental and physical health and relationships), I am so grateful for the team who built and iterated on this wonderful app that has helped me with my self-growth.

I’ve found it much easier to check in using HowWeFeel than using my previous methods (looking through the different emotions categorizations I’ve found before from various sources, like a journal article graphic, Plutchik’s wheel, and Drummond’s collection). Consequently, I’ve been checking in with myself more often.

Such a delightful UI as well. Good job UX and/or UI designers (and other design impacters - UX researchers, info architects, design strategists, etc)

by Brentemi

The feeling of HowWeFeel in your hand with the haptic feedback and the design and flow is extremely impressive. I cannot wait to introduce HowWeFeel into my daily routine. Having a home base to concentrate on mental health with an easy to use but gorgeous interface is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I am ecstatic and can’t wait to unlock my insights

by Davidjtemple

This is a great app. You can keep track of how you feel every day and then watch videos and see analytics that help you understand those feelings better—and know what to do about them. I love HowWeFeel!

by Mihiker

Great app. Quick to learn. Easy check-ins that let me focus on my emotional state during the day. Short videos give helpful hints for how to improve my well-being.

by Rfranc0

The UX is stunning and using it feels effortless and informative. Really looking forward to this small and easy step to better understanding myself.

by A Waalkes

Such a great & easy app to track your mental health! Simple & gives you reminders which is so helpful. Can’t wait to see my emotion data!

by Gdjixibc

I love HowWeFeel, it helps me know what I’m feeling and it’s a great reminder to check in on yourself! Definitely recommend.

by Hdwiitjdjhsh

Love HowWeFeel! It is already helping
Me pinpoint the times of day and triggers that are stressing me out!

by Macdo226

I’ve been a part of the beta and it’s really helped me visualize my mental health. It put some perspective into how I feel on a day to day basis. 100/10 would recommend using it

by Battle Max

I journal daily to improve mindfulness but honestly I might just start to use HowWeFeel instead. It makes it super easy to check in with yourself and recognize patterns after a while. Highly recommend you give it a try!