Attention all women: your phone can now relieve you of the burden of having to track your menstrual cycle. Whether you're trying to get pregnant, synchronizing with birth control, or simply curious of how your bodily rhythm flows, these apps will do all of the work for you.
How hard is it to track your period? With these apps, not hard at all. They offer more than trite countdowns and primitive notifications: you can check on which days you're fertile, you can view graphs that correlate your mood over a cycle, and you can predict when your next period will arrive based on past data.
If you aren't using one yet, you ought to reconsider. The benefits are similar to other time-tracking apps like those apps that promote better sleep and apps designed to help you wake up: why worry about it when the app can worry about it for you? Don't underestimate just how useful these apps can be!
Period Tracker ($1.99/free, Android, iOS & WindowsPhone)
The self-proclaimed "SIMPLEST period tracking app," Period Tracker is built and designed for those who don't want to spend lots of time setting up charts, graphs and calendars. Only one action is required: on day 1 of every period, you press a button.
Over time, Period Tracker logs every one of these presses and uses that data to predict future periods. This prediction feature is only available when Period Tracker has logged at least 3 months of data. Of course, there are some advanced features as well. You can type in notes on a day-to-day basis to track your mood, symptoms and intimate activity, and you can export past data to email.
Period Tracker comes in two versions: the Lite version (Android, iOS), which is free but only has the basic feature set, and the Deluxe version, which costs $1.99 for all of the advanced features.
My Cycles (Free, Android & iOS)
My Cycles is a period tracker that leans more towards the "I want to conceive, can this app help me?" side of the spectrum. If that's your chief concern right now, then My Cycles is the app for you.
It starts with the basic period tracking features. You record every first day of a period and jot down daily notes that catalog your changes in mood, symptoms, medications, and treatments, weight and so on. It might seem like a lot at first, but the more information you record, the more accurate the other features will be.
My Cycles uses this information to help notify you of your most fertile days and predict when those days will arrive. The predictions stretch ahead as far as 12 periods. Your data can be backed up online and you can even access that data from any computer that has Internet access. But what good is data if you can't make sense of it? My Cycles uses a clean and intuitive interface with virtually no learning curve.
MonthPal (free, Android & iOS)
Of all the apps on this list, MonthPal is the simplest and most minimal. That's not to say that it's ugly or useless because it isn't. MonthPal is the perfect period tracker for those of you who have no need for all of the bells and whistles found in the other apps. It does one thing and it does it very well.
Enter your period start date and MonthPal starts tracking. All of the relevant information – cycle length, period days, and fertility window – are displayed on a single screen with a beautiful layout. One glance is all it takes to see the progress of your entire current cycle, making this an app that works so well thanks to its simple nature.
Pink Pad (free, Android & iOS)
Yet another period tracker? Not quite. Pink Pad sets itself apart from most other period trackers by focusing on community. In addition to logging female health, Pink Pad aims to bring together women from all across the world. Through the app itself, you can post under various topics (Fashion, Beauty, Health, etc.) and reply to posts that others have written. These conversations form the "largest trying-to-conceive mobile community" in the world.
Pink Pad doesn't neglect the tracking side, of course. It can help predict your cycles and monitor your mood, symptoms, weight, and temperature over the days. It comes with a homescreen widget (for Android, naturally) with a countdown to your next period.
There's also a premium version for $1.99 (Android, iOS) with more advanced features such as fertility tracking and pregnancy planning, data backup and restore options, and custom notifications.
Conclusion
If you just want a basic tracker then any of these apps will do, although I would recommend MonthPal for its sleek and smart interface design or Period Tracker if you're after more advanced features. The other apps are great in their own nuanced ways, so be sure to try them all out and pick the one that best fits your needs.
Do you use a period tracker app? Which one? If you know of any other good ones that weren't covered in the article, please share them with us in the comments below!