Install and set up

Install Steps, allow Health access, set your daily goal, add a widget, and turn on goal reminders. About five minutes, start to finish.

4 min readUpdated July 28, 2026

Steps is free to download and shows no ads. Setup is four steps: install, allow Health access, set a daily goal, and add a widget. Goal reminders and every setting behind them are free — the optional purchase only changes how widgets look.

Requirements

Device	Minimum version
iPhone	iOS 18.6
iPad	iPadOS 18.6
Apple Watch	watchOS 11.6
Apple Vision Pro	visionOS 2.6

An Apple Watch is not required, but recommended. iPhone counts steps on its own and Steps reads them through Apple Health. A Watch is on your wrist, so it catches the walks your phone missed, delivers reminders as a tap, and lights up the stand dots in the rectangular widget — see Apple Watch.

Two features need a newer OS than the minimum: reminder rewriting needs iOS 26 with Apple Intelligence, and Live Activities need a device with the Dynamic Island to show the compact view. Everything else works on iOS 18.6.

Step 1: Install and open once

Search the App Store for Steps Widget, or open the App Store listing.
Tap Get.
Open the app once.

Note: The first launch is not optional. iOS does not offer an app's widgets in the widget gallery until the app has run once, and the app needs a foreground moment to request Health access.

Step 2: Allow Health access

On first launch Steps shows Requesting Health Access and asks to read your step count. Tap Allow.

It requests three read-only Health types and nothing else — step count, plus your stand hours and daily activity summary so the hourly chart can mark the hours you stood. It never writes to Health. Connect Apple Health has the detail, including how to grant access later if you declined.

Step 3: Set your daily goal

Open Settings in the app. The first row is Daily Goal — type a number or drag the slider, which runs from 2,200 to 20,000 in steps of 200. The default is 8,000.

The goal is the number everything else measures against: the progress ring in every widget, and the target the reminder model projects you against. Goal Tips in the app cites the research; Set your daily goal covers how to pick a figure you will actually hit.

Touch and hold an empty area of the Home Screen until the icons jiggle.
Tap Edit, then Add Widget.
Search for Steps Widget.
Pick one of the widgets — Steps Ring, Steps Timeline, Steps Prompt, Goal Progress, or Steps Minimal.
Tap Add Widget, drag it into place, tap Done.

The widget gallery describes what each one shows and which sizes it supports.

Step 5: Turn on goal reminders

In Settings, turn on Goal Reminder and allow notifications when iOS asks.

This is the part that changes behaviour. A model on your iPhone projects how many steps you will finish the day with, and sends a reminder only when that projection falls short of your goal — so a day you are already walking stays quiet. How goal reminders work explains the decision in full.

The reminder settings are free, including the schedule and the message tone. Nothing about reminders sits behind the purchase.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no account, no sign-in, and no password, because there is no server holding anything. Your steps are read from Apple Health on your device and stay there, and there is no leaderboard or social feed.

Sign in to iCloud and your settings — goal, reminder preferences, widget styles — follow you across your own devices through your private iCloud. See Privacy and sync.

Is Steps free?

Yes. It is free to download with no ads at any tier, and the free tier is not time-limited. The whole reminder system costs nothing: the on-device model, the projection, the schedule, the message style, and the Apple Watch reminders.

The optional Customization purchase adds widget styles, colours, and gradient themes. It is available as a one-time purchase or a monthly or yearly subscription, and a subscription is never required. Prices are on the App Store listing.