# Move Mood — Manage low mood and depression

> Free app for young people to manage low mood using Behavioural Activation Therapy. (iPhone/iPad app by Stem4.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/move-mood/id1509092468 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Stem4](https://appshunter.io/developer/961611580)
- Category: Health & Fitness
- Price: Free
- Rating: 3.60/5 from 22 App Store ratings · 18 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 15.6 · 23 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2020-12-18
- Data updated: 2026-08-31
- Monetization: free
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/move-mood/id1509092468/reviews.md

## What is Move Mood?

Move Mood is a free app to help young people manage the behaviours associated with low mood or depression. Created for stem4, teenage mental health charity, this clinically-led app has been co-designed with input from young people. It follows a type of treatment called Behavioural Activation Therapy (BAT) and uses powerful, in-built analytics to measure  effectiveness. The app is completely anonymous and doesn’t collect any identifiable data.

## Key features

- Behavioral Activation Therapy (BAT)
- In-built effectiveness analytics
- Anonymous data collection
- Co-designed with young people
- Clinically-led

## Recent user reviews (10 of 18)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/move-mood/id1509092468/reviews.md

### 5/5 — clinically grounded, user-friendly app

*2025-09-16*

Overall, Move Mood has more strengths than weaknesses. However, there is room for improvement in the app, namely in the lack of human support and social connection components. 
Move Mood’s strengths largely lay in its clinical foundation and evidence-based approach. Move Mood employs Behavioral Activation Therapy (BAT), a well-studied treatment for depression (Ekers et al., 2014). The app’s core functionality centers on task creation and scheduling. Users are prompted to reflect on what they value in life and build tasks around those areas. Tasks are chosen from preset lists or can be self-written, then categorized as routine, necessary, or enjoyable. Each task is broken down into steps, given a difficulty rating, and mood rating when the user thinks about doing the task. Scheduling is flexible, as tasks can be set as one-off, daily, weekly, or monthly, and tied to specific times of day and exact dates. The app also cites being co-designed with input from young people to ensure effective implementation in the target population. Personalization options allow users to select their goal tasks based on domains they value. They provide many example tasks and flexible structure, which may function similar to scaffolding in guiding users. Such structured examples are beneficial in supporting adolescents’ self-efficacy and task initiation (Conley et al., 2022; Laser & Nicotera, 2021). This approach makes the experience more accessible and relatable for adolescents. Features like task creation, mood tracking, and reward reinforcements further support users in managing their mood and building positive habits. Aside from task creation, monitoring, and mood tracking, the app does not have any other features. This can be seen as a strength, as the simplicity of the app could reduce avoidance, a common behavior in depression. Furthermore, teens more easily engage with technology with minimal distractions like pop-up ads or an overwhelming amount of content. Research and practitioner guides note the role of media design and reduced distraction in adolescent engagement (Laser & Nicotera, 2021), and systematic reviews show mobile interventions can still be effective without complex social or gamified features (Conley et al., 2022).
The weaknesses of this app surround the minimal social components in the app. While the app focuses on individual use, it lacks integrated social features that could allow users to connect with peers or share their progress. Incorporating such features could enhance motivation and provide a sense of community. The pseudo-social component of the “companion” the teen commits to approaches this quality. However, it could be more enriching for the user to know there are other teens experiencing the same things as them. The app could have an anonymous community of peers encouraging each other to use the app and complete their tasks. Including peer social features could enhance motivation and community, as social network use is an important component in teen and family treatment approaches (Murphy, Lancy, & Hertlein, 2013). However, Conley et al. (2022) found that the presence of social features didn’t consistently change effect sizes across studies, so adding a social component should balance safety, privacy, and engagement. 
Overall, Move Mood is a thoughtfully designed tool for adolescents experiencing low mood. It has simple structured therapeutic techniques and playful personalization which makes it both practical and easy to use. By allowing teens to customize their experience through self-chosen tasks, it encourages them to take an active role in their mental health, all while keeping the process simple and accessible. Move Mood is a clinically grounded, user-friendly app that can support young individuals in managing low mood and depression. Its strengths in evidence-based design and user engagement make it a valuable tool for adolescent mental health. However, incorporating social features could further enhance its impact. As indicated on the website, stem4 is seeking to fund a large scale, quantitative and qualitative study on the Move Mood app. Results from that study could enhance features of the app and guide how parents and teens choose their mental health apps.

**Developer response:** Hi there, thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a thoughtful and helpful review! It's so great to hear that you like the app and appreciate its design and features, and your suggestions for improvements are very useful for us to know - we have logged these ideas for future review with our development team. Thank you again!

### 2/5 — Great idea but still buggy

*2025-07-03, version 1.3.5*

Offers customisation of set list of tasks but you can’t actually edit them. Also when you set up new tasks that aren’t daily, there isn’t a regular day reminder to choose for set days even though you can define which days you’re supposed to do the task. Please refine, this can be really good!

### 1/5 — App display too large

*2023-10-05, version 1.2.2*

When going through the setup steps the default display appears too large for my phone meaning the Continue button is obscured below the bottom of the screen. Have had to reduce text size to get it to show but larger font / accessibility settings may affect others in similar way? Does not appear to be an issue on larger iPhone screens just the smaller one that I have - iPhone 8.

### 5/5 — sweet for managing tasks!!

*2023-06-25*

I looked into this and other apps by stem4 from a tumblr post and wanted to check them out, since I’m on another journey to improve my slow burn relapse of behaviors and mental health management these past few years.

I needed an app that could not only keep me distracted from anxiety and depression (not officially diagnosed for these btw but have ASD and half diagnosed ADHD), but also to help manage a routine with tasks I want to keep track of, when my brain wants to not stick to them when I need it to, and another part of my brain also wants to keep the routines.

Very user friendly!! It took me a bit to figure out some features but I managed to in a short amount of time, thankfully.

One thing I would maybe suggest is see if you can view certain times for push notifications you set for tasks you want done in the overview of said tasks, and then editing them separately from editing the tasks as well, instead of having to go into setting push notifications every time you edit them. That would be immensely helpful for seeing what times can be changed than just the days.

I’m happy I found this and love it!! Thank you so much for making all this exist without paywalls!!!

**Developer response:** Hello, thank you so much for your kind review of our app, we're so glad it has helped you! Thank you for your suggestion, we will log this for future review with our team.

### 3/5 — Frustrating

*2022-08-15*

I tried making a new habit to wake up at the same time every morning and when it told me to select a date to start it only game me one option, todays date, but it told me I couldn’t move forward because it had to be a later date.

**Developer response:** Hi there, sorry that you're having trouble with the app! Just to check, when you tap under 'I'll give this a try until...' and it brings up the date picker, can you then tap on where it shows today's date, to bring up the full calendar? From there, you should be able to select a date in the future, then tap 'Select date' at the bottom of the date picker, and then you should be able to proceed. If this hasn't helped, please do email us at movemood@stem4.org.uk with details of the device you're using and iOS version it's running, and we'll look into this for you! Thank you.

### 5/5 — I love it so far

*2022-08-15*

I have no nitpicks with this app, and I find it really helpful. I think it would be a lot better and more useful if you could have a widget for it. Other than that one suggestion I love it.

**Developer response:** Hi there, thank you for your 5* review! It's great to hear that you like the app and are finding it helpful. That's a great idea about having a widget version, I will log this as a request for future review with our team. Wishing you all the best.

### 1/5 — Setup doesn’t work

*2022-04-25*

I downloaded this app in hopes to help me start a routine. Seems it won’t let me get past the first task option as it won’t allow me to pick a date in the future to continue to do the task until.

**Developer response:** Hi there, sorry that you're having trouble setting up tasks! When you click 'Select date', are you then clicking on today's date in the pop-up form to bring up the calendar? From here you should be able to select a date in the future to continue the task until. If this has not helped, please do email us at movemood@stem4.org.uk with details of your device and OS version and I will get our developers to look into this for you - thank you!

### 2/5 — Burdensome

*2022-02-14*

Way too complicated and heavy to set up. I gave up and deleted the app. So can’t say I used it. I imagine it could be helpful if you ever get past the user profile setup process

**Developer response:** Hi, sorry to hear that you had trouble with setting up the app. If you have any ideas for where we might streamline the onboarding process, please do send them over to us at movemood@stem4.org.uk

### 4/5 — Helpful But…

*2022-02-10*

Push notifications cannot be set to repeat in sync with a repeating task. Ie, task should be done MWF, but you have to manually set up the notification and can only select one day for it to appear. Hopefully developers will add an option to automatically sync push notifications with each task’s specifications.

**Developer response:** Hi there, thank you for your feedback! That's a great suggestion and I'll be sure to log it for review. Thanks again.

### 1/5 — Difficulty Setting-NO Dot

*2022-01-31*

After you have made your 3 tasks and go on to make a 4th Customized Task there is no dot to move to pick my difficulty level.

**Developer response:** Hi, sorry to hear this! Sometimes you need to scroll down on the screen to view all of the difficulty slider, not sure if this is the case for you? If it's still not working, please can you email us at movemood@stem4.org.uk with details of your device and iOS version, and I will raise the issue with our developers and get back to you. Thank you!

## Frequently asked questions about Move Mood

### What is Move Mood?

Move Mood is a free app designed to help young people manage behaviors associated with low mood or depression. It uses Behavioural Activation Therapy (BAT) and provides analytics to measure effectiveness.

### Is Move Mood free to use?

Yes, Move Mood is completely free to download and use. It does not have any in-app purchases or advertisements.

### What age is Move Mood suitable for?

Move Mood is suitable for users aged 12 and above, as indicated by its age rating of 12+.

### Does Move Mood collect personal data?

No, Move Mood is completely anonymous and does not collect any identifiable data from its users, ensuring privacy.

### What therapy approach does Move Mood use?

Move Mood follows a treatment approach called Behavioural Activation Therapy (BAT), which is designed to help manage low mood and depression.

### On which devices can I use Move Mood?

Move Mood is available on iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices.

### How often is Move Mood updated?

The latest version of Move Mood is 1.4.0, and it was last updated on October 25, 2025. Updates are released periodically to improve functionality and user experience.

### What is the user feedback on Move Mood?

Move Mood has an average rating of 3.6 stars from 22 ratings. While this indicates generally positive reception, user feedback can vary.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.4.0 — 2025-10-25

Bug fixes

### 1.3.5 — 2024-09-11

Bug fixes

### 1.2.2 — 2023-09-07

We've listened to user feedback and have redesigned the 'Task Difficulty' setting to make it more user friendly, reviewed and updated the signposts provided, updated the privacy policy, and added our Age Appropriate Design Code statement

### 1.2.0 — 2023-03-27

Bug fixes

### 1.0.4 — 2021-10-04

Addition of FAQs.

## Apps similar to Move Mood

| App | Rating | Price | Category |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| [Worry Watch: Anxiety & Mood](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/worry-watch-anxiety-and-mood/id693833917) | 4.5 (349) | Free | Health & Fitness |
| [Spiritune: Music Mood Wellness](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/spiritune-music-mood-wellness/id1455800918) | 4.8 (229) | Free | Health & Fitness |

## More apps by Stem4

- [Calm Harm – manage self-harm](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/calm-harm-manage-self-harm/id961611581)
- [Clear Fear](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/clear-fear/id1437282350)
- [Combined Minds](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/combined-minds/id1480822365)
- [Worth Warrior: help body image](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/worth-warrior-help-body-image/id1641866414)

All apps by Stem4: https://appshunter.io/developer/961611580

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-31.*
