No. On the mornings you picked, one short text at the time you chose. If you write nothing that day, one follow-up in the early afternoon — and you can switch that one off. No streaks, no scores, no "don't lose your progress". A quiet week is saved as a quiet week, and the next text arrives on your schedule.
A program, not a person. It asks you a question when you reply, saves what you text, and counts your own words when you ask — it never analyzes you or gives advice. Your journal is encrypted, stored in the EU, never sold, never used for ads, never used to train AI. The one exception, said plainly: to make Steps reply better, someone at Steps may read a record of a conversation, with your name, email and phone number masked out first.
You're not charged — there is no credit card on file to charge. On day 31 the morning texts stop: no countdown, no guilt trip, no "we miss you". Want them back? $5 a month, and that is the first time we ask for a card. Either way, every word you wrote stays readable and downloadable at app.steps.org, free.
The ones you picked. When you sign up you choose a template — a template is a set of prompts someone actually kept: the two gratitude prompts, Benjamin Franklin's, or Marcus Aurelius's. One answer is enough. Later you can reword any prompt, write your own, switch to morning pages (free writing, whatever is on your mind until you run out), or turn them off. Every template, and whose words each prompt is, is at steps.org/templates.
No. Skip them, answer one, or write about something else — whatever you text is saved with that day, and Steps never chases a question you skipped. You can also switch the prompts off for good, by telling Steps. It still texts you on the mornings you picked; you just write.
Steps is a journal that texts you first, in iMessage. You pick a template, your mornings and a time, then send the word hi to the number we show you. On the next morning you picked — tomorrow, for most people — it texts you first: a short hello, the kind a friend sends, not a question. When you reply, it asks you one question at a time, or takes whatever you want to write. Everything you text, at any hour, is saved with that day.
Every word is saved with that day's journal at app.steps.org, exactly as you wrote it. There you can read any day, search all of it, download all of it, or delete all of it. You can also ask in the thread — text "what did I write last Tuesday?" and it sends it back. You can't write on the web, only look back; the writing happens in iMessage.
Not unless you tell them. Steps texts from a plain phone number: no caller ID, no business name, no app icon. Save the contact as "Bob" and Bob is all your lock screen, your watch, or your car screen ever shows. The morning text reads like any other text — it never mentions a journal.
Your call: one morning a week, all seven, or anything in between, at the time you pick. Mornings only. If it texted you that morning and you wrote nothing, one follow-up in the early afternoon — you can switch that off. It starts daily; drop to fewer mornings if that begins to feel like homework. Change it any time by texting Steps.
No. Steps is a contact in your Messages app: nothing to download, nothing to log into, no icon to start avoiding. It runs on iMessage, so you need an iPhone.
You didn't fail at it; the setup did. A notebook or an app asks you to remember it, open it, and face a blank page — one busy week is enough to end it. Steps takes all three away: it texts you first, it lives in the thread you already open every day, and when you reply it asks you a question, so the page is never blank. And if you stop again, every word stays saved.
No, and it never will. Steps is a program, not a person: it asks, saves, counts how often a word comes up, and shows you what you wrote when you ask. What your journal means is for you to decide, never for software. Ask about journaling itself — who kept one, how a template works — and it answers gladly; it has no opinions about your life. The full list of nevers is at steps.org/safety.
No. Steps is a journal for adults, not therapy and not medical care, and it gives no advice. If things are heavy, please talk to a person who can help. If anything you write suggests you are in danger, Steps points you straight to real crisis lines (steps.org/safety).
