Drink Tally
A personal beer counter for iPhone, Apple Watch and your Home Screen — with a built-in way to get home safe.
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Answers to the questions people usually have after installing Drink Tally. Nothing here requires an account — the app works entirely on your own devices.
Drink Tally helps you keep track of how much you're drinking, so you can pace yourself and know when to stop. It keeps the count for the current session visible wherever you are — the app, a Home Screen widget, and your Apple Watch — along with how long the session has run and how long it's been since your last drink.
Open the app and tap "Log a Drink". The first tap starts a new session and logs your first drink at the same time — there's no separate "start" step. Every tap after that logs one more.
Yes — turn on "Set a Drink Limit" at the top of the Settings tab and choose a number that's right for you. When you reach it, Drink Tally shows a check-in suggesting you stop, have some water and get home safely, and asks you to confirm before logging anything more, with "Get Me Home" offered first. The widget and Apple Watch app show when you've reached your limit too. With no limit set, the check-in still appears once a session reaches 6 drinks, but without the extra confirmation step.
Add the Drink Tally widget to your Home Screen for a shortcut to the current count. While a session is running, tapping it logs a drink; if nothing is running, it opens the app so you can start one from there.
Yes — install the companion watch app to see the live count on your wrist and tap to log a drink. It stays in sync with your iPhone automatically over your paired Apple Watch connection; no internet connection is used for this.
A slide-to-confirm control on the main screen that sends you home. By default it opens Uber, with your current location as pickup and your saved home address as drop-off. If you would rather not use Uber — or it does not operate where you are — switch it to Apple Maps transit directions under Settings › Ride Home. Set your home address once from the Settings tab and it is ready whenever you need it.
Drink Tally counts drinks — it does not estimate blood alcohol content, measure impairment, or tell you whether it's safe to drive. Never rely on a tally to make that call. If you've been drinking, use "Get Me Home," call a taxi, or arrange another sober ride instead of driving yourself.
The History tab lists every past session with its date, duration, drink count and location. Swipe left on any entry to delete it.
Location is used for two optional things: labeling each session with the place it happened, and setting the pickup point for "Get Me Home." You can decline the permission and still use the counter, the widget, and the Watch app — you'll just lose the location label on sessions and the "Get Me Home" shortcut.
Widgets are managed by iOS and occasionally need a nudge: try removing and re-adding the widget, or restarting your iPhone, if a count looks stuck. If a problem keeps happening, note what you were doing right before it and email vt_apps@yahoo.com.
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The short version: Drink Tally doesn't have a server. There's nothing to sign into and nothing being collected off your device.
Each session you track — start time, end time, drink count, and an optional location label — is saved directly on your iPhone using Apple's on-device SwiftData storage. Your settings — your saved home address, your drink limit if you set one, and the time of your last drink in the current session — are kept on your iPhone as well. This data is shared with the Drink Tally widgets and Apple Watch app only through Apple's App Group and Watch Connectivity frameworks, which keep it moving directly between your own devices. Drink Tally does not run a server, and nothing described here is transmitted to us or to any analytics or advertising service.
If you allow location access, Drink Tally uses it to:
Location access is optional. Declining it turns off session location labels and "Get Me Home," and nothing else.
The count and session state shown on your Watch are relayed from your iPhone using Apple's WatchConnectivity framework, a direct device-to-device link. This never leaves the pair of devices you own.
No account creation, no sign-in with Apple/Google/Facebook, no third-party analytics or crash-reporting SDKs, no advertising identifiers, no cross-app tracking, and no selling or renting of any data. There is simply no backend for your data to go to.
Delete any session at any time from the History tab. Deleting the app removes all of its on-device data, including anything shared with the widgets and Watch app, immediately.
Questions or concerns about this policy or your data: vt_apps@yahoo.com.
Drink Tally is a drink-counting tool intended for adults of legal drinking age in their jurisdiction and is not directed at children.
If this policy changes, the "last updated" date at the bottom of this page will change with it. Continued use of Drink Tally after an update means you accept the revised policy.