Pills In support

Pills In reminds you to take your medication and tells you when you are going to run out of it. It keeps count of what you have left, works out how quickly you are getting through it, and gives you a run-out date and a reorder-by date for every medicine, so you know when to go to the pharmacy.

Getting help

If something is not working, or you have a question or a suggestion, email philip.morton@gmail.com and you will get a reply.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Pills In ask to send notifications and set alarms?

Notifications are how the reminders reach you, and how you log a dose without opening the app. The separate alarm permission is for the urgent alarm that can ring through silent mode if you have not responded to a reminder, which you can turn off in Settings if you would rather it did not. Both are asked for by iOS and can be changed at any time in the iOS Settings app.

How does Pills In work out when I will run out?

From the doses you actually take. It adds up how much of a medicine each of its scheduled times uses, projects those doses forward day by day, and finds the day the last one comes out of the box. That day is the run-out date. The reorder-by date is a few days earlier, so you have time to collect a new prescription, and it counts in working days so a weekend does not eat into your notice.

Because it works from your real schedule rather than an average, medicines taken monthly or every few days are forecast just as accurately as a daily tablet. You can see the working behind any medicine by opening it from the Medications tab.

My reminders have stopped arriving

Nearly always this is a permission that has been switched off, so check in this order:

1. iOS Settings, then Notifications, then Pills In, and make sure notifications are allowed.
2. Check Focus modes and Scheduled Summary, both of which can hold notifications back.
3. In Pills In, open Settings and check that Medication reminders is on, and that the times under Time slots are the ones you expect.
4. Make sure the medicine has a schedule. A medication with no times set has nothing to remind you about.

If reminders are still not arriving after that, please email me. A reminder that does not fire is the worst thing this app can do, and I would rather hear about it than not.

My stock count does not match what is in the drawer

Counts drift, and there is nothing wrong with correcting them. Open the medicine from the Medications tab and use Set current stock to enter the number you actually have. Use Add stock instead when you have collected a new prescription, which adds to the running total rather than replacing it.

If you would rather not track the supply of a particular medicine at all, Stop tracking stock turns off its forecast and low-stock warnings without deleting anything else.

Can I take the same medicine at more than one time of day?

Yes, and it still comes out of one count. A tablet taken morning and evening is one medicine with two scheduled times, drawing from the same box, exactly as it works in real life. Each time can have its own quantity and its own frequency, so a medicine taken every morning and every other evening is a single entry rather than two.

How do I change the reminder times, the snooze length or the reorder warning?

All three live in the Settings tab.

• Time slots sets the times of day reminders fire. These are shared across all your medicines rather than set per medicine, so changing Morning changes it everywhere.
• Allow me to snooze for sets how long the Snooze action on a reminder delays it.
• Reorder reminders sets how many days before running out you would like to be told.

What gets added to my calendar?

Only if you switch Calendar sync on in Settings, which is off when you install the app. When it is on, Pills In creates a separate "Pills In" calendar holding your reorder and run-out dates, and your trip dates if you use trips. There is a setting to hide medication names from the event titles.

If that calendar is one of your iCloud calendars, Apple syncs it to your other devices in the same way as the rest of your diary. The privacy policy explains exactly what each event contains. Turning calendar sync off removes the calendar Pills In created.

What does Pills In deliberately not do?

• Half tablets and as-needed medicines are not supported in this version. A medicine taken only when you need it has no regular rate, so there is no honest way to forecast when it will run out.
• Apple Health is not read or written. Pills In keeps its own record of your medications.
• There is no account and no cloud sync. Your medication data lives on your phone.

A reminder tool, not medical advice

Pills In is a reminder tool and does not provide medical advice or dosing. It never suggests what to take, how much to take, or whether to change anything. Always follow your doctor and pharmacist's instructions.

Privacy

Pills In keeps your medication data on your phone. There are no accounts, no tracking, no ads and no server. You can read the full privacy policy.

Contact

Questions, problems or suggestions? Email philip.morton@gmail.com.