Kept — User Guide

Kept is a habit tracker with the few other things a day needs: timers, tasks and a calendar. Everything lives on your phone; Google Calendar and Google Tasks are optional.

Free and full version

Kept is free, without ads, for as long as you like: 3 habits running at a time, the habit ring widget, timers and stopwatch, tasks, the calendar, every reminder, and export/import of your data. One purchase through Google Play — once, no subscription — unlocks the full version: any number of habits, the list widget, Google Calendar and Google Tasks, and the automatic Drive backup.

• Unlock from Settings (top of the page), or when Kept shows the unlock page.
• The purchase belongs to your Google account: on a new phone or after a reinstall Kept unlocks by itself. If it doesn't, Settings → Restore purchase (the phone must be online, and Play Store signed in with the account that bought it).
• In the free version, a fourth habit can be prepared but not started until one of the three finishes. Nothing you made is ever locked away.

Today

The Today tab is your day on one screen:

• Today's habits — every running habit you haven't checked off yet. Tap the circle to check in.
• Today's schedule — running timers, today's events in time order, and tasks due today or overdue (tick them here).
• Pinned — favourites you starred (★) that are not already on the page for today.
• Done today — at the bottom, small and crossed out: habits you checked, tasks you finished, events that ended, timers that rang. Tap the ✓ to undo a check-in or reopen a task.

Anything still open today stays on Today until it is done. The chips at the top — All · Habits · Tasks · Events · Timers — narrow the page to one kind of thing.

Habits

• New habit — pick a template or type your own, choose a length with – / + or a chip (21 days is the classic), how often, a daily target if you want one, a category and icon, and a daily reminder time.
• How often — every day, or 1–6 times a week (gym twice a week, ice bath twice a week). Check in on the days you did it; Kept shows "1 of 2 this week", stops reminding you once the week's target is met, and counts your streak in weeks. Days off are not marked as missed. Did more than the goal? The extras show as a gold +1 bonus on the card, the widget and in History — they never count toward the % or the streak, so a big week can't cover a skipped one.
• Daily target — for habits you count ("8 glasses", "20 pages"): each tap adds one, and the day is done when you reach the target.
• Routines (steps) — a habit made of steps (Morning routine: breathing, core, stretching), up to 12, each with an optional timer (half minutes too). Tick steps as you go; the day is done when every step is ticked, or at least the number you chose. A step timer ticks its step when it ends and rings even with Kept closed. Done ✓ on the reminder or the widget ticks the whole routine.
• Check in — tap Done for today ✓ on the card, the circle on Today, the centre of the ring widget, or Done ✓ on the reminder notification.
• Finishing — checking in on the last day finishes the habit: the celebration plays (one celebration sound for every habit) and the card shows the result, with Start again (the same habit from Day 1, today) or Done ✓ (moves it to History, where Start again brings it back later). If you skip the last day, it finishes when its time runs out.
• Streaks — your current run and your best. Yesterday's streak stays alive until midnight tonight, so you're never "broken" before the day is over.
• View all → shows the habit's progress: streaks, check-ins per week and its full calendar (missed days in red). Tap any past day to tick or untick it; on a habit with a daily target a tap adds one, and a long press completes the day.
• Day notes — long-press a day to write how it went, or why it didn't happen. Days with a note get a small teal dot, and all notes are listed under the calendar.
• Habit settings — the ⚙ on a habit's card: how often, the goal length and daily target (they apply when you tap Save changes), reminders (up to five times a day: + Add a time), the habit's look, and Restart from Day 1 (Kept asks first).
• Year — the Year tab on Habits shows every habit on a timeline: when it started, each check-in, and the days still to come in grey. Switch 3 months | Year, and use ‹ › for earlier months and years. Days shows the classic day grid. Tap a habit to open it.
• History — a finished habit keeps its day notes and opens with a summary of the whole run.
• Delete — the × on the card, or Delete this habit at the bottom of its ⚙ menu — removes it (Kept asks first).

Timers and stopwatch

• Countdown timers ring on the second, even with the screen off, with the sound you picked (Beacon unless you change it in the timer's ⚙ menu). On some phones Android shows a small alarm icon in the status bar while a timer runs — that's normal.
• A finished timer keeps ringing until you react, 30 seconds at most. Phone locked: a page with one big Stop button appears over the lock screen — no need to unlock. Kept open: tap anywhere. Phone in use: press Stop on the notification. Habit reminders only sound once.
• Stopping the alarm puts the timer back to its full time, ready for the next round; Today still lists it under Done today ("Rang 14:05"). If you let it ring out, the timer stays on 00:00 so you can see that it rang.
• The first time you open Kept, Android asks to allow notifications — say yes, or reminders and timer alarms can't appear.
• The first time you set a timer or reminder, Android asks to allow Alarms & reminders. Say yes, or timers can arrive late.
• The stopwatch keeps laps.

Tasks

• Tasks have a priority, an optional due date and time, and notes.
• Reminder — give a task a due time and Kept notifies you at that time, with Done ✓ right on the notification. A task with only a date doesn't notify; it waits for you on Today. Tick, move or delete the task and its reminder follows. Switch: Settings → Reminders → Task reminders.
• Sort with the chips at the top: Due date · Newest · Priority · A–Z (Kept remembers your choice).
• Tap the box to complete; tap again to reopen. Completed tasks stay in the Completed section until you clear them.
• With Google connected, new tasks can go to Google Tasks (see Google below). Ticking, editing or deleting a Google task in Kept changes it in Google too.

Calendar

• The month view shows what's on each day: events in the colour of their calendar, tasks in their priority colour, habits ending.
• Tap a day for the full list; + Event there creates an event on that date. For a trip or anything longer, tap + More than one day in the form and pick the last day — the event then shows on every day it covers.
• Remind me — in the event form, tap the reminders you want: At start, 10 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 1 day before — any combination, or none. New events start with 10 min + At start, and Kept remembers your last choice. All-day events offer On the day and 1 day before (both at 09:00). Each reminder comes once; the later one replaces the earlier one in the notification shade. This works for every event you create in Kept, also when it is saved to Google Calendar; events made in Google Calendar itself are left to the Google Calendar app. Switch for all of it: Settings → Reminders → Event reminders.
• Swipe left or right to change month. Today jumps back.
• Upcoming lists everything ahead, filterable by type.
• Delete an event from the day sheet (🗑). Google events are deleted from Google Calendar too.

Widgets

Long-press your home screen → Widgets → Kept. The habit ring widget is free; the list widget is part of the full version (in the free version it shows "Tap to unlock").

• Habit ring — one habit's day-by-day ring. Tap the centre to check today off; tap the ring to open the habit. Long-press → Reconfigure to pick another habit.
• List — choose what it shows when you place it: Starred, Today, Habits, Tasks or Events. Tap the widget's title to switch views any time; tick tasks and habits right in the widget.

Google Calendar and Google Tasks

Part of the full version.

• Settings → Calendars → Connect Google Calendar. Kept then shows the calendars and task lists you enable.
• New items from Kept — the first time you add a task or an event after connecting, Kept asks once whether new ones should also go to Google. Change it any time in Settings → Calendars, or per item with the small Google chip in the form.
• Changes you make offline are kept and sent the next time you open the app with a connection.
• If Settings shows Reconnect, sign in again (Google needs a fresh confirmation after an update).
• Disconnect removes Google access immediately (on the phone and at Google) and takes Google's events and tasks out of Kept; they stay in your Google account. Kept never sends your data anywhere else.

Backup

Settings → Your data → Export backup saves a file with everything (habits, check-ins, timers, tasks, your own events, settings). Import backup restores it — for example on a new phone. Google sign-in is not included in the file.

Auto backup to Google Drive (optional, needs Google connected): Kept keeps one private copy in a hidden folder of your own Drive that only Kept can read, refreshed when you leave the app (at most every 6 hours). On a new phone: connect Google, then Restore from Drive.

Tips

• ★ means pin: pinned items appear on Today and in the list widget's Starred view.
• Clock format follows your phone's 12/24-hour setting, and dates follow your region (21 Sep or Sep 21).
• The week starts on your region's first day; change it in Settings → Appearance → Week starts on. The calendar, weekly habits and widgets all follow it.
• Clock changes (summer/winter time) never cost you a day — habits count calendar days, not hours.
• If reminders ever stop arriving, check Settings → Apps → Kept → Notifications (on), Alarms & reminders (allowed), and Battery (not restricted).
• If Google's sign-in screen shows tick boxes, tick them all: Kept can only show and back up what you allow there.
• Restored the wrong backup? Settings → Your data → Undo last restore brings back what was there before.
• When Android is blocking notifications or exact alarms, Kept tells you and offers the settings page.
• Reminders arriving late? Some phones (OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Xiaomi) delay every app's notifications to save battery. Turn on Settings → Reminders → On-the-minute reminders: Kept then sets them like an alarm clock, and Android shows the next one as your phone's next alarm.
• Kept keeps working fully offline.

Kept is provided as-is by syNK Studio. Questions: support@synkstudio.dev