Last updated: October 28, 2026
Need help with Next Step? Email us at [email protected]. We read every message.
Next Step isn't an emergency service, and it isn't medical advice or treatment. Our inbox and in-app messages aren't watched around the clock. If you're in danger or need urgent medical help, call your local emergency number now: 911 in the US and Canada, 999 in the UK, or 000 in Australia. You can also go to your nearest emergency department.
These are the helplines listed in the app. They're there to listen and support you; for a medical emergency, call your emergency number. Some are open at set hours, so check the line's website for its hours.
In the app: tap SOS at the top of the main screens. The emergency numbers (911, 999 and 000) are at the top. For helplines, tap 24/7 Helplines. The list opens on your phone's country or region if the app has lines for it, and otherwise shows every country's lines. If you choose another country, the app remembers it on that phone. The Call and Text buttons open your phone's own phone and messages apps. On a tablet or iPad, or if a call or text doesn't start, the app shows the number to use from another phone and, for a helpline, its website.
Write to [email protected] about:
If it's about your account, email us from the address you signed up with, and we'll reply to that address to check it's really you before changing anything. If your account's email address was never confirmed, we can still delete your account or correct your details (other than your email address) once you've replied from that address. We can't send you a copy of your data, reset your password or change your email address for you until it's confirmed. To confirm it, sign in and enter the code (see Confirming your email address), then write to us again for a copy. Once it's confirmed, you can reset a forgotten password yourself (see Forgotten your password). While you're signed in, you can change your email address yourself in Profile. We'll never ask for your password or your two-factor codes, so please don't send them.
In the app, Help is the question-mark button next to SOS. During a check-in, or at the very largest text sizes, Help can be hidden on some screens when there isn't room for it. Settings is the gear button on Home.
We only send a reset link to an email address you've confirmed (see Confirming your email address). If you're still signed in on a phone or in the clinician portal, check your Profile before you sign out. In the app, open Settings, then Cloud Backup, then Profile. It shows ✓ Email verified when your address is confirmed. If it asks you to confirm your email instead, do that first. Signing out signs you out on every device, including the clinician portal, and you can only confirm while you're signed in. While your address isn't confirmed, Sign Out warns you first, in the app and in the clinician portal, and offers Confirm Email.
If your address was never confirmed, you get an email called "About your password reset request — Next Step" instead, with no link. It explains how to confirm your address in the app or the clinician portal where you're still signed in. Then ask for a reset again. If you aren't signed in anywhere, we can't currently reset the password of an account whose email address was never confirmed. An email from that address doesn't show the account is yours, and a reset would give the account to whoever holds that mailbox. Deleting the account gives no one your data, so we can still delete it if you ask from its address (see Delete your account). The data on your phone isn't affected.
The app shows the same message whether or not an account exists for that address, and whether or not the address is confirmed. If nothing arrives, check your spam folder. Resetting your password signs you out on every device, so sign in again on each phone.
When you create a Cloud Backup account, we email you a code in an email called "Your confirmation code — Next Step". If you change your email address later, the new address starts unconfirmed and gets a code of its own. Your account works without confirming, but we only send a password reset link to a confirmed address.
To confirm your address, enter the code while you're signed in to your account:
While your address isn't confirmed, the app also asks for the code each time you sign in to Cloud Backup, on a "Confirm your email" step. Tap Not now to skip it. Right after you create an account, it shows the address we sent the code to, so you can spot a typo. If it's wrong, tap Not now, then Profile, and change your email address there before you sign out. Changing it asks for your password, and we email a code to the new address. If you sign out before confirming, you can still confirm by signing in again, as long as you know your password.
If you don't have a code, for example because you made your account before our October 2026 update, or your code is more than a day old, choose Send a new code first and use the code from that email. Type the code and choose Confirm. A code expires after 24 hours, and a new code replaces any earlier one. A code only works in the account it was sent for, and only for the address it was sent to.
Opening a link from a confirmation email sent before our October 2026 update doesn't confirm anything now. An address you already confirmed that way stays confirmed: Profile shows ✓ Email verified.
Two-factor authentication is optional. To turn it on, open Cloud Backup and tap Set Up Two-Factor Authentication, then scan the QR code with an authenticator app or enter the key by hand. Keep a copy of that key somewhere safe.
There's currently no built-in way back into your account if you lose your authenticator. The data on your phone isn't affected. If this happens, email us.
If you see "Please update Next Step to the latest version to keep using Cloud Backup", update the app. If you see "Next Step is briefly down for maintenance", try again later.
With Cloud Backup: install Next Step, open Settings, then Cloud Backup, then I already have an account. Sign in (if it asks you to confirm your email, enter the code or tap Not now; see Confirming your email address) and tap Sync Now. Photos that reached Cloud Backup show on the new phone while you're signed in. You don't need a photo ZIP to move them, but it's still worth keeping one (see Photos).
Without Cloud Backup: restore an encrypted backup file you exported (see Backup files). Photos aren't inside backup files. If you also saved a photo ZIP, restore it after the backup file (see Photos).
Your meal and snack times, with the days each one repeats on and its nourishment bridge setting, and your check-in questions come back from Cloud Backup on a new phone. That includes changes you made to the app's starting meal and snack times, if you sign in on the new phone before you change its meal schedule. A starting time you deleted comes back in Recently Deleted. Affirmations you save to a meal in the Affirmations game come back too. They're only for you: clinicians never see them. Changes you made before our October 2026 update (to the starting times, days, bridge settings or affirmations) reach Cloud Backup when the phone you made them on syncs with the updated app. If another phone, such as a new one, syncs first, Cloud Backup can keep that phone's version of a meal or snack time instead. So update Next Step on your old phone and tap Sync Now there before you sign in on the new phone. If your old phone never synced with the updated app, for example because it's lost or broken, check your meal schedule on the new phone in Settings, under Meal schedule. Changes you made on the old phone before the update, such as the days or the nourishment bridge setting, may not have been backed up.
If you use Next Step on more than one phone, update it on all of them. A change to a meal or snack time then reaches your other phones the next time they sync (after a change there, or when you tap Sync Now), and the most recent change wins. "Most recent" goes by each phone's own clock, so two changes made close together on different phones can go either way. A change made on a phone that hasn't been updated yet doesn't reach your updated phones, and it's lost if an updated phone has changed that time. If two phones still show different versions of a time, change it on one of them, and that version reaches the others.
Known issues: a starting time that has been permanently removed (with Delete Forever or Empty Trash, or about 30 days after you deleted it) comes back on a new phone as the app first set it up, and changes to it there may not be backed up. Delete it again if you don't need it. Deleting a meal or snack time on one phone doesn't delete it on another phone that has it. That phone keeps it, and can put it back in Cloud Backup the next time its meal schedule changes, so delete it on each phone. Some check-ins backed up before our October 2026 update show on a new phone under their meal type, not the name of their meal or snack time. A very large first sync can fail; if it does, tap Sync Now again, and email us if it keeps happening.
This screen means the app couldn't open its data on your phone. Your data hasn't been deleted.
That button only appears when an update fails while the app is opening. It shows when the copy was saved (just before the app last tried the update) and asks you to confirm. Restoring puts that copy back, so anything saved on this phone after that time is removed. If the app still can't open afterwards, tap Undo the restore to put your data back as it was. If you use Cloud Backup, your next sync brings back what had already been backed up. If you have a backup file that's newer than that copy, importing it after a restore also brings the newer items back. If crash reporting is off, we only find out about this problem if you tell us.
Turn reminders on in Settings, under Check-in Reminders. They're scheduled on your phone, nothing is sent from a server, and they're off until you turn them on. By default a reminder only says "A check-in is ready when you are."; showing the check-in's name is your choice.
If a reminder doesn't arrive, check that:
The app schedules up to 60 reminders at a time and tells you if some were left out. Erasing the app's data cancels all reminders.
To export: open the Backup tab, go to Manual Backup (Advanced), enter a passphrase of at least 6 characters, tap Export Encrypted Backup, then Download Backup File and save it somewhere safe. The file is encrypted on your phone. We never see your passphrase and can't recover it: if you lose it, the file can't be opened.
To restore: tap Upload Backup File (or paste the backup text), enter the passphrase and tap Decrypt & Restore. Restoring merges the file with what's on your phone, keeping the newest version of each item. It doesn't remove anything you added or changed. If one of the app's starting meal or snack times is still as the app set it up, the file's version replaces it, or moves it to the app's trash (Recently Deleted) if it was deleted in the file. If a clinician's check-in questions, or questions you changed more recently, are in use, the file's questions are added switched off. If your settings on the phone are still as the app first set them up, for example on a new phone or after you erase the app's data, the file's settings replace them, however old the file is. If your check-in reminders come back switched on, open Settings and look under Check-in Reminders: if it asks, allow Next Step to send notifications on this phone (see Check-in reminders).
Backup files don't include photos (see Photos). Restoring a file keeps your crash-reporting choice. The art styles' Decoration and Plain text options aren't in backup files.
To save your photos: on the Backup tab, tap Download All Photos (ZIP) and save the ZIP somewhere private. If you're moving to a new phone, save it somewhere you'll be able to open on that phone. The ZIP isn't encrypted, so anyone who opens it can see your photos. It also has a list of the photos, next-step-photos.json, that matches each photo to its check-in by an ID. Each ID includes the time its check-in was started, or the time you logged a past meal.
To restore photos from a ZIP:
When it's done, the app shows how many photos it restored, how many were already on the phone, how many no check-in on the phone uses, and how many it couldn't read.
Things to know:
If you use Cloud Backup, a restored photo is uploaded only if your account doesn't already have that photo of the check-in. If it does, the photo in your account is kept, since it may be newer. This phone keeps showing the photo from the ZIP. Your clinicians see the one in your account. The app deletes its own copy of the ZIP when a restore ends. Where you keep the ZIP is up to you.
You need a Cloud Backup account. Then, in the Care Team tab, either:
You choose what each clinician can see. Meals & Photos is set to View by default, and so is Questionnaires; Challenges, Goals and Templates are set to None. Only you can change these. To change the defaults for new connections, open Settings, then Clinician Access Defaults (Questionnaires always starts at View).
Revoke Access in Care Team removes a clinician's access straight away. It also hides your message history with them, for both of you. Reconnecting needs their approval again. If you reconnect, your earlier messages and the access you'd set for them come back; the defaults for new connections don't apply.
Messages don't send notifications: new ones appear when the app or portal is open. Please don't use messages in an emergency.
Delete chat, in a conversation, removes its messages from your side only, on all your devices. The other person keeps their copy. If a clinician deletes their account, you keep your conversation with them, to read only, under "Chats with a former clinician" in Care Team; deleting one of those chats removes it for good.
We don't check clinicians' identities, licences or credentials, so only connect with someone you know.
Clinicians: create your account in the Next Step app, then sign in to the clinician portal with the same email address and password.
You can revoke a clinician's access at any time in Care Team. They lose access to your data straight away. Then email us at [email protected] with "Concern" in the subject line and tell us what happened. We read every report, and we may close accounts that break our Terms of Service.
You can delete your Cloud Backup account in the app, or by email if you can't use the app. See Delete your account for the steps, and for what's deleted and what's kept. To erase what's on your phone, open Settings, go to Data and tap Erase All Data on This Device. Erasing puts your settings back to their defaults, but keeps your crash-reporting choice.
You can ask for a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion, withdraw consent, or appeal a decision we've made. Email [email protected] from the address on your account; you don't need an account to ask. We'll check the request came from you and respond within 45 days. We send a copy of your data only to a confirmed email address (see Contact us). See our Privacy Policy and Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy.
Please email [email protected] rather than support. Our security.txt has the details.