Grieving and Feeling Alone? These Apps Offer Real Support

If you’re here because you’re struggling right now:
You don’t need to read this all at once or choose the “perfect” app. Many people find comfort by starting with just one small tool - a place to write, breathe, or feel a little less alone for a few minutes.

Grief doesn’t check for software updates. In the messy, non-linear experience of loss, the idea of finding comfort in an app can feel strange, even absurd. And yet, in our hardest moments, our phones are often the one thing within reach. When used gently, the right digital tool doesn’t try to fix what can’t be fixed - it simply offers a safe place to sit with what hurts.

The challenge is that searching for “grief support” in an app store can feel overwhelming. You’re met with everything from clinical therapy platforms to well-meaning but empty digital notebooks. Instead of feeling supported, many people feel even more alone.

We believe a grief app’s value isn’t in how many features it offers, but in its philosophy. Does it respect emotional safety? Is it grounded in real therapeutic insight? Does it allow flexibility instead of forcing a rigid healing path?

Below, we’ve grouped these apps by the kind of support they offer, so you can go straight to what feels most helpful right now.

Quick Picks by Need
Here are a few places you can start, based on what you need most right now:

• For sleepless nights or anxiety → Calm
  Gentle breathing exercises, sleep stories, and guided sessions that can help settle your body when grief makes rest difficult.

• For writing through grief → Grief Works
  Structured journaling prompts and reflections designed to help you process loss at your own pace.

• For community and shared understanding → Untangle
  A moderated space to connect with others who are grieving, share experiences, and feel less alone.

• For young adults navigating loss → A Part Of Me
  Tools and peer support created specifically for younger people coping with grief and major life changes.

• For children navigating loss → Chill Panda
  Set on a beautiful island near the sea, Chill Panda teaches children to relax, understand their worries and improve their wellbeing.

(You’ll find fuller descriptions of each app below.)

How We Evaluated These Grief Apps

We looked at many grief support apps and found that the most helpful ones share a few key qualities. We used the following criteria to guide our selections:

1. A Safe and Supportive Feel

The app uses kind, understanding language and avoids judgment or forced positivity.

2. Simple and Easy to Use

Grief can make it hard to focus. The app should be calm, clear, and easy to navigate.

3. Tools Backed by Expertise

We prioritized apps that use approaches recommended by grief therapists or mental health professionals.

4. Options You Can Adjust

The best apps allow you to tailor the experience based on your loss, timing, and daily needs.

5. Strong Privacy Protection

We favoured apps that are transparent about data use and protect personal, sensitive information.

6. Real Community Support

When community is offered, it should be moderated and respectful, whether peer-led or professionally supported.

Journaling: Writing Through the Grief

When you're grieving, it can be hard to talk about your feelings. Writing in a journal can be a private way to process complex emotions and remember your loved one.

These apps provide a dedicated space for you to write, whether you want to use them every day, only occasionally, or during sleepless nights.

Grief Works

• Summary: Based on the bestselling book Grief Works by Julia Samuel, this app blends therapeutic journaling with guided audio sessions, coping strategies and check-ins tailored to the user’s loss.

• Standout Feature: “Ask Julia” tool offers real-time advice based on hundreds of questions people ask during grief.

• Download: iOS | Android

Moodnotes

• Summary: even though moodnotes is not designed solely for grief, it helps users explore patterns in their thinking and reflect on difficult emotions using prompts inspired by CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).

• Standout Feature: Smart mood tracking with insights over time that is ideal for those going through the emotional rollercoaster of grief.

• Download: iOS |Android

Gratitude

• Summary: This app encourages gentle reflection through daily gratitude journaling. I feel like this is important in how it helps balance moments of sorrow with small sparks of light.

• Standout Feature: Beautiful interface and customisable prompts for when you don’t know what to say.

• Download: iOS | Android

Memorial: Honouring the Ones We’ve Lost

After a death, comes a funeral then the reality of loss. Finding ways to remember and celebrate a loved one’s life can be an important part of the healing process.

Memorial apps provide a dedicated space to create a lasting tribute. They can help you preserve memories through photos, stories, and shared moments, offering a place to visit and reflect whenever you need to.

Family Search Memorials

• Summary: Operated by the non-profit Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, FamilySearch is one of the world's largest free genealogy and family history platforms. While not exclusively a grief app, it offers powerful, unique tools for remembering and honouring those who have passed by helping you connect them to your broader family story.

  Standout Feature: Its massive, free-to-search historical records database allows you to build a multi-generational family tree. For someone in grief, this can be a profoundly meaningful way to honor a loved one by preserving their legacy, discovering their story, and seeing their place in your family's history. It turns remembrance into an act of discovery.

  Best For: Anyone who finds comfort in legacy, history, and connecting their loved one's memory to a larger family narrative.

  Download: Web-based | iOS | Android

Find A Grave

• Summary: Find a Grave is a extensive crowdsourced database of burial records and cemeteries from around the world run by Ancestry. Its mobile app allows users to access this vast repository of memorials from anywhere. For those in grief, it serves as a practical tool for locating a loved one's final resting place, viewing their memorial page, and, if desired, contributing to the historical record by creating new memorials or adding photos.

  Standout Feature: Its massive, user-contributed database. With over 210 million memorials, it is one of the most comprehensive free resources for finding gravesites. The ability to virtually "visit" a loved one's memorial from anywhere in the world, and to see photos of their headstone contributed by a global community of volunteers, provides a unique form of connection and closure.

  Best For: Individuals seeking to locate a gravesite, view a headstone photo, or create a durable, public online memorial that contributes to a larger historical archive.

  Download: iOS | Android

Keeper Memorials

• Summary: Keeper is a digital memorial platform that allows users to create online tributes complete with stories, photos and GPS-linked cemetery mapping.

• Standout Feature: Collaborative tributes where friends and family can contribute to one shared page, creating a fuller picture of a life well-lived.

• Download: Web-based only

Looking for physical keepsakes to honour your loved one? Explore our guide to meaningful memorial keepsakes.

Community: Finding Comfort in Shared Experience

Grief can feel like an island, choking and isolating you from the rest of the world especially when no one else around you understands what you are really going through. But connection (even digital) can remind us that we’re not alone. These apps offer moderated spaces, support groups and storytelling features where people can share experiences, ask for help and listen without judgment.

Actively Moving Forward by HealGrief

• Summary: Actively Moving Forward (AMF) is a national non-profit program and app specifically designed to support grieving young adults. It addresses the unique isolation felt during young adulthood by providing a dedicated network for peer support, both on college campuses and digitally. The program empowers members to honour their loved ones by connecting with others and "actively moving forward" together.

• Standout Feature: Its specialised focus on creating community for grieving young adults (typically ages 18-30), an often underserved group. The app facilitates connections with peers at a similar life stage who truly understand the experience, significantly reducing feelings of isolation through both local campus chapters and a national digital support network.

• Best For: College students and young adults who are grieving and seeking connection with peers their own age. It is ideal for those who feel isolated from friends and would benefit from a community built on shared experience and mutual understanding.

• Download: iOS | Android | Instagram

Untangle

• Summary: Untangle Grief is a comprehensive platform built specifically for those navigating loss. It recognizes that grief impacts every part of life and offers a multi-faceted approach to support. The app combines a moderated peer community with expert-led resources, a therapist-matching service, and practical workshops, moving beyond simple mood tracking to address emotional, psychological, and practical needs in one integrated space.

• Standout Feature: Its unique, holistic ecosystem. Unlike many apps that specialize in one area (like journaling or meditation). Untangle provides a structured path through grief's complexity. You can share experiences with those who truly understand in a safe community, access content from grief experts to make sense of your emotions, be matched with a specialized therapist, and attend workshops on practical challenges like financial planning or sleep. This all-in-one approach makes it a powerful tool for profound and practical support.

• Best For: Individuals who feel overwhelmed by grief's many facets and are seeking a single, robust resource that offers genuine human connection, expert insight, and tangible tools for managing both the emotional and real-world challenges of loss.

• Download: iOS | Android

Circles

• Summary: Circles is a platform that provides access to real-time, professionally facilitated support groups via video. While not exclusively for grief, it offers dedicated groups for various types of loss, including bereavement, pet loss, and anticipatory grief. It connects users with others who share a similar experience in a structured, safe, and confidential setting.

  Standout Feature: Live, video-based support groups moderated by trained facilitators. This model provides the immediacy and connection of real human interaction from the comfort of your home. The facilitator ensures the conversation remains respectful, supportive, and productive, which is a significant advantage over unmoderated online forums.

  Best For: Those who crave real-time, face-to-face connection with a small group of people who truly understand their specific type of loss, and who benefit from the structure and safety provided by a trained guide.

• Download: iOS | Android

Sleep And Relaxation

Grief has been known to disrupt sleep and nervous systems. The never ending racing thoughts or the simple ache of absence can make nights and days unbearable. These apps offers sleep stories, meditations and sounds crafted to soothe the nervous system and help mourners find moments of peace.

Calm

• Summary: Calm is a leading wellness app focused on reducing anxiety, improving sleep, and promoting mindfulness. It hosts a variety of resources that can be valuable for grieving users. This includes guided meditations for processing difficult emotions, sleep stories to ease restlessness, and music soundscapes designed for relaxation.

• Standout Feature for Grief: Its extensive library of sleep content and expert-led meditations addressing themes of loss and sadness. To find this content, open the app and use the search bar with terms like "grief," "sadness," or "loss." This will pull up relevant sleep stories, music, and meditations. This makes it a powerful tool for managing the anxiety and insomnia that often accompany grief.

• Best For: Grievers who struggle with anxiety, insomnia, or a restless mind, especially at bedtime. It's ideal for those who find solace in audio-based guidance.

• Download: iOS | Android

Chill Panda

• Summary: Chill Panda is a therapeutic app designed to help children navigate anxiety, stress, and grief in a playful, age-appropriate way. By combining heart rate monitoring with mood-based guidance, the app teaches kids how emotions affect their body and provides interactive activities to cope. Through breathing exercises, yoga, calming games, and gentle prompts, Chill Panda offers a safe and supportive environment for young children processing loss or difficult emotions.

  Standout Feature: Children can press their finger on the phone camera to track their heart rate and report how they feel. The app then recommends tailored activities that help reduce anxiety and improve well-being. Watching their mood improve alongside the friendly panda makes this a unique form of interactive grief support for kids.

  Best For: Parents, caregivers, and therapists looking for an engaging, gentle tool to help children understand and manage grief, stress, or big life changes.

• Download: iOS | Nintendo Switch

Additional Resources Worth Knowing:

While the apps above cover core needs, these platforms offer specialised support.

DayNew

DayNew is a grief support platform created by two widows who understood that loss brings both emotional pain and practical overwhelm. The app blends task management, emotional reflection, and community connection.

• Key Features:

• Organize Tasks: Personalised checklists for bills, insurance, and legal follow-ups.

• Process Emotions: Journaling prompts, goal setting, and access to expert content.

• Find Community: Buddy system, community journals, and group retreats for connection and support.

• Standout: Combines emotional healing with practical guidance, helping users manage both the heartache and the responsibilities of grief.

• Best For: Anyone facing the dual challenge of mourning while handling financial, legal, and household tasks.

• Download: Web-based | iOS | Android

Apart of Me: A Safe Space for Young People

Apart of Me is a UK-based charity that creates free therapeutic apps and games co-designed with bereaved children and teens. The platform provides a safe, interactive space for children and young people coping with loss to explore their feelings, practice mindfulness, and connect with peers. Through engaging storytelling and guided activities, the apps help turn grief into resilience and compassion.

• Key Features:

• Apart of Me (App): A game where you explore a peaceful island, meet supportive characters, hear stories from other young people, and practice mindfulness.

• Nadiya (App): A parent-and-child app that helps families process trauma together through guided activities, reflective prompts, and connection exercises.

• Guide Me (Programme): A peer mentoring initiative that trains bereaved young people to support others in schools and communities.

• Standout: Combines therapeutic techniques with a calm, game-like environment, offering digital support for children and teens dealing with loss. It’s designed for both private reflection and family or peer connection.

• Best For: Children, teens, and families looking for approachable, safe, and creative ways to understand grief and feel less alone.

• Download:

  • Apart of Me – iOS | Android

  • Nadiya – iOS | Android

Need More Support?

While no app can replace human connection or take away the ache of loss, the right grief support app can offer meaningful companionship and practical tools when you need it most. These digital resources can help you feel less alone on your grief journey through features like:

• Guided journaling to process thoughts and emotions

• Meditation and mindfulness exercises for emotional regulation

• Daily check-ins to track your healing over time

• Educational content about grief stages and coping strategies

• Community forums to connect with others who understand

Just as digital safety tools like Facebook Safety Check help families confirm loved ones are safe during disasters, grief apps provide ongoing support and connection during life's most difficult transitions.

It's important to remember that apps may not be suitable for everyone. If your grief is accompanied by severe depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, or self-harm behaviours, please seek specialised professional support. Similarly, if you're not comfortable with technology or if an app doesn't reflect your cultural or religious context, it may not be the right fit for you.

And if you are considering professional guidance, knowing how to choose a counselor who truly fits can make all the difference.