Practicing mindfulness can help you feel calmer and reduce stress, so it’s no wonder that over 2,500 meditation apps have been released since 2015. Whatever you want to learn or do, there’s a meditation app for it — and some of them are free! Here are some of the best free meditation apps to check out before you shell out for an app you might not stick with (but probably will).
Choosing a meditation app
There are many different meditation apps out there: some offer a simple, hassle-free meditation timer with a gentle bell sound, others offer guided meditation series based on your mood, health concerns, or other wellness goals, some offer walking meditations, acupressure lessons, mindfulness education, and more, all of these options.
You may feel overwhelmed with the number of options to consider, especially if you’re just getting started with at-home meditation. One easy way to narrow down your search is to consider your budget.
Yes, it’s certainly possible to pay a reasonable fee for an app with a few more features, or you could try out one of the great meditation apps available for free download (Calm and Headspace are just two of the most highly-rated examples), even if they offer a limited number of free basic meditations or a free trial before encouraging you to upgrade to a premium membership.
But why not start your mental health journey with a completely free meditation app? It’s the best way to easily try everything from meditation basics to mindfulness-based breathing techniques, from guided sessions to emotional check-ins. No one should have to pay slowly increasing subscription fees again. Meditation apps should help you reduce stress, not increase it!
Insight Timer
With this meditation app, free really does mean free. Insight Timer offers a vast collection of over 100,000 guided meditations with no subscription or membership required. Some of the meditation sessions are led by meditation-loving celebrities like Gisele Bundchen and Zen masters like Thich Nhat Hanh.
The app also has features like meditation music and a free meditation timer that lets you practice without background noise and a gentle end bell. (Optional premium membership starts at $5 per month and includes offline listening, meditation courses, and other features.)
Mindfulness Coach
This completely free mindfulness app was created by the VA National PTSD Center to teach mindfulness to veterans, military personnel, and the general public. Mindfulness Coach is a great educational resource for anyone who wants to learn about and embrace mindfulness as a healthy coping strategy and lifelong skill. Follow guided audio meditations, set goals, track your progress, and learn more about the history and benefits of this spiritual practice.
Smiling Heart
Smiling Mind is a non-profit, evidence-based mindfulness app with 300+ free meditations and mindfulness programs for adults and kids. Their mission is simple: to provide accessible, lifelong tools to support healthy minds at school, home and work.
Within the app, you can explore research-backed mindfulness programs by category (for the workplace, the whole family, adults, etc.) or topic (attention and focus, sleep, stress, relationships). Smiling Mind is very beginner-friendly, allowing you to start from scratch while learning about what mindfulness means, how it works, the research behind it, and an introductory meditation session.
UCLA Mindful
The UCLA Mindful app comes from UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center. With this app, you can get the best of research-based mindfulness meditation for free. UCLA Mindful makes it easy to try mindfulness with basic meditations for beginners, helpful videos on how to meditate (learn the correct posture and understand the science behind it), a simple timer to practice on your own, and guided wellness meditations to help you work through personal challenges, from chronic pain to stress management.
Healthy Heart Program
The Healthy Minds Program app is the brainchild of Healthy Minds Innovations (HMI), a science-based nonprofit in partnership with the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and became donation-based and free for all users in 2020. Through podcast-style lessons and guided meditations, the free app turns neuroscience into an everyday tool to train the mind to unlock four pillars of well-being, awareness, insight, connection and purpose, based on decades of research by HMI.
