Free Mental Health Apps That Are Actually Free

You know the routine. Things have been heavy for a while, you finally work up the energy to do something about it, you search the app store, you download something promising. Then you open it, tap past a welcome screen, and hit a wall: Start your 7-day free trial. $69.99 per year.

For a lot of people that is where the effort ends. Not because they were not serious, but because a paywall at the exact moment you reached out is a discouraging thing.

So here is a short list of mental health apps that are genuinely free. Not free-to-start. Not free with a locked section you keep bumping into. Free, with nothing to buy inside them at all.

Quick comparison

Why these particular apps are likely to stay free

This is the part that matters more than any single recommendation. Plenty of apps launch free and add a subscription two years later, once enough people depend on them. It is a predictable business move, and it is exactly why a list like this can rot.

So the apps below were not chosen only because they are free today. They were chosen because of who built them and how they are funded. A federal health agency, a state mental health authority, a public university, and a long-running non-profit have no investors expecting a return and no growth targets tied to conversions. There is no one in the building whose job is to figure out what to put behind a paywall next quarter. That is a structural reason to expect these to still be free in a few years, not just a hopeful one.

The apps

• PTSD Coach (iOS and Android). From the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Self-assessment, symptom tracking, and guided exercises for grounding, breathing, and muscle relaxation, plus a plain-language library about trauma. You do not have to be a veteran to use it.
• Mindfulness Coach (iOS and Android). Also from the VA. A structured, self-paced mindfulness course that starts at genuinely beginner level and builds toward body scans and loving-kindness practice. Works offline.
• CBT-i Coach (iOS and Android). The VA’s sleep app, built around cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which every major guideline recommends as the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia. Sleep diary, stimulus control tools, and progress charts. No signup required.
• Smiling Mind (iOS and Android). From an Australian non-profit that has kept the app free for more than a decade, funded by philanthropy rather than subscriptions. Hundreds of guided practices sorted by age group and by goal, including sleep, focus, and stress.
• MY3 (iOS and Android). A suicide safety planning tool. You list your warning signs, your coping steps, and up to three people you would contact, so that the plan already exists before the moment you need it. Built with the California Mental Health Services Authority.
• Self-help App for the Mind (SAM) (iOS and Android). A free anxiety toolkit from the University of the West of England, with mindfulness audio, guided self-help, and a private journal. One caution: the developers paused downloads in mid-2026 while sorting out a hosting issue, so it may or may not be available when you look.

The part nobody mentions: where your data goes

Free does not always mean free. Some apps cost nothing because you are not the customer.

A study in JAMA Network Open examined 36 top-ranked apps for depression and smoking cessation. Twenty-nine of them transmitted data to Facebook or Google services, but only twelve accurately disclosed it in a privacy policy. For a category of app where the data is your mood, your sleep, and your suicidal thoughts, that gap matters a great deal.

This is a second quiet argument for the apps above. The VA states plainly that its apps send no identifying data to the VA or to third parties, and that what you type stays on your device. If you take nothing else from this post, take this habit:

• Check who built it. A health agency, a public university, or a non-profit has different incentives than a venture-funded startup.
• See whether it requires an account. An app that works without a login usually is not building a profile on you.
• Look for offline mode. If it works in airplane mode, your entries are staying put.
• Skim the data safety section on the store page before installing, not after.

What an app can and cannot do

These tools are real. Sleep diaries, thought records, safety plans, and paced breathing are the same skills taught in therapy, and practicing them between visits is part of how people get better faster. If cost or a waitlist is standing between you and care, starting here is far better than starting nowhere.

But it is worth being straight about the limits. An app cannot diagnose you. It cannot tell whether what looks like depression is a thyroid problem, a medication side effect, ADHD, or bipolar disorder, and that distinction changes the entire treatment plan. It cannot prescribe, adjust a dose, or notice that you have gone quiet for three weeks.

If you are in crisis, an app is not the right tool. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, free, any hour of any day. If there is immediate danger to life, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department.

And if you have been using these tools and still feel stuck, that is not a personal failure. It usually means the problem needs a level of help that a phone cannot provide. That is worth a conversation with a prescriber rather than another download.