The Best DBT Apps for Your Mental Wellness Toolkit

You’re standing in a grocery store, feeling that familiar wave of overwhelm cresting. You know there’s a DBT skill that could ground you right now, but your mind goes completely blank. Or maybe you're trying to explain a pattern to your therapist, but your crumpled paper diary card from last Tuesday is nowhere to be found. We’ve all been there. The real work of building a better life happens in these small, everyday moments, far from the therapy office.

What if you had a coach, a skill reference, and a diary all tucked neatly into your pocket? That’s the magic of a good DBT app. These digital tools don't just remind you of the skills; they help you practice them in the wild, track your progress without the hassle of pen and paper, and offer a lifeline when you need it most. They transform therapy from a weekly appointment into a daily practice, empowering you to navigate life's challenges with more grace and skill.

Core DBT Apps

These apps are your dedicated training ground, built from the ground up to teach, reinforce, and track essential DBT skills.

DBT Coach

Think of DBT Coach as a full-blown DBT course that lives on your phone. It’s one of the most complete tools out there, using fun video lessons, animations, and practical exercises to guide you through the skills. If you want a structured, all-in-one resource to truly integrate DBT into your life, this is it.

Key Features:

Engaging video lessons and animations for all four DBT modules.
Interactive exercises to put your skills into practice.
A digital diary card to track emotions, urges, and skill use.
A "favorites" section to quickly access your most-used skills.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Highly engaging content, comprehensive curriculum, available on both iOS and Android, fantastic user ratings.
Cons: You'll need a subscription to unlock its full potential.

Pricing: Free to download; premium subscription required for full access. Check the app store for current pricing.

DBT Travel Guide

If you're already in a DBT program, the DBT Travel Guide is the perfect pocket companion. It's less of a teacher and more of a brilliant cheat sheet, giving you a quick reference to over 200 skills and mindfulness exercises. It's the tool you'll pull up when you need to recall a specific skill on the fly.

Key Features:

A massive library of over 200 DBT skills and exercises.
Detailed explanations and helpful examples for each skill.
A dedicated crisis section for immediate support.
A collection of mindfulness exercises.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Extensive skills library, perfect for quick reference, includes a crisis survival section.
Cons: Better as a companion tool than for learning skills from scratch.

Pricing: Paid app. Check the app store for current pricing.

Simple DBT Skills Diary Card

This app is a beautiful example of doing one thing perfectly. It ditches all the bells and whistles to give you a clean, straightforward, and easy-to-use digital diary card. If your main goal is to track your skills, moods, and behaviors for yourself or your therapist, this is a fantastic, no-fuss choice.

Key Features:

A clean and simple diary card interface.
Effortlessly track skills, targets, emotions, and behaviors.
Allows you to email PDF summaries directly to your therapist.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Incredibly easy to use, focused on the core diary card function, therapist-friendly sharing.
Cons: Lacks skill-building lessons or any advanced features.

Pricing: Paid app. Check the app store for current pricing.

DBT Self-Help & Diary Card

An excellent Android-only option, this app blends skill-building lessons with a diary card. It’s designed to help you learn skills for managing intense emotions, breaking destructive cycles, and building healthier relationships, all while tracking your progress.

Key Features:

Clear lessons on core DBT skills.
An integrated diary card for daily tracking.
Tools for managing difficult emotions and behaviors.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: A great combination of lessons and tracking, with positive user reviews on Google Play.
Cons: Unfortunately, it's not available for iOS users.

Pricing: Free to download, may contain in-app purchases.

Dbt911

Built for those "in case of emergency, break glass" moments, Dbt911 was designed with input from DBT participants specifically for times of crisis. When you're feeling overwhelmed and need immediate help, this app provides fast access to distress tolerance skills to help you get through the storm.

Key Features:

A sharp focus on distress tolerance skills for crisis management.
Quick access to tutorials for all DBT modules.
A simple, easy-to-navigate interface for when you're stressed.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Excellent for in-the-moment crisis support, designed with real user needs in mind, very straightforward.
Cons: Only available on Android and is more of a crisis tool than a comprehensive learning app.

Pricing: Check the Google Play store for pricing.

Crisis & Urge Management Apps

These apps are specialized tools based on DBT principles, designed to help you navigate the most intense emotional waves and the urge to self-harm.

Calm Harm

Calm Harm is a widely celebrated app that provides a compassionate and practical alternative to self-harm. Based on DBT principles, it offers a wave of timed activities—categorized as 'Comfort', 'Distract', 'Express Yourself', and more—to help you ride out intense emotions safely until the urge passes.

Key Features:

A wide variety of timed distraction and coping tasks.
The ability to customize activities that work best for you.
Password protection for your privacy.
A simple, guided 'breathing' exercise tool.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Free, evidence-based, highly effective for its specific purpose, and loved by users.
Cons: It's tightly focused on self-harm urges and isn't a general DBT app.

Pricing: Free.

Mood & Symptom Tracking Apps

A huge part of DBT is becoming a detective of your own emotional world. These apps help you self-monitor by making it easy to track emotions, behaviors, and triggers.

Daylio Journal

While not a DBT app by name, Daylio is a superstar mood tracker that perfectly supports the practice of self-monitoring. Its brilliant, icon-based system lets you log your mood and daily activities in just a few seconds. Over time, it helps you connect the dots and discover what really impacts how you feel.

Key Features:

Quick and easy mood and activity logging—no typing required!
Fully customizable activities and moods to match your life.
In-depth stats and charts that reveal hidden patterns.
Goal setting and journaling options for deeper reflection.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Effortless to use, highly customizable, excellent for identifying emotional patterns, huge user base with stellar ratings.
Cons: It doesn't contain any DBT-specific lessons or skill content.

Pricing: Free with an optional premium subscription for advanced features.

Bearable

Bearable is for anyone who wants to see the whole picture. It’s a comprehensive health tracker that lets you log everything from your mood and symptoms to your sleep, medications, and energy levels. It's an incredibly powerful tool for understanding how all the different parts of your life affect your well-being, which is invaluable for your DBT work.

Key Features:

Track mood, symptoms, sleep, habits, diet, and much more.
Correlate different factors to see what helps or hurts your well-being.
Detailed insights and reports to share with your care team.
Customizable reminders to help you stay on track.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: A truly holistic view of your health, powerful insights, highly customizable, syncs with health data.
Cons: Might feel a bit complex if you're just looking for a simple mood tracker.

Pricing: Free with an optional premium subscription.

Mindfulness & Meditation Apps

Mindfulness is the foundation of DBT. These apps offer guided exercises to help you build this essential skill from the ground up.

Headspace: Meditation & Sleep

Headspace is one of the world's most beloved meditation apps for a reason. With a massive library of guided meditations, short mindfulness exercises, and soothing sleep content, its friendly, structured courses are perfect for building a consistent mindfulness practice.

Key Features:

Hundreds of guided meditations on topics like stress, focus, and anxiety.
Short "SOS" exercises for moments of panic or high stress.
Sleepcasts, music, and sounds designed to help you rest.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Exceptionally high-quality content, beautiful user-friendly design, extensive library, and great for beginners.
Cons: Most of the content requires a subscription.

Pricing: Limited free content; premium subscription required for full library access.

Buddhify: Guided Meditation

Buddhify's genius is its focus on "on-the-go" mindfulness. It offers guided meditations designed for whatever you're doing right now—whether you're on a work break, walking down the street, or trying to fall asleep. This approach is perfectly aligned with DBT's goal of weaving mindfulness into the fabric of your everyday life.

Key Features:

Over 200 meditations tailored for different parts of your day.
Content categorized by activity (e.g., walking, commuting, eating).
A solo meditation timer for unguided practice.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: A practical, real-world approach to mindfulness; often a one-time purchase.
Cons: Less structured for absolute beginners compared to apps like Headspace.

Pricing: Typically a one-time purchase. Check the app store for details.

Related Therapy Apps (CBT/ACT)

Therapies like CBT and ACT are cousins to DBT. Apps based on their principles can be fantastic complementary tools for your mental wellness journey.

What's Up? - A Mental Health App

This app is a hidden gem. It's a completely free resource that uses methods from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help with depression, anxiety, and stress. It's packed with useful tools, from grounding techniques to a habit tracker.

Key Features:

Tools to help you challenge and overcome negative thinking patterns.
Grounding techniques and breathing exercises for moments of anxiety.
A personal diary and a simple habit tracker.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Completely free, offers a wide range of genuinely useful tools, based on proven therapeutic methods.
Cons: The interface can feel a little dated compared to newer apps.

Pricing: Free.

Sanvello: Anxiety & Depression

Sanvello is a polished and comprehensive mental health app offering on-demand support. It uses principles from CBT and mindfulness to deliver guided journeys, coping tools, mood tracking, and peer support, making it a powerful ally in your wellness toolkit.

Key Features:

Daily mood tracking and assessments.
Guided "journeys" based on CBT to help you build new habits.
A collection of coping tools, meditations, and goal-tracking features.
Optional access to therapy and coaching through the app.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: A beautiful interface, a comprehensive set of features, and integration with some health plans.
Cons: The most powerful features are locked behind a subscription.

Pricing: Free version available; premium subscription for full access, which may be covered by your insurance.