Runterdrücker — Support

What is Runterdrücker?

Runterdrücker is a low-pressure habit-building tool for iOS. You add things you'd like to do regularly — anything from "stretch" to "call a friend" to "water the plants" — and give each one a target interval. The app keeps a quiet, self-sorting list and surfaces what's ready when you have a moment. There are no reminders, no streaks, and nothing to fail at.

Do I need to log every time I do something on the list?

No — and please don't feel you have to. Runterdrücker is built around the idea that you check in when you have a moment and feel like it, not that you keep a complete record of your activities. Logging is there to help the list re-sort itself for you; it isn't feeding any database, score, or streak. There are no consequences to skipping presses, and nothing breaks if your log is incomplete. Quite the opposite: a forgiving, optional relationship with the app is the whole point.

And if you notice you do something on the list regularly but keep forgetting to log it — that's an excellent outcome, not a failure. It means the activity has become natural enough that you no longer need the app to surface it for you. At that point you have a choice: if seeing the item still costs you attention you'd rather spend elsewhere, removing it is a clean win; if you're happy to keep it around as a quiet reminder, leave it. Both are fine.

What does the name mean?

"Runterdrücker" is German and roughly translates to "something that pushes down". It refers to the core metaphor of the app: items behave a bit like pistons. They slowly rise over time, and pressing one pushes it back down. When something is ready, it rises into view; when you do it and tap to log it, it sinks away again.

How are items in the same zone sorted relative to each other?

Within a zone, items are sorted by how far along they are through that zone — by relative progress, not absolute time. A task that is one hour into a two-hour zone (50% through) is sorted ahead of a task that is one hour into a three-hour zone (33% through), even though both have spent the same wall-clock time in the zone. Ties are broken alphabetically by name so the order is stable.

Why do some items not have a button to log them?

Items that were pressed recently enough that they're not yet approaching their next ready window intentionally don't show a press button. The reason is more about psychology than data integrity. When the button is always right there, it's tempting to keep logging whichever item happens to be most salient in your mind, at the expense of other interesting but quieter options. You can use the hidden-button window to help let your attention move to other items when the occasion arises — or, if you think that's not useful for a particular item, configure it to become pressable sooner.

This is a default, not a rule — see the next question for how to opt an item out of it. The default tolerance values are a starting point; what works best for you is something to find through your own experimentation.

I want an item to be available all the time. Is that possible?

Yes. Set the item's earlier tolerance to a value greater than or equal to its target interval. The "ready" zone then begins immediately after a press, so the item stays pressable at all times. This is useful for things you want to be able to log at any moment without waiting for them to rise.

I accidentally logged something and the undo banner disappeared. Can I still undo?

Usually yes: shake your device. iOS will show a confirmation alert naming the task and the timestamp it would restore — tap to confirm, and the press is reverted. The undo banner at the bottom of the screen is just the most visible way to undo; the shake gesture works for the same window. Closing the app and doing something else is fine — undo survives that. The undo history is only lost if you actively quit the app from the multitasking switcher, or if iOS decides to soft-quit it in the background to free up resources.

One thing to note: undo lives only on the device where you made the press. If you press something on your iPhone and then pick up your iPad, the press itself will have synced via iCloud, but the iPad has no undo entry for it. Undo each press on the device that did it.

Why can I only undo the last press?

Undo is intentionally limited to the most recent press. This keeps the model simple and avoids turning the app into a history-management tool. In practice, the moments where you actually want to undo are almost always immediately after the press, so a single step is enough.

What if I accidentally logged the wrong thing — and I notice too late to undo?

Just wait. The item will sink down out of the way and then rise again on its normal schedule, and you can press it next time you actually do the thing. There's no harm done — the app is forgiving by design, and as question 2 notes, a perfectly accurate log isn't something the app wants from you in the first place.