To add birth control to the Flo app, tap your avatar in the top left corner to open the Menu, then go to Reminders, select Medication and contraception, choose your method, toggle it on, and hit Save. The whole process takes about 30 seconds once you know where to look.
Setting Up Birth Control Reminders
Here’s the full path: tap your profile avatar in the top left corner of the main screen to open the Menu. From there, select Reminders, then Medication and contraception. You’ll see a list of contraceptive types to choose from. Pick the one you use, switch the toggle on, make any edits (like the time of day you want to be reminded), and tap Save.
Flo supports tracking for several hormonal methods, including the combined pill, progestin-only pill, contraceptive patch, vaginal ring, hormonal IUD, implant, and injection. The reminder settings will adjust based on which method you select, since a daily pill reminder looks very different from an injection you get every few months.
Logging That You’ve Taken Your Pill
Once reminders are enabled, you can log each dose directly from the home screen. Tap the “+” button on the main screen, select Oral contraceptives (OC), then choose “Taken on time” and tap Apply. If you forgot to log yesterday’s pill, you can follow the same steps to record it retroactively.
If you’re on the pill and decide to skip your placebo break (continuing straight into the next pack), go back to Menu, then Reminders, then Medication and contraception, and update your intake start date. This keeps Flo’s notifications aligned with your actual schedule so you don’t get reminders on the wrong days.
How Birth Control Changes Your Predictions
Adding hormonal contraception to Flo automatically removes your fertile window and ovulation predictions. This is intentional: hormonal birth control suppresses ovulation, so those predictions would be inaccurate while you’re on it. Your period tracking and cycle length estimates will still work, but the app won’t display a fertility window.
If you stop using hormonal birth control later, or if you activated the contraception reminder by mistake, you can turn it off by going to Menu, then Reminders, then Contraception, and toggling it off. Your ovulation predictions will come back once the reminder is disabled. You can also re-enable the “chance of getting pregnant” display under Menu, then Cycle and ovulation.
If You Can’t Find the Option
The most common reason the birth control option seems hidden is that you’re looking in the wrong menu. It’s not under cycle settings or health logging. It lives specifically under Reminders, then Medication and contraception. Make sure you’re tapping your avatar (the small profile icon in the top left corner of the screen), not a different menu button.
If you’ve set your app goal to “get pregnant” or “track pregnancy,” the contraception options may not appear since the app tailors its features to your stated goal. You can change this by going to Menu, then My goal, and selecting the appropriate option.
Syncing With Apple Health
Flo can sync certain health data with Apple’s Health app on iOS. To enable it, go to Menu, tap App settings, select “The Health app,” and turn on “Connect to the Health app.” Then on your iPhone, go to Settings, Privacy & Security, Health, Flo, and choose which data points to share. Keep in mind that the sync is limited: some data flows only one direction. For example, menstruation data logged in Flo won’t transfer to the Health app, though data from the Health app can be imported into Flo.
Privacy for Contraception Data
If you’re concerned about who can see your birth control data, Flo offers an Anonymous Mode that strips personal identifiers from your account. When you activate it, Flo creates a separate account that carries over your health data (cycle dates, symptoms, reminders, and your usage goal) but drops your email address, IP address, and other identifying information. Your logged contraception reminders transfer to the anonymous account, but they’re no longer tied to anything that identifies you personally.