Dear friends,
We are happy to announce that version 5.0 of the Plum Village App is available now via the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and via Google Play for Android phones and tablets. This is the first update of Plum Village App in 2026, and the first major update since version 4.0 in July last year.
In the new version 5.0 we introduce a new feature: Practice Reminders. To complement it, we have also revised the Meditations tab to help you quickly select a practice and track your practice.
Practice Reminders
The main new feature in this update is Practice Reminders. We built this feature for people who would like to meditate regularly but would like some support with establishing a regular practice. If you choose to enable reminders, you will receive daily reminder notifications at the time of your choice.
While other apps can be insistent about notifications, we have designed this feature to respect your choice and only activate reminders when you opt in. They are configurable and you can disable them at any time if you find they are not helpful for you or you no longer need them.
To get started, open the Settings menu (top left corner) and select Practice Reminders:
We designed the reminders based on the schedule of Plum Village retreats in France and at other practice centres. Typically on retreat, there is a sitting meditation early in the morning at 6am, and another sitting meditation in the evening at 8pm. So for the app we have started with this as the basis for reminders, but you can adjust them to your needs. For example, if 6am is a bit too early you could change Notification time to set up a reminder for later in the morning.
You can also create additional reminders, for example, if you would like to schedule practice for the middle of the day.
You can also select the days for the reminders. In Plum Village, one day a week is designated as Lazy Day, with no formal practice schedule. You may like to try this, or perhaps disable for the weekend, and you can do this by changing Notification days for your reminder:
When you set up a reminder, you can choose to receive either “Quote of the Day” or “Reflection” messages. The Reflection messages give gentle prompts inviting you to pause and notice the present moment. The Quote of the Day will show you the same daily wisdom that shows on the Home screen of the app. Whichever type of reminder you choose, if you tap on the notification you are taken to a screen of practice suggestions:
We hope you find this new Practice Reminders feature helpful. We welcome any suggestions to further improve this feature on our feedback board.
Practice Tracking
We have added another new feature to help support regular practice. The app now shows an indication of the days that you have practiced in the current week. This appears on the Meditations tab and also when you complete your first practice of the day:
If you choose to enable Practice Reminders this should be complementary, but even if not this feature can be helpful if you are looking to keep a regular practice.
We recognise however that some people may prefer not to be reminded of which days they have practiced. If this is you, then simply disable it via Settings > Activity > Show practice tracking.
Revised Meditations tab
The Meditations tab now includes practice tracking, a meditation timer button, and recently practiced meditations, to help you quickly find a meditation for your practice. You can still browse the full library of meditations below.
Search: filter by type
The Plum Village App content library consists of thousands of items, so we are improving the ways that you can find what you are looking for. On the Search tab, we now added an additional filter – “Type”. Using this filter you can narrow down your search results by content type, for example Teaching, Music & Songs, Meditation, Podcast, or Film.
Browse to collection
Sometimes when you navigate to a video, audio or text within the app, it may not be clear where it sits within the app. For example, this is the case for anything under “What’s new” on the Home screen.
Now, you can open the menu with the three dots (…) by the item, and use the Browse option to navigate to the folder it lives in:
You may find this helpful to find other similar items, or to better understand the context of what you are looking at.
Other improvements in v5.0
This update includes many other small improvements and bug fixes:
- Significant performance optimisations to the Meditation Timer, so that it will run more smoothly on slower devices, and reduce battery usage.
- Moved Activity Settings into the standard Settings menu to make it easier to find.
- Fixed a bug on iOS where Apple Health could appear to be disconnected after connecting.
Continuing the development of the Plum Village App
Our small team is working at an increased pace to extend and improve Plum Village App, with 3 major updates in the past 18 months. We continue to carefully improve its design and navigation, making it easier to use and more beneficial for more people, as well as adding features and content within the app. To help guide us in this process, we invite you to offer suggestions, comments, and votes on our public feedback board – there are already many ideas which we want to work on.
In order to sustain this increased pace, please consider offering a monthly donation to support the continued development of the app and the addition of new meditations, talks, and other resources. As has been the case with Buddhist teachings for millennia, the app is made freely available to all – but this is only possible because of many generous donors.
If you are enjoying the app but are not able to donate at this time, you can also support us by leaving a positive review on the App Store, Google Play, or TrustPilot.
You can also actively help our efforts by contributing subtitles in English or any other language.
If you experience any difficulties or bugs when using the app, please report these via our contact form; we will follow up by email to help.