Grinly · grinly.au

A smile a day, and a pause when you need one.

A colleague once promised to make someone smile at least once a day. Grinly keeps that promise in the app, and here, with jokes you won't find there, short reads you can also listen to, and a kind little letter on Sundays.

Today's joke

A small joke

Why did the lunchbox keep everything to itself?

Tap for the punchline

It was raised to keep a lid on things.

Link to this joke

Why Grinly is different

Most wellbeing apps are forgotten within a month.

Researchers followed 93 popular apps for anxiety, depression and wellbeing. A month after installing, a median of just 3.3% of people were still opening them.1 The good intentions are real. The apps just ask for more than a busy day can give.

So Grinly asks for almost nothing, and gives something you'd want anyway: a smile.

  • It comes to you

    One card a day, at the time you choose. Nothing to remember, no streak to keep.

  • Seconds, not sessions

    A joke takes five seconds. A pause takes one or two minutes, and you can stop whenever you like.

  • Made to enjoy

    Jokes, kind notes and little wonders first. Calm comes along for the ride, never as homework.

  • Never asks how you feel

    No mood scores, no check-ins, no account. Nothing leaves your phone.

1 Baumel A, Muench F, Edan S, Kane JM. Objective user engagement with mental health apps: systematic search and panel-based usage analysis. J Med Internet Res 2019;21(9):e14567. doi.org/10.2196/14567. Android apps with 10,000+ installs; 30-day retention, median across apps.

Right now

Got a minute? Take one.

Six slow breaths, about a minute. Follow the circle: in as it grows, out as it settles. Out a little longer than in, never holding. Stop whenever you like.

The app has fifteen of these for different kinds of day, from Under pressure to Big moment ahead.

Ready when you are.

Read & listen

Short reads for a lighter week

Everything →
Laughs

Three funny things

A one-week experiment from the University of Zurich, a notebook, and why the funny bits of your day are worth writing down.

Mind

The longer out-breath

Why every pause in Grinly breathes out for longer than it breathes in, and a one-minute version you can do at your desk.

Lifestyle

Why we made Grinly so small

Most wellbeing apps are opened for a week and forgotten. What the research says about why, and the design choices we made because of it.

In the app

Five kinds of smile, one a day

  • A small joke

    Behind a tap, so the punchline still lands.

  • A kind note

    Quiet effort still counts.

  • A little wonder

    A true fact, and its why.

  • A tiny dare

    Thirty seconds of something nice.

  • Another angle

    A lighter way to look at a heavy moment.

Grinly's home screen: a greeting above today's card, a tiny dare, and the Right now tiles below.
Today's card
A Wound up pause called Shoulders down: a large blue circle that reads Breathe in, 3 of 4, with a Skip button.
A slow breath
The jar: a Pick one for me button above seven kept smiles, starting with a kind note and a reframe.
The jar

No account, no ads, and it never asks how you feel. Download on the App Store