How to Add a Countdown Widget to Your iPhone 📱
The best place for a countdown is somewhere you’ll see it every day. Emoji Countdown’s widgets put your birthdays, holidays and big days right on your Home Screen, and iOS 27 brings a few new tricks. Here’s how to set them up 🎉
Add a widget in four steps
- Touch and hold an empty spot on your Home Screen until the apps jiggle.
- Tap the Paint Brush in the top corner, then Add Widget.
- Search for Countdown and swipe through the sizes.
- Tap Add Widget, drag it where you want it, and tap Done ✅
To choose which countdown a widget shows, touch and hold it and tap Edit Widget.
Pick the widget that fits
- Show your next event 🎂 is a small tile with one big emoji and the days to go.
- Show your upcoming events 📋 lists your countdowns, soonest first. Pick the list style or the grid of emoji.
- Time Progress ⏳ shows how much of the month, quarter and year is left. Great for keeping an eye on goals.
New in iOS 27: the full-page widget 🖼️
iOS 27 lets a widget fill a whole Home Screen page, and both upcoming events widgets now make the most of it. The list shows as many countdowns as fit on the page, and the grid lays them out in neat rows of emoji.
Add it from the widget gallery, or drag the corner of an existing widget out to the full page.
Always show what’s next 👉
If you set a widget to one particular countdown, it used to stay on that event after the big day had passed. Now a passed countdown counts up instead (“3 days ago”), so it never shows a blank tile.
Even better, you can let the widget look after itself. Touch and hold it, tap Edit Widget, and choose Next event at the top of the list. It will always show your soonest countdown and move on by itself when the day arrives 🙌
Make it yours 🎨
Open the app and go to Settings, then Widget Appearance, to change your widgets’ colours, gradient, border and blur, in Light and Dark Mode. You can also turn on Show Month Progress for a little bar that fills up as the month goes by, in one of five styles.
Got a countdown you can’t wait for? Pop it on your Home Screen and watch the days tick down 🥳