What is My Life Dots?

My Life Dots is a free online wallpaper calendar builder for your iPhone lock screen. Choose a grid style — daily habit tracker, monthly calendar, year progress, or life in weeks — and it generates a custom wallpaper image. It updates automatically every midnight using iOS Shortcuts. No app download, no account, no subscription required.

What is a wallpaper calendar?

A wallpaper calendar is a phone wallpaper that displays a live calendar grid — showing days, weeks, or year progress — directly on your lock screen or home screen. Unlike a widget or an app, a wallpaper calendar is always visible the moment you pick up your phone. My Life Dots creates wallpaper calendars that show your habits, year progress, or entire lifetime as a simple dot grid.

What is a year progress wallpaper?

A year progress wallpaper shows all 365 days of the current year as a dot grid on your iPhone lock screen — completed days fill in, remaining days stay open. My Life Dots generates a year progress wallpaper that updates automatically every midnight via iOS Shortcuts, so every morning you see exactly how far through the year you are without opening any app.

How does a habit tracker wallpaper work?

A habit tracker wallpaper places your daily habit streak directly on your iPhone lock screen as a dot grid. My Life Dots generates this as a wallpaper image — not a widget — so it is visible every single time you pick up your phone without any taps. The wallpaper updates automatically at midnight via iOS Shortcuts to reflect the new day’s progress.

What is “life in weeks” and why does it matter?

The “life in weeks” concept — popularised by Tim Urban of WaitButWhy — visualises your entire lifespan as a grid of small boxes, each representing one week. Most people have around 4,680 weeks in a lifetime. Seeing how many are already filled in, and how many remain, creates a calm but powerful sense of time-awareness. My Life Dots turns this into a live wallpaper that updates every week automatically.

Is My Life Dots free?

Yes. My Life Dots is completely free to use. You can create and download a wallpaper calendar at mylifedots.com with no account required and no subscription. Optional premium themes and styles are available for users who want more customisation options.

Does My Life Dots require an app download?

No. My Life Dots runs entirely in your browser at mylifedots.com — nothing to download from the App Store. You create your wallpaper in the browser, download the image, and set it on your iPhone. The automatic daily update uses iOS Shortcuts, which is pre-installed on every iPhone, so no third-party app is ever needed.

Is My Life Dots a Pretty Progress alternative?

Yes. My Life Dots is a free, browser-based alternative to Pretty Progress and similar habit tracker wallpaper apps. Unlike Pretty Progress, My Life Dots requires no App Store download, is completely free, and combines daily habit tracking with year progress and life-in-weeks views in one wallpaper. It works on any iPhone via iOS Shortcuts with no subscription.

Wallpaper vs widget — which is better for habit tracking?

A wallpaper is better for passive awareness. It is visible every single time you pick up your phone — before you open anything. A widget requires you to actively look at your home screen. For habits you want to stay top-of-mind throughout the day without active effort, a lock screen wallpaper like My Life Dots is more effective. You check your phone 80–150 times a day — your wallpaper gets all of that attention.

How is My Life Dots different from Left or WeeklyDots?

My Life Dots is the only tool that combines all four modes — daily habit tracker, monthly calendar, year progress, and life in weeks — in one free web tool with no app download. WeeklyDots offers life-in-weeks only. Left is a widget app (not a wallpaper) that requires an App Store download. My Life Dots works instantly in any browser, is completely free, and produces a wallpaper rather than a widget.

How do I set up the automatic wallpaper update on iPhone?

After creating your wallpaper on mylifedots.com, open the iOS Shortcuts app, create a Personal Automation triggered at midnight daily, add a “Get Contents of URL” action using your My Life Dots wallpaper URL, then add “Set Wallpaper Photo” set to both Lock Screen and Home Screen. Disable “Ask Before Running” so it runs silently. The entire setup takes about 5 minutes and runs automatically every night forever.

Does My Life Dots work with iOS 26?

Yes. My Life Dots is fully compatible with iOS 26. The wallpaper creator works in Safari on iOS 26, and the iOS Shortcuts automation for automatic midnight updates works with iOS 26’s Shortcuts app without any changes to your existing setup.

Blog

Wedding Countdown Wallpaper — Count Down to Your Big Day on Your Lock Screen

July 19, 2026

How to build a wedding countdown wallpaper for your iPhone lock screen — a shared daily reminder of exactly how many days are left until the big day.

Somewhere between the proposal and the venue tour, "next year" stops feeling real. You have a save-the-date, a Pinterest board, and a vague sense that the wedding is "coming up" — but nothing that actually makes it feel close, until suddenly it is six weeks away and everything is on fire.

A wedding countdown wallpaper fixes that gap. Instead of a date buried in a shared calendar neither of you opens, the exact number of days left sits on your lock screen — the same screen you check a hundred times a day for texts, maps, and playlists.

Why a number beats a vibe

"We're getting married next year" is a feeling. "47 days" is a fact. The second one is what actually gets the seating chart finished, the invitations sent, and the last vendor deposit paid on time.

A visible countdown does three things a shared calendar invite never manages:

It turns wedding planning from a background worry into a number that shrinks every single day
Both partners see the same countdown on their own lock screens — no "did you see the email" back-and-forth
It makes the excitement tangible again, especially in the middle stretch of planning when it can start to feel like a chore

Not just for the big day

The same countdown format works for every milestone around the wedding, not just the ceremony itself:

Days until the wedding — the classic countdown, for both partners
Days until the honeymoon — because you deserve one countdown that's just for fun
Engagement anniversary — count up instead of down, and keep it after the wedding is over
Days until dress fittings, save-the-dates, or the final vendor deadline — a personal countdown for whoever's handling that piece

How to build your wedding countdown wallpaper

Open the wallpaper creator and choose the personal date-range mode.
Set the start date to today and the end date to your wedding day.
Pick a dot or checkbox layout so the days already planned fill in, with the days remaining shown clearly underneath.
Choose a theme that matches your wedding colors or just something calm you will not get tired of looking at for months.
Export the image and set it as your lock screen — do the same for your partner's phone so you are both counting down together.

Let it count itself down

You have enough to keep track of during wedding planning — the countdown should not be one more thing to update. Follow our iOS Shortcuts guide to have the wallpaper refresh automatically every midnight, so the number is always right without either of you touching it.

After the wedding

Do not delete it — flip it. Set a new start date for your wedding day and let it count up as your marriage anniversary tracker, one dot per year together instead of one per day left.

Closing thought

Wedding planning is stressful precisely because so much of it is invisible until it suddenly isn't. A countdown on your lock screen makes the invisible part visible, every day, in a way that a calendar reminder buried three taps deep never will.

Build your wedding countdown wallpaper — free, takes under a minute. Then set it to update itself every midnight so the number is always right, right up to the big day.