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How to Put a Halloween Countdown on Your iPhone

Halloween 2026 is Saturday, October 31. Build the event in Countdown with Include Time on, add the widget to your Lock Screen or Home Screen, and it reads 22 days on October 9 and counts down from there. Every widget size is free.

4 min read · Updated 2026-09-15

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How many days until Halloween 2026

Halloween always falls on October 31, and in 2026 that date is a Saturday. Countdown's widget redraws once a day, right after midnight on your iPhone, and shows whole days, not hours or a running clock.

Days until Halloween 2026 (event saved at 12:00 AM on October 31)
Widget redraws atWidget shows
Friday, October 9, 12:00 AM22 days
Saturday, October 17, 12:00 AM14 days
Saturday, October 24, 12:00 AM7 days
Friday, October 30, 12:00 AM1 day
Saturday, October 31, 12:00 AMCompleted

Open the event inside the app for the finer number. At 9:00 AM on October 9 it reads 21 days and 15 hours, with the seconds moving.

Create the Halloween event

  1. Open Countdown and tap + to start a New Countdown.
  2. Type a Title, for example Halloween. The holiday category's default emoji is a palm tree, so pick a pumpkin or ghost yourself from the emoji picker instead.
  3. Choose October 31, 2026.
  4. Turn on Include Time. Set it to 12:00 AM if you just want the day itself, or to the hour your party or trick-or-treating actually starts, like 6:00 PM.
  5. Tap Save.

Skip that Include Time step and the event quietly counts to whatever time of day you happened to be tapping Save, not midnight. A countdown made at 2:15 PM still owes 2 hours and 15 minutes on Halloween afternoon before it flips to Completed.

Add it to your Lock Screen

  1. Lock the iPhone, touch and hold the Lock Screen, then tap Customize.
  2. Tap the widget area below the clock.
  3. Find Countdown and pick a size: the rectangular widget fits the emoji, the title and the day count; the circular one only has room for the number.
  4. Tap Done.

Add it to your Home Screen

Touch and hold an empty spot on the Home Screen, tap the add button in the corner, search Countdown, then drag in the small, medium or large size. The Home Screen widget carries over whatever background and accent color you set in the editor, so an orange or black gradient picked for Halloween shows up there too.

Lock Screen and Home Screen widgets compared

What each Countdown widget size shows
WidgetShows
Circular (Lock Screen)Just the day number
Rectangular (Lock Screen)Emoji, title and day count
Inline (Lock Screen)Emoji, day count and title as one line of text
Small (Home Screen)Emoji, day number and title
Medium (Home Screen)Emoji, title, target date and day number
Large (Home Screen)Emoji, title, day number, a live timer line that keeps ticking without a reload, and the full date

That live timer line is the one exception to the once-a-day redraw: it is a system clock element, not a value Countdown redraws itself, so the large Home Screen widget alone can show something moving between midnights.

Fix a widget that will not update

  • It still shows yesterday's count: that is expected until the next midnight redraw. Open the event and edit anything, even re-saving the same title, and every widget on your screen refreshes immediately.
  • It is showing a different event, not Halloween: Countdown always surfaces the soonest event that is not Archived. If something else lands before October 31, that one wins the widget.
  • It already says Completed in October: check Include Time. Without it the event may be counting to an earlier hour than you think, or the date was typed for the wrong year.
  • It went blank after you reinstalled the app: events live only on that iPhone with no account or iCloud backup, so the widget has nothing to read until you recreate the event.

Bring it back for Halloween 2027

Countdown can roll an event forward on its own, but only with Repeat set to Every Year, and that picker is part of the paid upgrade. On the free plan it is disabled and tapping it opens the paywall.

One limit worth saying plainly: the free plan holds 3 events total, archived ones included until you delete them. A Halloween countdown next to a birthday and a trip already fills that quota.

Questions and answers

Is the Halloween countdown widget free?
Yes. Every Lock Screen size (circular, rectangular, inline) and every Home Screen size (small, medium, large) is free, and they work with no account or internet connection.
Why does my Halloween widget show 0 days on Halloween morning?
The event was saved without Include Time, so it kept the time of day you tapped Save and counts to that hour on October 31 instead of to midnight.
Can the widget count hours and minutes, not just days?
The small, medium, circular, rectangular and inline widgets show days only. The large Home Screen widget adds a live timer line, and opening the event in the app shows days, hours, minutes and seconds.
Will the widget automatically count down to Halloween 2027 next year?
Only if the event repeats, which needs the paid Every Year option. On the free plan, archive this year's event after Halloween and create a new one next October.

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