Best Ignatian Examen Apps for a Nightly Examen (2026)

Yes, several apps guide the Ignatian examen each night: Reimagining the Examen and Pray As You Go are free and simple, Hallow and Little Way include an examen in a larger prayer app, and Lumen offers a quiet seven-step evening examen that can also help you prepare for Confession. Confess, Metanoia and Reconcile add a short examen to a confession app, and Holier guides the examen as a chat that builds your confessional list. Here's what each one does, what it costs and how it treats your privacy, according to each app's store listing as checked on October 12, 2026.

We make Holier, one of the apps below. We've tried to be fair, including where another app is the better pick.

Is there an app that guides the examen each night?

There are several, and they fall into three groups. Some are examen apps first: Reimagining the Examen, Lumen and Pray As You Go's Examen prayers. Some are prayer apps with an examen inside: Hallow and Little Way. And some are confession apps with an examen added: Confess, Metanoia, Reconcile and Holier.

Which group suits you depends on what you want the examen to do. If it's a prayer of gratitude and attention to God, an examen app or a prayer app is enough. If you also want what you notice to carry over to Confession, look at Lumen or a confession app.

What is the Ignatian examen?

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, set out the examen in his Spiritual Exercises, a book he began in the 1520s; he calls it the general examen (no. 43). It's a short prayer at the end of the day, usually in five steps:

1. Give thanks for what God gave you today.
2. Ask for light to see the day as God sees it.
3. Review the day, hour by hour, noticing where you met God and where you didn't.
4. Ask forgiveness for what you did wrong.
5. Look ahead and resolve, with God's grace, to do one thing better tomorrow.

Five minutes is enough. We walk through each step in the daily examen.

Examen apps compared

Prices are US prices. Privacy is what each app reports on its App Store privacy label, which is the developer's own statement.

Reimagining the Examen vs other examen apps

Reimagining the Examen is Loyola Press's free examen app, based on a book by Mark Thibodeaux, SJ. Its five steps are relish, request, review, repent and resolve, and you can choose a version of the examen that matches your mood or pray the one scheduled for the day. Its privacy label says Data Not Collected, and it has 4.3 stars from 176 ratings. It's a lovely, simple choice. The one thing to know is that it was last updated in June 2024, and we only found an iPhone and iPad version.

How the others compare:

Pray As You Go

The Jesuits in Britain make Pray As You Go, a daily audio prayer of about 10 to 13 minutes, with Examen review prayers alongside it. "All of our content is always free, no subscription required," its listing says. It's on iPhone and Android. Choose it if you like to pray with your ears and want no cost at all.

Hallow

Hallow is an audio-guided Catholic prayer app with more than 10,000 sessions, Ignatian Examen sessions among them, and a journal after every prayer. It's the most widely rated app here, with 4.9 stars from 379,390 ratings. The free tier includes daily prayers such as the Rosary; the full library is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year. For Confession, its website also lists a free three-part Confession Guide, with a 10-minute examination of conscience, and an Examinations collection of five themed examinations of conscience for subscribers. Its privacy label lists Data Used to Track You. Choose it if you'd like the examen as part of a broad, mostly audio prayer life.

Lumen: Daily Examen

Lumen guides a seven-step evening Ignatian examen, including steps for transgressions and a resolution. What you note under transgressions can be exported as a PDF for Confession, and it's deleted after Confession by default. It's written for people prone to scrupulosity, with no streaks and no nagging, and its listing says "no AI touches" your entries. Data Not Collected, no account. Paid MAGIS adds statistics, Advent and Lent exercises and the discernment of spirits. It's new, with no App Store ratings yet.

Little Way

Little Way builds a day around St. Thérèse's "little way": a morning offering, small acts of love, and a nightly examen of gratitude, review and a virtue to focus on, which sets tomorrow's intention. It also includes confession prep across eight areas of life. It has 4.9 stars from 287 ratings, and its listing says, "Your examination never leaves your device."

Confess, Metanoia and Reconcile

These three are confession apps with a short examen built in. Confess has a five-step Evening Examen with a timer, text and optional voice recording. Metanoia has a daily Ignatian examen next to its 243-question Ten Commandments examination, all free on iPhone and Android. Reconcile's Daily Examen takes five movements and five minutes. Choose one of these if you want your evening prayer and your confession prep in the same free or low-cost app.

Holier

Holier: Catholic Confession is an iPhone app by Reconciled Software (iOS 17.6 or later; no Android). It guides a short nightly examination of conscience as a chat in the Ignatian examen tradition: it asks questions, you answer in your own words, and anything you name goes onto a numbered confessional list that opens with "Bless me, Father." It also helps in the moment of temptation, with a chat that offers encouragement and a prayer, and it tracks the days since your last Confession and examen. Version 1.3 (October 2026) added a daily reminder time and lets you review what the chat found before it's saved. Your sin list is encrypted on your iPhone with a key that never leaves it, and conversations are processed to power the AI, then discarded. You sign in with Apple; there's a passcode lock. It's a free download, and full use takes a subscription of $7.99 a week, $79.99 a year, or $149.99 once, per its App Store listing (October 2026), with no free trial. Holier is new. It prepares you; only a priest absolves.

What's the difference between the examen and an examination of conscience?

They're related, but not the same. The examen looks back over one day. It starts with gratitude and looks for where God was present, as much as for where you fell short. The examination of conscience you make before Confession looks back to your last Confession and focuses on your sins, often using the Ten Commandments. The Catechism asks that it be made in the light of the Word of God, such as the Sermon on the Mount and the moral teaching of the apostolic Letters (CCC 1454).

Each helps the other. If you pray the examen most nights, you already know what you need to confess by the time you go, and you'll often notice patterns. That's why some apps on this page keep what you notice in the examen for Confession (Lumen, Holier), while others keep the examen purely as prayer (Reimagining the Examen, Pray As You Go). For the examination itself, see our examination of conscience and the best examination of conscience apps.

Which examen app should I choose?

• Free and simple: Reimagining the Examen on iPhone, or Pray As You Go on iPhone and Android.
• To listen to: Pray As You Go or Hallow.
• Gentle on an anxious conscience: Lumen.
• Part of a whole day of prayer: Little Way or Hallow.
• An examen and confession prep in one free app: Metanoia, or Confess on iPhone.
• An examen that turns into your confessional list: Holier.

Holier is not the right pick if you're on Android, if you want something free, if you're choosing for a child, if you'd rather no AI were involved (Lumen says no AI touches your entries), or if you want audio prayers (Hallow and Pray As You Go are made for that).

Whichever app you choose, keep it short and keep it kind. The examen isn't a performance review. If you miss a night, start again the next one. And if what you notice keeps coming back, that's worth bringing to a priest; we cover it in confessing the same sins over and over.