A practical checklist of migraine tracker features that matter for clinical accuracy, insurance renewals, and sharing with your care team. What to look for before you commit.
Choosing a migraine tracking app is not complicated once you know which features actually matter. Most apps have beautiful designs and long feature lists. What separates useful tools from ones that collect dust is whether the core functions are accurate and usable when your head hurts.
This is a practical checklist. Not every feature here applies to everyone. If you are on a CGRP preventive and dealing with annual renewals, most of it does.
This is the feature everything else depends on. Monthly migraine days (MMD) is the primary clinical metric for evaluating preventive therapy effectiveness and the central number in any insurance prior authorization renewal request.
The problem is that "migraine day" has a specific clinical definition: a calendar day with a migraine (with or without aura) lasting at least four hours untreated, or any duration if an abortive medication is taken. Many apps count headache events, which is not the same thing. An app that counts three short attacks on different days as three MMD when only one qualifies gives your neurologist wrong numbers to work with.
Before you commit to an app, confirm how it counts migraine days. Read the documentation or ask support.
See monthly migraine days explained for the full clinical context.
You cannot measure improvement without a starting point. A good app lets you set a baseline period before preventive therapy began, or log your treatment start date so it can compare pre-treatment and post-treatment periods automatically.
This is especially critical for CGRP preventives. Insurers and neurologists want to see your MMD before treatment, your MMD after six or twelve months, and the percent reduction. If your app has no concept of a baseline, you are doing that calculation by hand.
For more on what goes into a CGRP renewal, see CGRP prior authorization renewal.
Both of these tools are standard in migraine care. MIDAS measures how many days in the past three months migraines interfered with work, household tasks, and social activities. HIT-6 measures the impact of headaches across six dimensions in the past four weeks.
An app that auto-calculates both from your logged data removes a pain point. Without this, you fill out paper forms in the waiting room from memory, which is inaccurate and annoying. With it, you walk into every appointment with current scores already calculated.
Full explanations of both tools are at MIDAS and HIT-6 explained.
Your log is only as useful as your ability to get it out of the app. Look for these output options:
| Output Type | Best For |
|---|---|
| PDF export | Attaching to insurance forms, emailing to doctor |
| Shareable read-only link | Real-time access for care team |
| Structured renewal report | Prior authorization documentation |
| CSV or raw data export | Personal records, second opinions |
For CGRP patients specifically, a structured renewal report that presents baseline MMD, current MMD, percent reduction, breakthrough medication days, MIDAS, HIT-6, adherence, and medication-overuse flags is far more useful than raw data. It is formatted for the purpose.
See how to share your migraine log with your doctor for what format works best in practice.
This sounds like a convenience feature. It is actually a data quality feature. The fastest way to degrade your migraine log is to make logging difficult when you feel worst.
An app that requires five screens and twenty fields to record an attack will not get used during attacks. It will get used the next day when you feel better, and you will fill in the details from memory. Memory recall for pain events is poor.
A good attack-logging mode is one or two taps to capture the essentials: it started, when, and roughly how bad. Fill in the rest later if needed. One-thumb operation matters when bright screens hurt.
Triggers are individual and cumulative. Sleep deprivation, hormonal changes, weather, stress, alcohol, skipped meals. None of these are universal. What matters is your personal pattern over time.
Features to look for:
Tracking which medications you took and whether they worked is useful. Tracking how often you take them is critical.
Medication overuse headache (MOH) develops when abortive medications are taken more than ten to fifteen days per month depending on the drug class. It is one of the most common reasons preventive therapy appears to fail. An app that flags overuse risk from your own data is doing something your paper diary cannot do.
For a deep look at this topic, see medication overuse headache.
| Privacy Feature | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| On-device encrypted storage | Your health data does not leave your phone by default |
| No account required to log | Reduces data exposure |
| Revocable sharing links | You control who sees your data and for how long |
| Clear deletion policy | You can actually remove your data |
| Transparent data use | Know whether your data is used for research or advertising |
Migraine logs contain detailed medical history. They deserve the same privacy protections you would expect from any medical record. Read the privacy policy before you start logging.
If you have an Apple Watch, logging from your wrist during an attack without pulling out your phone is a meaningful quality-of-life feature. Mac and iPad support lets you review trends on a larger screen. This is not essential, but it matters for real-world usability.
Apple Health integration lets the app pull in sleep data, heart rate, activity, and other metrics you are already tracking. Correlating these with attack days can surface patterns you would not notice manually. The key word is optional. You should not be required to connect anything to use the core features.
If you want a quick pass: accurate MMD counting, baseline tracking, MIDAS and HIT-6 auto-scoring, PDF or shareable report export, a fast attack-logging mode, trigger logging with weather, medication tracking with overuse detection, and on-device encrypted storage. Those eight cover the requirements for most CGRP preventive patients.
For a broader look at how apps compare on these criteria, see best migraine tracking apps 2026 and digital vs paper migraine diary. You can also compare specific apps at /compare.
Migraine Tracker: CGRP Log was built around this exact checklist. It counts MMD by clinical definition, auto-calculates MIDAS and HIT-6, tracks medication overuse, supports one-thumb attack logging, and exports a formatted prior-authorization renewal report for CGRP patients. Data is encrypted on your device and sharing links are revocable. See the CGRP renewal report or download the app.
Educational, not medical advice. Migraine Tracker: CGRP Log is a personal tracking tool, not a medical device. It does not diagnose, treat, or provide medical advice. Always talk to your clinician.
At minimum: accurate monthly migraine day counting, fast in-attack logging, trigger tracking, and data export. For CGRP preventive patients, add baseline tracking, MIDAS and HIT-6 scoring, and a formatted renewal report.
A practical buyer's guide to the best migraine tracking apps in 2026, covering what features matter most for people on CGRP preventives and how to evaluate your options.
An honest comparison of paper migraine diaries and digital apps for accuracy, consistency, sharing with your doctor, and supporting CGRP prior authorization renewals.
Learn how neurologists use migraine diary data, including frequency, disability scores, and treatment response, to make better clinical decisions for you.
