How to Pause the Move Ring in the Fitness App on iOS 18

Streaks are a big part of the appeal of Apple’s Fitness app on iPhone. Hit your daily movement goal on consecutive days—whether it’s a week, a month, or even longer—and you’ll get a digital reward that’s surprisingly good at inspiring you to keep moving. But sometimes real life gets in the way of closing your Move ring, so iOS 18 adds a feature to the Fitness app that recognizes that reality while still letting you keep your streak going.

In the Fitness version of iOS 18, you can pause your Move streak for a selected period of time — sometimes a day, sometimes longer — without letting the streak end. Like the ability to set specific Move goals for specific days of the week, this addition to iOS 18 mirrors a similar ability added in watchOS 11, which is also in beta testing at the time of this writing.

There are perfectly valid reasons to press pause on your Move series. Maybe a real-life accident is interfering with your gym time, preventing you from closing the ring. Maybe you’re sick or nursing an injury. About two years ago, I injured my knee, and instead of taking some time off to recover, I tried to ride out the injury (partly because the Fitness app insisted that I keep moving). If I had access to the Pause feature back then, my recovery from the injury might not have been as long.

So ignore the ability to pause your Moves in the iOS 18 Fitness app at your own risk. Here’s how to take advantage of the feature.

1. Launch the Fitness app

Launch the Fitness app and tap the activity ring

(Graphics: © Future)

Click on the Fitness app to start it and tap your activity ring.

2. Pause the Move ring

Select the ring pause and choose how long you want to pause the ring's movement progress

(Graphics: © Future)

Scroll down on the next screen until you see the Pause Ring. (It’s right next to the Change Goal button, which lets you set different movement goals.) Touch Pause Ringand then select the period you want to pause the Move ring. Your default options are For today, for the rest of the week, for the rest of the month, or a custom option.

3. Adjust the pause time in the Move ring

Customize how long you want to pause the motion ring

if you tap Customyou see the roller that allows you set a specific number of days to pause the Move ring. You can pause it for up to 90 days. Once you’re done, Tap Set in the upper right corner.

4. Resume the movement ring series

Resume Movement Ring Activity

When you pause the Move ring, it will now appear as an empty ring with the end date of the pause in the center of the ring. If you want to edit this period, tap Edit PauseIf you want to resume your activity streak, tap Resume Ringtone — Your Move ring will become active again and your streaks will resume.

And that’s all there is to it to take advantage of the great new addition to the iOS 18 Fitness app. If you’ve downloaded the iOS 18 public beta, you can explore other features like customizing your iOS 18 home screen and using text effects in the Messages app.