Moon Phase Calendar

Review by eFreeware

Moon Phase Calendar is a free Android app from the developer probadoSoft, filed under Weather and built around lunar and solar reference data rather than forecasts. It has been on Google Play since January 2018 and now sits past a million installs with a 4.8 average from more than 63,000 ratings, which suggests a settled tool rather than a novelty. The main reason to consider it is the combination of depth and reach: a long list of Moon and Sun parameters, alerts before the major phases, and a widget, all on a phone.

The pitch is narrower than a general weather app and wider than a simple phase display. The developer describes it as an advanced lunar calendar with notifications, and the pieces line up with that: current phase and illumination, the dates of the next phases, rise and set times, and a parallel set of solar figures. It is the sort of app you open when a specific date matters, not one you check out of habit every morning.

What I like about the framing is that it does not pretend to be a forecast service. The data is astronomical, so it is the same whether you look today or a year ahead, and the developer states that the core of it works offline. That shapes everything else: this is a reference you can keep on the home screen and consult when a question about the sky comes up.

What you actually get on screen

The app is organized around three main views. The Moon view carries more than fifteen parameters, among them the current phase, how much of the disc is illuminated, when the Moon rises and sets, and the dates of the phases still to come. The Sun view is the counterpart, with over ten figures covering sunrise and sunset, dawn, twilight, and how long the day and night last. A calendar view shows a chosen month with the Moon or Sun values attached to each day.

It is the part of the app that turns a list of numbers into something spatial, and it is the feature I would expect to matter most to anyone trying to understand why the Moon appears where it does on a given evening.

There is also a widget that shows the current phase, so the state of the Moon is visible without opening anything. The developer has kept adding to the app over the years; the most recent update in January 2026 brought an advanced alarm clock, zodiac improvements, an algorithm revision, rotating compass behavior, a location view rework, 12-hour time support, a choice of Monday or Sunday as the first day of the week, and notification style options.

Planning around the phases

Notifications are the feature that separates this from a static calendar. The app can alert you to an upcoming Full Moon, New Moon, First or Last Quarter as much as three days ahead, which gives you time to arrange something around it rather than notice it after the fact.

The developer pitches this partly at people who feel the Moon influences their body and want to schedule important events so that the Moon favors their plans. That is a claim about effects the app cannot demonstrate, and I would treat the notifications as a planning aid rather than anything more. What the app can do is tell you, accurately and in advance, when each phase falls.

Perigee and apogee are covered too, the points where the Moon is nearest and farthest from Earth. If you are interested in when the Moon's pull is at its strongest or weakest, those dates are part of the same picture, and they sit alongside the phase data rather than in a separate place.

Solar data and the photographer's angle

The Sun side of the app is more than a sunrise and sunset listing. It includes dawn and twilight, the length of day and night, and the windows photographers call the golden hour and blue hour, which can help with planning outdoor shoots. Anyone who works with natural light knows how quickly those windows pass, so having them tied to a location and a date is the useful part.

Because the app can show parameters for any date, past or future, it works as a lookup tool as well as a daily reference. You can check the conditions on a date that has already gone, such as a birthday, or look ahead to a trip. The same flexibility applies to the Moon figures, so a question about a specific night does not depend on that night being close.

The compass view supports this by showing the visibility arcs of the Sun and Moon for the selected location, which helps with understanding the geometry behind the numbers. The developer suggests it is useful for school or university work and for independent observation, and that seems like a fair description of where a visual azimuth display is genuinely useful.

What it needs from you

The app is free and ad-supported, and the network permission exists for the developer's site, information about other apps, a world map and advertising. The Moon and Sun data itself is available offline, which is the important part for anyone using it in the field or away from a signal. There are no in-app purchases to consider.

Location access is used for automatic location search, so the figures can be tied to where you are. That is what makes rise and set times meaningful, since they shift with latitude and longitude, and it is also what the compass view depends on for its arcs. If you would rather set a place by hand, the location view has been reworked in a recent update, though the automatic option is the one the permission supports.

The trade-off is the usual one for a free tool: ads are part of the package, and the app is a reference rather than a forecasting service. It will not tell you whether the sky will be clear, and it does not try to. What it gives you is the astronomical picture, which does not change with the weather.

Who tends to keep it installed

The app is aimed at people who plan around the Moon's influence, amateur astronomers, and photographers. Those are different needs served by the same data. The first group cares most about the advance notifications and the phase calendar, the second about the compass and the parameter lists, and the third about the solar windows and the ability to check a location and date before heading out.

The app has been translated into a long list of languages, from Afrikaans and Arabic through to Turkish and Tamil, much of it credited to named volunteers. That breadth suggests an audience spread well beyond one country, and it makes the app easier to hand to someone who would rather read the interface in their own language.

It suits anyone who wants lunar and solar facts on hand without opening a browser, and who values having them work without a connection. A widget and phase notifications mean the app can sit quietly in the background and still be useful when a date comes up.

A dependable reference for sky watchers

Moon Phase Calendar stands out through breadth and reliability of scope rather than novelty. The Moon view, the Sun view, the calendar, the compass and the widget cover the questions most people actually ask about the sky, and the notifications mean you do not have to remember to check. The offline availability of the core data is the detail that makes it practical rather than decorative.

The caveats are honest ones. It is free with ads, it needs location access for the automatic mode, and it is a reference tool rather than a weather forecast. The developer's talk of the Moon favoring your plans is marketing rather than something the app can support, and I would ignore that part and use the phase data for what it is.

For amateur astronomers, photographers planning around light, and anyone who wants to know when the next Full Moon falls, this is a straightforward install. The app concentrates on lunar and solar data, so it suits people who want that information rather than a general weather forecast.

What's new in version 1.60

Use Play Age Signals API & fixed insets Advanced alarm clock Translations into new languages Zodiac improvement Algorithm improvement Location view UX improvement Auto location Rotating the compass Selection of date and time for which parameters are displayed Support 12h time format Fixed notification lights Details in calendar view Configuration of the first day of the week (Mon/Sun) Configuration of the notification style Power management improvements