There are many approaches you can take to stop smoking, from nicotine replacement therapy to behavioral support to good ol' quitting cold turkey. None of these are easy, but it turns out that using a mobile smoking cessation app can greatly increase your chances of breaking the habit.
That's from a meta-analysis of 31 different trials involving over 12,000 participants, which looked at studies comparing intervention strategies for discontinuing smoking. The idea, described in a paper published in the journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine, was to better understand the effectiveness of these mobile apps in the process of quitting, particularly since they can easily reach a large number of people and don't cost a lot.
There are dozens of studies on this, but the team of medical researchers believed that prior systematic reviews yielded inconclusive results, owing to small sample size and the apps becoming obsolete.
The 31 trials selected by the researchers were published between 2018 and 2025, and mostly featured participants from high-income economies like the US, Germany, Spain, and Japan. Twelve of these compared the use of mobile apps versus no or minimal smoking cessation (SC) support, 14 of them compared apps plus traditional interventions versus traditional interventions alone, and five of them looked at Psychological-behavioral theory (PBT)-based apps versus traditional behavioral apps.
The apps themselves used a range of different underlying frameworks, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Some focused on directly modifying smoking behavior, aligning with standard clinical SC guidelines, and others served as adjuncts to interventions that relied on pharmacotherapy.
Examples of the apps in the meta-study include Tobbstop (a game designed for smokers in Spain) , Craving to Quit (a mindfulness training app), and Quit with US (made for young adult light smokers in Thailand).
Most of the studies reviewed in this meta-analysis featured self-reporting by participants. The most important data point was whether participants actually stopped smoking. The researchers looked for "6-month continuous abstinence," which means the person reported smoking no more than five cigarettes over six months and had not smoked at all in the week before their check-up.
They also looked at "7-day point prevalence abstinence," which simply means checking if the person had not smoked at all in the last seven days at the 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month marks.
Lastly, while many studies relied on people telling the truth (self-reporting), the researchers prioritized data from studies that used medical tests, such as breath tests for carbon monoxide or urine tests for cotinine, to prove the person had quit.
This analysis found that smartphone apps are generally effective at helping people quit smoking, both when used on their own and when combined with traditional treatments. People using an SC app were about three times more likely to quit for at least six months compared to those who received minimal or no support. For every 1,000 people trying to quit, using an app resulted in roughly 40 more successful quitters than receiving basic advice or no help at all.
The apps worked best when added to traditional methods like medication (nicotine patches or pills) or behavioral counseling. In fact, when combined with medication, they resulted in about 196 more quitters per 1,000 people compared to using traditional methods alone. Plus, apps built around techniques like CBT or mindfulness were significantly more effective at helping people stay smoke-free during specific 7-day check-ins at both the 3-month and 6-month marks.
The results are indeed promising, and it could point us toward greater impact in helping people quit smoking. That said, the researchers noted that the overall quality of the evidence is currently low, because of some crucial caveats.
Many of the studies were small or relied on participants' own reporting rather than medical tests. It's also important to note that a high number of people (over 30% in some cases) dropped out of the studies before they were finished. In addition, most of the research was done in high-income countries, so it is less certain how well these apps work in other parts of the world.
What makes these apps genuinely exciting isn't just their potential impact, but their ability to meet people where they are. In a world where smartphone use is nearly universal, such apps can deliver personalized support at 3 AM when cravings hit, provide immediate encouragement after a slip-up, and track progress in ways that feel rewarding rather than clinical. They're not replacing counselors or medications, but rather filling gaps that traditional cessation methods have struggled to address, like real-time support and long-term engagement.
This might only count as anecdotal evidence: I've personally found that using apps to build or break habits can offer a strong sense of agency over how you're dealing with your own condition. The act of checking into your app of choice to log your progress, and to see how far you've come, can remind you that you're on a journey to improve yourself. That can go a long way towards enabling you to take control, rather than feel powerless in the face of strong urges or patterns that seem impossible to break away from.
The path forward is clear: we need rigorous, well-designed studies to separate genuine effectiveness from placebo effects and novelty factors. Researchers must identify which app features actually drive success, whether certain approaches work better for specific groups of smokers, and how long the benefits last.
Source: BMJ Evidence Based Medicine
