6 Apps Every Nature Lover Should Have

I’m one of those people who can’t go on a hike without stopping every five minutes because I saw a bug, heard a bird, found a weird mushroom or spotted a plant I’ve never noticed before. I mean, I CAN not stop, but I’d greatly prefer to stop.

Sometimes half the fun of being outside is figuring out exactly what you’re looking at.

Thankfully, our phones can actually be pretty incredible nature tools when we use them that way.

Whether you hike regularly, love wildlife, spend your weekends wandering around outside or simply want to know what’s living in your own backyard, these are six apps I think every nature lover should have on their phone.

Bonis, several of them are completely free!

1. iNaturalist

Best for: Identifying almost anything living
Cost: FREE

If I could only choose one nature identification app, this would probably be it.

iNaturalist can help identify plants, insects, spiders, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, fungi and pretty much anything else living that you come across.

The current app can even give you instant identification suggestions through your camera. You can photograph what you find, see what iNaturalist thinks it might be and then upload your observation.

What really separates iNaturalist from a basic identification app is what happens next…

Your observation can be seen by an enormous community of naturalists, researchers and people who specialize in particular groups of animals, plants and fungi. Other users can agree with an identification, suggest something different or sometimes help you narrow an observation all the way down to the exact species. Isn’t that AMAZING!?!?!

Your observations can also become actual biodiversity data used by scientists and conservation organizations!

So that random beetle you stopped to photograph on your hike… It might actually become a tiny piece of scientific data! Pretty cool right?

iNaturalist is a nonprofit and the app and accounts are completely free.

2. Merlin Bird ID

Best for: Identifying birds, especially by sound
Cost: FREE

This is one of those apps that makes you wonder how we ever did this without our phones. This is actually one of my most used apps on my phone.

Merlin Bird ID was created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and can help you identify birds in several different ways.

You can photograph a bird.

You can answer questions about what it looked like.

Or, my favorite, you can simply let Merlin listen.

Its Sound ID feature listens to the birds calling around you and gives you real-time suggestions for who might be singing.

Just like that, the random bird call you’ve heard behind your house for the last ten years has a name! It can even listen and show you multiple birds and once and it highlights the one it’s currently listening to as they “take turns”. It’s fascinating!!!!!!!

Merlin can also show you birds you’re likely to encounter in a particular area, provide photos and recordings to compare and let you keep track of birds you’ve identified.

And Sound ID and Photo ID can work offline once the appropriate bird packs are downloaded, which is obviously incredibly useful when you’re somewhere without service.

Best of all, Merlin is completely free.

3. AllTrails

Best for: Finding places to explore
Cost: Free basic version. AllTrails Plus is currently $35.99/year.

For when you want somewhere to go… That’s where AllTrails comes in.

AllTrails lets you search more than 500,000 trails around the world and filter them by things like location, difficulty and activity.

You can read reviews from people who have recently completed the trail, look at photos, check trail information and find hikes that fit what you’re actually looking for.

One of my personal favorite features is the ability to specifically search for dog-friendly trails. I actually use this filter when I’m looking for places to hike with my cat too. If dogs are allowed on a trail, it gives me a much better starting point when I’m trying to figure out where I can safely and legally bring him along too.

You can also filter for things like kid-friendly and wheelchair-friendly trails, waterfalls, views and other features depending on what kind of outing you’re looking for.

There is a free version, and for a lot of casual hikers that may be all you need.

The paid AllTrails Plus membership adds features that become especially useful if you hike frequently, including downloadable offline maps, wrong-turn alerts and additional navigation and planning tools.

AllTrails Plus currently costs $35.99 per year in the U.S.

4. PictureThis

Best for: Plant identification & checking whether plants may be toxic to pets
Cost: Free to download with optional paid Pro features. PictureThis Pro is currently listed at $39.99 through the U.S. App Store.

Yes, iNaturalist can identify plants.

But if you’re someone who finds yourself constantly stopping to ask, “What plant is THAT?” a dedicated plant app is worth having too.

PictureThis allows you to photograph a plant and receive an identification within seconds.

But one of the features I especially like is that it can also warn you when an identified plant may be toxic to pets.

For those of us who spend a lot of time outside with our animals, have curious pets at home or are constantly bringing new plants onto our property, that is incredibly useful information to have right there alongside the identification.

It also provides additional information about the plant, including care information, potential problems and other details depending on the species.

There are a lot of plant identification apps out there, but PictureThis has performed very well in independent testing, which is why I chose it for this list.

PictureThis is free to download, although many of its additional features are part of its paid Pro version. The U.S. App Store currently lists PictureThis Pro at $39.99 among its subscription options.

5. Sky Guide

Best for: Figuring out what’s above you after the sun goes down
Cost: Free to download with optional paid Plus and Pro upgrades.

Nature doesn’t stop being interesting when it gets dark. Sometimes, that’s when it gets REALLY good!

Sky Guide essentially turns your phone into a window into the night sky.

Hold your phone toward the sky and the app can show you the stars, planets, constellations and satellites in the direction you’re looking.

So instead of standing outside wondering, “Is that really bright thing a star or a planet?” you can actually find out.

It also uses augmented reality to overlay constellations and other objects onto the sky, which makes learning the night sky MUCH easier if you’ve never known where to begin.

The basic app is free to download.

There are optional Plus and Pro upgrades for people who want more detailed astronomy features.

6. Picture Mushroom

Best for: Mushroom and fungi identification
Cost: Free to download with optional Premium features.

Mushrooms deserved their own category.

They’re everywhere, they’re fascinating and they can also be notoriously difficult to identify.

Picture Mushroom allows you to photograph a mushroom and receive possible identifications, along with similar species you can compare it against.

It also includes information about things like habitat and identifying characteristics.

I especially like that it shows similar species because mushroom identification should NEVER be treated as simply “the app gave me a name, so that must be what it is.”

And that brings me to a very important warning.

Never use Picture Mushroom, iNaturalist or ANY identification app as your only source for deciding whether a wild mushroom is safe to eat.

There are edible and dangerously toxic mushrooms that can look extremely similar, and proper mushroom identification can require characteristics that a photograph simply cannot show.

Use the app to learn, investigate and narrow down possibilities. Not to decide what goes on your dinner plate.

Picture Mushroom is free to download and offers optional Premium features.

Isn’t it wild that your Phone can actually help You pay MORE attention to nature!!!

I know phones usually get blamed for pulling our attention away from the world around us, and sometimes they absolutely do. But I think apps like these can do the exact opposite.

They encourage us to stop, look closer, listen, turn over a leaf, notice the tiny mushroom growing beside the trail, figure out which bird has been calling from the same tree every morning, learn the name of the wildflower we’ve walked past a hundred times, or look up at the night sky and finally learn which constellation has been sitting above our heads all along.

The more we learn about the natural world around us, the more there is to notice.

And the more we notice, the harder it becomes not to care about protecting it.🫶🏼

So download a few of these before your next adventure and see what you find.

Just be warned. Once you start identifying everything you see, a 30-minute walk can very quickly turn into two hours. Ask me how I know. 😂

Note: Prices listed are current as of September 2026 and may change.