Expiry Date Tracker for Android: A 10-Minute Setup So Food, Medicine and Cosmetics Stop Expiring Unnoticed

Most expiry-tracking apps on Android lose you at the door: create an account, then discover you can add twelve items before the subscription prompt. Expiry Date Tracker: Scanner takes the opposite position. No account, no sign-up, no item limit, your list stays on the phone, and it reminds you before the date rather than after. It is free with a single small banner and a one-time purchase to remove it; there is no subscription.

This is the setup I would do in the first ten minutes, written for Android specifically, because the step people skip (notification and alarm permissions) is the one that decides whether the reminders ever show up.

Minute 1 to 3: the first scan

Open the app and point the camera at the barcode on anything in the fridge. The product name fills itself in from the free Open Food Facts database, which receives the barcode number and nothing else. Then pick the expiry date. Instead of a calendar, the app offers quick date chips: one week, two weeks, one month, three months, six months and a year. Tap the chip closest to the printed date, adjust if needed, save.

Two things are worth knowing about the lookup. Household and medicine barcodes are often missing from Open Food Facts, and the lookup is skipped entirely when you are offline. When the name does not fill in, just type it; the app remembers your own history, so the second time you scan that barcode the name comes back instantly from your phone, no database needed. That is also why the app gets quicker the longer you use it.

No barcode at all, like a bag of flour decanted into a jar, or a loaf from the bakery? Type the name. Entry takes seconds either way.

Minute 4 to 5: decide when you want to be warned

Open Settings (the gear icon) and set two things: how many days ahead you want warning, and the hour the reminder should arrive. You get a nudge before the date and again on the day itself. Pick the hour you are actually near the kitchen, early evening for most households, rather than first thing in the morning when the notification gets swiped away with the rest.

One detail that catches people: changing either setting only affects items you add or edit afterwards. If you tweak the hour a week in, re-save older items (open, save) to move their reminders. Reminders are scheduled on the phone itself, so they fire with no signal and without the app being open.

Minute 6 to 8: the Android permissions that make or break it

This is the part specific to Android, and the single most common support question. For a reminder to arrive on time, the app needs two permissions, not one:

• Notifications: Settings → Apps → Expiry Tracker → Notifications, switched on.
• Alarms and reminders (Android 12 and later): Settings → Apps → Special app access → Alarms and reminders, and allow the app. Without this, Android treats the reminder as low priority and may deliver it late.

Then there is battery optimisation. Some manufacturers, notably Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Samsung, aggressively stop background apps and will delay or drop scheduled alarms from any app that is not whitelisted. Find the app in your phone's battery settings and allow it to run in the background (the wording varies: "Unrestricted", "No restrictions", "Don't optimise"). If reminders have been arriving hours late, this is almost always why.

Test it before trusting it: add a throwaway item with a one-week chip, set the warning to seven days ahead, and check that the notification lands at the chosen hour.

Minute 9 to 10: the rest of the kitchen, then everything else

Do the fridge door first, then the freezer, then whatever in the pantry has a date you cannot read without glasses. Use the location chips (fridge, freezer, pantry) so the list tells you where to look. The list itself groups everything into expired, expiring today, this week and later, so whatever needs attention is at the top. When something is gone, mark it used with one tap.

Nothing in the app is food-specific, and the second wave of items is where it starts earning its place:

• Medicine and first-aid supplies: children's paracetamol, antihistamines, the plasters in the car. Use the location chips for these too.
• Cosmetics and sunscreen: sunscreen in particular loses effectiveness after its date, and the bottle from last summer is the one everyone grabs.
• Contact lens solution and anything else that goes in or near your eyes.
• Documents and renewals: passport, insurance, a warranty, a domain. Use the note field for the reference number so the reminder is actionable on its own.

Where the data lives, and moving to a new phone

Your items are stored in a database on the device. There is no account, no cloud and no server, and the app works fully offline; the only optional network call is that barcode lookup. The flip side is that there is no sync between phones. When you change phone, the list is included in an Android or Google device backup if backups are enabled, and restores with the rest of your apps. If you share a kitchen, one phone has to be the kitchen phone, or both of you scan what you bring home.

The app is available in fifteen languages (Settings → Language; it follows the phone language by default), and if you bought the ad removal and the banner is still there, Settings → Restore purchase while signed in with the same Google account fixes it. The support page has the rest.

Is it worth the ten minutes?

Honest answer: only if you keep scanning. The app does nothing for items you never add, and the first week is the hard part because everything in the kitchen needs entering at once. The trick that works is to scan at the point of unpacking the shopping, one barcode at a time while things go into the fridge. After that it is thirty seconds a shop. If you are someone who already checks dates and plans meals around them, you will not need it. If you have found a sour yoghurt behind the milk twice this month, you will.

Set the two permissions, test one reminder, and let the list do the remembering.