How To See Steps On Apple Watch

Tips
1

I’ve been trying to track my daily steps on my Apple Watch but I can’t figure out the easiest way to see my step count directly on the watch face or in the menus. I only seem to find calories and distance. Can someone explain where exactly I should tap or what settings I need to change so I can quickly view my steps during the day?

2

Yeah, Apple hides steps a bit.

Here is how to see them on the watch and make it easy:

  1. Quick way on the watch
    • Press the Digital Crown
    • Open the Activity app
    • Scroll down with the Digital Crown
    • Under the Rings you see:
    Move, Exercise, Stand
    Below that you see: Total Steps and Total Distance

So your steps are there, they are just burried.

  1. Add steps to a complication on the watch face
    Apple does not give a native “steps” complication. You only see rings or Activity stats.
    If you want steps on the watch face, use a third party app. Two popular ones:

    • Pedometer++
    • StepsApp

Example with Pedometer++:
• On your iPhone, open App Store
• Install “Pedometer++”
• Open the app once, give motion permission
• On the watch, hold down on your watch face
• Tap Edit
• Go to the complication area
• Choose Pedometer++ as the complication
Now your step count shows right on the watch face.

  1. See detailed steps on iPhone
    • Open the Fitness app for rings and summary
    • For detailed raw step data, open the Health app
    • Go to Browse
    • Tap Activity
    • Tap Steps
    You see daily totals, hourly chart, averages, trends.

  2. Make sure steps are counted from the watch
    • On iPhone, open Health
    • Tap your profile photo
    • Tap Devices
    • Make sure your Apple Watch is listed and is the top “Data Sources & Access” entry for Steps
    If the iPhone is above it, your phone might be doing most of the counting.

So, short version:
Steps live inside the Activity app on the watch, and inside Health on the phone.
To see them on the watch face itself, you need a third party steps complication.

3

Apple kind of treats “steps” like a guilty secret, so you’re not crazy for not finding them.

@codecrafter already covered the standard Activity app route and third‑party complications pretty well. Let me add a few different angles and a couple of tweaks I’ve found more useful in actual day‑to‑day use:

  1. Use the Fitness app on the watch, not just Activity
    On newer watchOS versions, the “Fitness” / “Activity” tile can look confusing. If you:

    • Press the Digital Crown
    • Open the Fitness (or Activity) app
    • Scroll all the way down
      You’ll see “Steps” and “Distance.”
      The trick is: don’t stop at the rings summary, keep scrolling until you literally hit the bottom. Apple kind of buries it under the pretty stuff.

  2. Use the Workout app for session steps
    Not total daily steps, but if you:

    • Start an Outdoor Walk or Indoor Walk workout
    • Swipe or scroll through the workout screens
      Some workout views can show steps or cadence.
      To adjust this:
    • On your iPhone open the Watch app
    • Go to Workout
    • Tap “Workout View”
    • Edit the views for Walk to make sure metrics you care about (like steps / cadence) are visible
      It is not as clean as a simple “steps” readout, but for intentional walks it’s surprisingly helpful.

  3. Use the History view on the watch
    In the Activity / Fitness app on the watch:

    • On the main ring screen, scroll down past today’s summary
    • Tap a previous day
    • Scroll down again on that day
      You’ll see steps for that specific day. Nice if you’re trying to compare days without grabbing your phone.

  4. Skip the complications entirely and pin a “Steps” app in the Dock
    If you do not want to mess with complications:

    • Install something like Pedometer++ or StepsApp (as @codecrafter mentioned)
    • On your iPhone open the Watch app
    • Go to Dock
    • Set Dock to “Favorites”
    • Add the step‑tracking app to the top of the list
      Now a single press of the Side button shows your favorite apps and your steps app is right there. I actually prefer this to cluttering the watch face.

  5. Watch face choice matters
    Apple still refuses to give us a native step complication, but some faces show third‑party data better than others:

    • Modular / Modular Compact
    • Infograph / Infograph Modular
    • Utility
      These give more “data” style slots where step apps look clean. The fancy photo or Portrait faces are terrible for actually seeing steps at a glance.

  6. Sanity check: are steps tracking correctly?
    If your numbers feel low or weird:

    • On your iPhone open Settings
    • Privacy & Security → Motion & Fitness
    • Make sure “Fitness Tracking” and “Health” are on
    • In the Watch app on iPhone, under Privacy, make sure “Fitness Tracking” is enabled
      If any of that is off, you’ll be chasing a step count that never lines up.

  7. One thing I’ll slightly disagree with @codecrafter on
    You can live happily without a steps complication if you train yourself to swipe or click once or twice. Apple clearly wants you focusing on rings instead of raw steps. If you just care about “Did I move enough today?” the rings plus occasional deep dive into Health on the phone are actually enough for most people.
    If you are very step‑number obsessed though, yeah, third‑party complication or Dock shortcut is the only way to make it truly “at a glance.”

In short:

  • Total daily steps live at the very bottom of the Activity / Fitness app on the watch.
  • Workout app can give you more context while you are actually walking.
  • For true always‑visible steps on the watch face, you’re stuck with third‑party apps or using the Dock as a semi‑shortcut.

And no, it’s not just you. Apple really could surface this in a much less annoying way.

4

Two extra angles that haven’t really been hit yet:

1. Turn steps into a “widget habit” instead of a complication hunt

Apple clearly wants you looking at rings, not steps, so fighting the system too much just gets frustrating. A workaround that feels native:

  • Swipe right from your main watch face to the Smart Stack (watchOS 10+).
  • Scroll down and add a steps-focused widget from a third‑party app like Pedometer++ or StepsApp.
  • Reorder the stack so that widget is near the top.

Result: one quick swipe + tiny scroll and you always land on your step count, without needing it crammed into the face itself. I actually prefer this to cluttering Infograph with another tiny number.

2. Use iPhone Health as your “truth” and only sanity‑check on the watch

Instead of trying to live in the step count all day, flip the workflow:

  • Treat the watch as the sensor.
  • Treat the iPhone’s Health / Fitness apps as your “dashboard.”
  • On the watch, just confirm that it is tracking: open Activity / Fitness once or twice a day, scroll to the bottom, make sure steps look in the right ballpark.

If you mainly care about longer trends (weekly / monthly), you get far better graphs and breakdowns in Health than anything a tiny watch face can show.

About the unnamed “How To See Steps On Apple Watch” type guides and apps you might have seen:

Pros

  • Usually walk you through the buried menus so you can actually find steps without guesswork.
  • Often bundle tips across Fitness, Activity, Smart Stack, and third‑party apps in one place.
  • Good for beginners who have never touched Privacy → Motion & Fitness settings or Workout views.

Cons

  • Many of them still promise a “native steps complication” that does not really exist. You always end up in third‑party territory for at‑a‑glance steps.
  • Can get out of date quickly when watchOS shifts UI around.
  • Some are more marketing than substance, basically rephrasing what @codecrafter and others have already laid out.

Personally I’d mix a few things:

  • Use Apple’s Activity / Fitness app for your official daily step total.
  • Use a single third‑party app for a big, readable step widget in the Smart Stack.
  • Stop expecting the default watch faces to behave like a dedicated pedometer. They never quite will, no matter how many settings you poke.