You can give work and rest periods your own labels, icons, and colors, such as Sprint and Recover. This article explains the options and how to copy them to Apple Watch.
Changing a Label, Icon, or Color
- Open Settings. On iPhone and iPad, tap the gear button on the main screen. On Mac, choose Burst Timers > Settings. On Apple Watch, scroll down on the main screen and tap Settings.
- Find the Work or Rest section. Its header previews the current label, icon, and color.
- Change any of the following:
- Label: up to 20 characters. Leave it empty to use Work or Rest.
- Icon: choose from 20 icons, including a bolt, flame, runner, dumbbell, swimmer, heart, leaf, lungs, and hourglass.
- Color: choose from Green, Mint, Teal, Cyan, Blue, Indigo, Purple, Pink, Red, Orange, Yellow, and Brown.
By default, work periods use a bolt in green and rest periods use a leaf in orange.
Where Your Choices Appear
- The values on the main screen and the colored bar that previews the run
- The countdown, background tint, Up Next, and progress bar while a run is in progress
- The Live Activity on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island on iPhone
- The menu bar and Dock icon on Mac
- The Watch app, and its colored backgrounds when Use Colored Backgrounds is on
Changes made during a run apply to the next run.
Restoring the Defaults
Choose Restore Defaults at the bottom of the Work or Rest section to go back to the original label, icon, and color for that period. The button is unavailable when the defaults are already in use.
Colored Backgrounds on Apple Watch
On Apple Watch, turn on Use Colored Backgrounds in Settings to tint the running screen with the color of the current period. When it's off, the background stays black.
Copying to Apple Watch
Each device keeps its own settings. To use the same labels, icons, and colors on your Apple Watch as on your iPhone:
- On iPhone, open Settings.
- Tap Copy to Apple Watch.
- Confirm with Replace.
This replaces the Work and Rest labels, icons, and colors on your Apple Watch. It doesn't change the number of segments, the lengths, or any other setting. The watch receives the change the next time it connects to your iPhone. After the copy, each device keeps its own settings again, so later changes on one don't affect the other.
Copy to Apple Watch only appears when your iPhone is paired with an Apple Watch that has Burst Timers installed. If the copy fails, Burst Timers shows Couldn't Copy to Apple Watch with the reason.