LaneHelp on your phone
How LaneHelp works on a phone: downloading the app, using the website, adding a home-screen shortcut, and navigating on a small screen.
What this does
LaneHelp is available as a free iPhone or Android app and works in any phone browser with no installation. This page covers both choices and the phone layout.
When to use it
Use it if you mostly use a phone, or you are helping someone set up their phone for quick access.
What you need
A phone with a web browser. An internet connection for live pages — see Offline and low-signal use for what works without one.
In this guide
The phone layout
On a phone, five buttons stay along the bottom: Index (the directory), Shelter, Paddle, Map, and Menu. Menu contains Housing, Route, Jobs, Current, Insights, Events, Alerts, Calls, Community, and the rest of LaneHelp in grouped rows. Try the phone half of the tour in Finding your way around.
Add LaneHelp to your home screen
Open lanehelp.com in your browser
Safari on iPhone, Chrome on Android.
Open the browser share or menu button
On iPhone: the square-with-arrow share button. On Android: the three-dot menu.
Choose “Add to Home Screen”
LaneHelp gets its own icon and opens full-screen like an app.
No internet or very little?
- Texting works on any phone with SMS — no data plan needed. See Using LaneHelp by text.
- The Quick Help page is built to load fast and lists crisis lines and key addresses.
- Printed Quick Sheets and handouts work with no phone at all. See Saving and sharing.
Common questions
Is the phone version missing anything?
No pages are missing. Some tools are arranged differently — for example, map layer controls become a slide-up sheet — but everything on the desktop site exists on the phone.
Does LaneHelp work on a very old or slow phone?
The website is kept lightweight, and the text-message option works on any phone that can send SMS, including phones with no internet at all.
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