Why Is Your Tinder Boost Not Activating?

Tinder says you start a Boost by tapping the purple lightning bolt icon on the main screen. If nothing happens, check the counter at the bottom of your own page, which shows how many Boosts you have left. If you have some and it still will not start, Tinder asks you to write in with the details or a screenshot.

The Boost button sits on the main screen, the one where you go through cards. Look for the purple lightning bolt icon and tap it.

That is the whole process Tinder describes for an ordinary Boost. If you have been hunting for it somewhere else in the app, go back to the main screen and look there.

The simplest reason a Boost will not start is that there is no Boost there to start.

To check, tap the profile icon and look at the counter at the bottom of the screen. Tinder says that counter shows how many Boosts you have left. If it shows none, the lightning bolt has nothing to spend, and the app is working exactly as it should.

Men get caught by this after a subscription's free Boost has already been used, or after they bought one Boost, spent it, and forgot. Check the counter first. It saves you from writing to Tinder about a problem that does not exist.

The easy habit is to glance at the counter before you settle in for the evening, not after you have tapped the lightning bolt three times and started to wonder what is broken.

Super Boost has its own rules, and they explain most of the confusion around it.

Only subscribers can buy it. On a free account, buying one is simply not open to you, however long you look for the option. Subscribers buy it by tapping the profile icon and then the Boost button at the bottom of the screen.

It also starts right away once you have bought it. There is no saving it for later. So buy a Super Boost only at the moment you want it to run, not in the afternoon for an evening you have planned.

That timing matters more than it sounds. Buy one over lunch and it runs while you are back at your desk, putting you in front of women who like you and then hear nothing back for hours.

If you have Boosts on the counter, you are tapping the lightning bolt on the main screen, and still nothing starts, that is a real problem and Tinder wants to hear about it. Its help pages ask you to write in with the details or a screenshot.

Make the report easy to act on. Say which phone you use, what you tapped, what you expected to happen and what happened instead. Attach a screenshot of the counter and one of the screen where the Boost failed. A clear report gets a clear answer much faster than "Boost is broken."

Once the Boost does start, the window is short, so the timing matters more than the button.

The way to judge a paid feature like this one is to test it properly: a night with a Boost against a night without. One Boost on an evening you spend answering work emails tells you nothing. Start it when you have half an hour to stay in the app and keep going through cards.

Be choosy while it runs. More women are seeing you during a Boost, which tempts men to like everyone. Like the women you would genuinely want to talk to, and pass on the rest.

A Boost is only worth something if you follow up. A woman who matches with you during one was in the app minutes ago, which makes it the easiest moment there is to start a conversation.

Answer quickly. Keep the first line short and make it about her. One detail from her photos or her bio, turned into a question she can answer in a line, beats any greeting. If she is halfway up a climbing wall in her second photo, "Did you make it to the top, or is this the moment before the fall?" does the job.

Tap the purple lightning bolt on the main screen. If nothing happens, check the Boost counter by tapping the profile icon. Super Boost is for subscribers only and starts the moment you buy it. If you have Boosts and it still will not start, write to Tinder with the details and a screenshot. Then run it on a night you can stay and swipe.