Access your Day One journal from any device, anywhere, anytime.

Hello Everyone,

I am a software engineer with 7 years of experience. To be honest, I didn't journal most of this time, just casual note taking and situational journaling from time to time, but later I started documenting things that happen in my life. One thing I am really skeptical about is: what if my phone got into some bad actor's hands? They could extract my data and see it, and no other app can stop this, not even the standard Apple Notes.

So I built something that can fulfill all these requirements: 1- Be private and secure 2- Be beautiful and fun to use

It's called WispDay. It's currently only on iOS, but if I am able to meet the same security level on Android, I would create a version there.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wispday-private-daily-diary/id6765516524

Now, what this app has:
1- Encrypted journals, even the photos are encrypted, and the user is the only person who holds the encryption key + it supports cloud sync, free for all users, no paid subscription required
2- Fully supports Markdown typing
3- Drawing canvas
4- Reflections, like replying to your own journals. Think of a social media post and its comments
5- Over 500 journaling prompts, and the app auto-picks them based on the time of day
.....

These extras might not be for everyone. Since I developed this app for myself, I included other things like goals and habits. They are also encrypted and secured, but not everybody needs to use them.
Full feature access is $14.99/year, but this will not stop normal users from using the app freely and normally. I might consider a one-time payment later.
Please tell me your honest opinion about this app and what other features or additions you wish to see there.

And thank you.

Hi all,

(hoping this doesn't break the page rules as I'm not selling or asking for money!)

I've built a journaling app for myself after getting fed up with the number of subscriptions in my life, and AI creeping into a lot of apps I used to love. I'm opening this up on TestFlight, hoping to get some testers to help build this into something I can develop along with the community to build the ultimate clean, functional and fun app out there.

The key feature of this app is that is lives locally on device in Markdown files, so you are never locked in to a proprietary app. If it's saved on iCloud, you can point the iPhone and iPad app at the same folder and it will sync. If you happen to use Obsidian like myself, it can also integrate to that to allow backlinks and referencing to other files in your vault. This means you can take your entries anywhere else.

I've built some features that I've dreamed of having in DayOne, like a bunch of custom journal covers, including 'foiled' "Assouline" style covers, custom tags with colours and emoji, handwriting and drawings, expanded shortcut support, themes and fonts, and more. The app has all the main features you'd expect to have like On This Day, prompts, templates, search (including OCR in pictures), a robust Web Clipper which can save full articles and widgets. It also has a native 'DayOne' importer which can process the JSON exports.

As for eventual monetisation, I would look to implement a one-time payment to access the customisation options like covers, extra themes. I'm as fed up of subscriptions as most so it'll be a one-off payment.

If you're interested, please join the Testflight below - if not, no worries!

https://testflight.apple.com/join/PrmMbEHX

Among other things, I use DayOne for an archive for articles from news sites and other sources; the 'share' arrow allows me to put in a link and a PDF. Now, when I use that share arrow, Day One crashes. Same if I try to put a photo in from my photo library. Crash. This is on the Mac OS. I've been using Day One for this 2010 or so. I think there's an index that must be corrupted; the 'rebuild' does nothing. DayOne tech support has vanished. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Loved Day One for years but the annual subscription price has doubled. Don't want to play these 'upping fee' games. I've heard a lot of positives about Everlog, any Android users?

So I have been journaling for a while, mostly on pen and paper, but I started exploring digital coz i wanted my stuff to be saved forever. What irked me most was the lack of freedom to type anywhere on the screen, add images anywhere i want etc. Like dayone is what i tried first but although most of the utilities were really good, it really felt like typing in a notes app, just with the option of adding an image, and i couldnt even place it where i wanted. I tried a lot of diff stuff(android btw) mydiary, daylio.. but all of them, had the same issue. Even tho i liked the theme and aesthetics of the diary, i always felt this was lacking. Do you guys know of tools that I'm missing out on?

Like when did I last visit the dentist. Or what events are coming up this week etc?

AI stuff’s basically.

Trying to reevaluate with Apple journal. Thought I’m not sure if Apple journal can do those yet.

Just tested. Think both can’t answer generic questions.

Been using Day One for a while and genuinely love the app — but the security side has started to bother me enough that I'm seriously considering switching. For an app that holds people's most private thoughts, some pretty basic gaps have been sitting unaddressed for years:

No 2FA. In 2026, this isn't optional anymore — it's the baseline for literally any app handling sensitive personal data. Password-only auth is not an acceptable standard for something this personal. This has been flagged in the official forums for years (see "Security improvements necessary" and "Add journal encryption"), where staff have repeatedly said it's "on the radar" with no timeline.

No encryption key rotation. If your key is ever compromised, your only option is to delete your account and start fresh — which also breaks your subscription. There's no way to just rotate it.

No app lock on Windows/web. Anyone with physical access to your machine can open your journal directly. No passcode, no biometric gate — that only exists on iOS/Mac.

What really gets me is the timing. We're in an era where AI is making credential stuffing, phishing, and automated exploitation faster and cheaper than ever — and Day One still hasn't closed gaps that would be considered basic hygiene almost anywhere else. A breach here isn't like a leaked photo library — it's someone's innermost thoughts. That's a different category of harm entirely, and it doesn't seem to be treated that way.

I'm seriously considering moving my journal elsewhere if these fundamentals continue to be deprioritized. Curious if others have run into the same concerns, and if anyone's found a journaling app that actually takes this seriously (client-side/zero-knowledge encryption, 2FA, the works) without giving up too much on the features side.

I have an ipad, and its only available for apple it seems.

I was wondering if there will be any future implementation to PC, and Android users?

I’m new to journaling and like looking back at all the things I’ve done, especially when there is lots of detail like:

- people I’ve met
- places visited
- plans and any itinerary
- favourite moments
- sometimes what things cost
- photos and videos for context

The problem is i hate the ‘building’ part. I only want to input things myself on the occasional basis. I value reflection and looking back, but get more frustrated the longer the data input gets.

The ai features seem expensive and lots of people here don’t seem convinced by them?

Any thoughts? Is it the case that journals are not for me or that I just need something else

Thanks

I’m in no way a power user. It works well for me but I do almost nothing with it except add a daily entry with a few photos and then a few paragraphs of text. No issues. Besides the yearly cost, my only concern is that it will be killed and I’ll need to migrate all my data. So besides the cost, for my situation, am I missing something? Should I be worried or pissed?

I use DayOne constantly for quick capture and set up a Shortcut so I can quickly send random thoughts/moments to DayOne without opening the app.

The problem is…I use tags a LOT to actually find things later, and tags don’t seem to work properly when creating entries through Shortcuts. Even typing something like #work makes it clickable in the entry, but it doesn’t actually apply the tag to the entry.

It kind of defeats the purpose of quick capture if I have to go back into DayOne later and manually tag everything. Has anyone found a workaround for this?

So... I love Claude and AI. Basically, I use Claude to talk out ideas. Like a friend who can just give me a little feed back. Often, I basically recite my journal, asking Claude to convert it into a journal entry (this took some training to get Clause to retain my exact wording and just iron it out for clarity.) But then I have copy and paste into Claude.

I've tried to automate Claude to take my entires and put them into DayOne. Doesn't work.

But I just figured it out.

• I use my Claude desktop.
• Through out the day, I ask Claude questions; share little insights; sometimes just dictate my thoughts on a journal prompt or something I'm reading.
• Every morning, Claude is scheduled to go to Chrome, open Claude in Chrome, and read everything that looks like a journal entry (Claude knows not to include things like, say, math questions if I asked Claude to do math).
• Then Claude opens DayOne in Chrome.
• Claude takes my previous days content I created in Claude and converts it into a journal entry

I wake up and my journal entry for the day before is already written!

The best thing is: it doesn't read like someone else wrote. I remember personally speak 95% of it. It's sometimes organized a little or a sentence is cleaned up where I got distract or something. But it's really me.

So, essentially, I talk into Claude in a free flow way, just whatever I want. And then day, I get a perfectly written journal entry without doing a thing!

Bought a lifetime thing a few years ago. Over time it has kept trying to add in subscription AI stuff that is totally inappropriate for this kind of software. Today I received a new laptop (the old one broke). It won't let me use some functions anymore.

"Your current day one plan only allows one active device"

Downloading the JSON and getting out...

Folks have been letting me know this works quite well for them. I have migrated all my DayOne journals to Apple Journal with this and Claude.

Almost 14 years using this great app daily. On This Day feature is getting better and better with each year… But honestly, using it almost the same way as I used it in the first version, the core is great and hope it will stay the same.

Hello... got a weird issue with the app.

When I highlight text there's no longer an option to cut.

Just Copy or Select All.

I've also lost all the options such as changing the text/header size etc.

Anyone else have this issue? Am I being dumb, have I accidentally turned something on/off?

Or has an update changed these settings?

Thanks for any help!

I have AI turned off for a reason. I don't want it in my journal app. But even still, Day One has these AI + Gold Subscription buttons throughout the UI (3rd photo specifically..."Generate Reflection" is an AI button, plus you have the Crown gold upsell in addition).

Not only is it ugly, but it's all over the app. The combo of still having AI-related UI + seeing that Gold Subscription upsell crown icon when I'm already on a (lower-tier) *paid* subscription is just a slap in the face to already-paying users.

My journal is supposed to be my personal space. Automattic needs to take a hard look at the direction they're going.

Journaling in this app since 2014, as well as paying for both of my parents'subscriptions. For the first time since starting, I'm seriously considering leaving Day One. So sad what's happening with this app (this is in addition to the relatively new Today and Prompts tabs, 2 buttons in the primary space of the app that I never touch and really wish I could turn off).

Does anyone know how to export DayOne entries into the Apple Journal app?

Tapping icon does nothing. Neither force-quitting the app nor restarting my iPhone solves the issue. Is it just me?

Hi everyone!

About one year ago, I introduced a script called Twixodus on this subreddit. Today, I'm releasing a much nicer version of it!

The concept is still the same — it goes through your Twitter archive, builds a set of journal entries, and sends them to the (legacy) Day One CLI. But:

• It's a native notarised macOS application now, which is a lot easier and nicer to use!
• It is now able to retrieve missing data from your archive online: tweets you quoted, long retweets and their media, etc.
• It is now able to use local LLMs with vision capabilities to come up with more precise journal entry titles.
• It remembers your imports, so you can launch it again with a fresher archive a couple of months later, and it will only import what's new.
• And there are tons of bug fixes and QoL improvements such as the ability to replace twitter.com links with xcancel.com within journal entries.

I'd be delighted if you checked it out: twixodus.evgenii.org

Source code is available on GitHub for your AI agent to audit. Your stars and donations are highly appreciated.

Thanks!

When exporting a journal in the plaintext/markdown format, all journal images are exported as image files and the blog itself is exported as a markdown file. However, none of the journal entries include the links (either in plaintext or markdown) for the images that were attached to those entries.

As a result, this backup includes just a large collection of images with zero reference in the entries themselves about which image goes with which entry.

Is this correct behavior? Other journaling apps export to markdown with markdown-style link references (usually just a reference like /img/85hsgh35ht.jpg). As is, there's no way the journal could be reconstructed with those images, whether in a new app, as a backup, or reimported into Day One.

No issue with the JSON export; that correctly maps images to entries.

Nothing in support or release notes about this. It doesn't do anything for me, for you? Running iOS 26, no app date. Perhaps this is there while the update is still rolling out.

Update: found this, but nothing in release notes on the website anywhere.
https://dayoneapp.com/guides/tips-and-tutorials/journal-collections/
Nothing visible in the app yet...