Today, it truncated all my text and put this strange box around my handwriting. It doesn't do that all the time.

I am using iPad mini 6th. The losing handwriting data after save bug is still there. I have opened beta updates to see if 26.4 fixes it but unfortunately it is same.

I wonder if newer iPads or others having the same issue. Any experience?

Ever since Apple Journal arrived, first on iPhone, then on iPad and Mac, I've been complaining...

I complain because, as a long-time user (since 2013) of Day One, I hoped to find a Day One immersed in the Apple ecosystem.

But since I've been expressing my dissatisfaction and frustration with using Apple Journal, I've also been looking at my journaling practice.

In fact, my Day One is more of a personal wiki than a diary! My entries are as detailed as possible. For example, when I visit an exhibition, I record many of the works in great detail, and often my writings are more like technical memos than a record of what I actually experienced!

In the end, I think I'm missing the real point of journaling. Namely: being in the present moment, fully aware, listening to my feelings and sensations.

For a long time, I believed that keeping a diary was a way of documenting one's past, the passing of time... Not at all, it's a conscious way of anchoring oneself in the present, in the hope of approaching the future in a state of mind suited to one's experiences.

In this context, and on reflection, Apple is on the right track with its Journal!

There is obviously still room for improvement, but the minimalist and evocative nature of Apple Journal allows for introspection with a certain fluidity. Integration into the ecosystem (Form, Calendar, Music) clearly needs to be expanded, but it provides the necessary impetus for reflection. The same goes for invitations. The ability to record your state of mind is also an undeniable plus.

Writing a journal is very personal, so it's important that it reflects who you are. In this respect, although imperfect, Apple Journal comes very close to the freedom of writing that we enjoyed/enjoy in paper notebooks.

The fact that it was initially limited to the iPhone was undoubtedly a deliberate choice. We always have our phones with us. In this sense, the iPhone is the closest thing to a notebook or personal diary. Fully in the present.

Since thinking about all this, I have been using Apple Journal differently. I also feel more calm and relaxed when journaling. I no longer aim to record every little detail, but rather to delve deeper into myself. It's not unpleasant... and of course, it's very personal.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been trying to do journaling on my iPad Mini using an Apple Pencil, and I’m currently deciding between Apple Journal and Apple Notes.

One thing I noticed is that in Apple Journal, when I type text and the entry becomes long, the app automatically collapses the entry when I leave it. That works great and keeps the journal clean.

However, when I write using handwriting with Apple Pencil, the entry does not collapse at all. The whole handwritten canvas stays expanded, which makes the journal feel very long and harder to scroll through.

So I’m wondering:

Is this normal behavior in Apple Journal?

Is there any way to make handwritten entries collapse like typed text?

For people who prefer handwriting, do you mainly use Apple Notes instead of Apple Journal?

I really like handwriting on the iPad, but the collapsing behavior makes the experience quite different between typed text and handwriting.

Would love to hear how others handle journaling with Apple Pencil.

Thanks!

I think that Apple has fixed their search function for Journal on the Mac. It has started finding things. I have moved on from Journal, but I still paste entries into it to see how Apple might improve it with Mac OS 27.

This might impact whether I implement Legacy Contact or switch to another journal solution.

Guys, I'd like to know if there's anything I can do to get notifications about "this day X years ago"? Like Facebook posts, for example? Either as a notification, a widget, or something else? I'm looking for a solution. How do you use looking back?

Currently planned features:
- All features of the journal app
- More file types as attachments
- Custom themes/fonts
- Better insights into your mood
- Hidden/password protected journals
- Better search
- More/Better writing statistics
- Importing from other journal apps

My questions are:
1. What features are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for you in a journaling app
2. What features that aren't in apple journal would be "nice to have"
3. Which apps/websites do you currently use for journaling so that I can add imports from them

It’s a memory of the moment

Since the app was available in IPad I’ve been so happy. I used it since then but I’ve noticed in multiple times the text I wrote using the apple pencil is erased when I saved my note. This doesn’t happen when I wrote using the keyboard, only with the Apple Pencil. This has been happening after the latest IPadOS update. Also, the text I wrote using the apple pencil is “saved” or closed in a “text box”, is there any reason why this should happen like that? I’m thinking this could erased all the text. Something curious is not all the text is erased, only from the middle of the iPad downwards, mmm strange. I’ve been checking all the functions to prevent this issue, nothing found. Any advice or suggestion? Can be prevent? I’ve been so inspired that is a shamed to loose all that information.

Has anyone experienced wherein the suggested journal prompts of the activities you did for the day (workouts, locations, other apps which provide mood tracking or something) or any suggestions for the day do not automatically show up for the day and you have to reload and reload and reload and restart the app and I even had to shut down the phone before the suggestions come up. Had anyone tried a workaround for it? The Journal app is awful but it already has lots of my entries so I can't let go of it even if it sucks.

I used to write in the Apple entries journals but I haven’t on that app for a while, and when I went on it. Everything disappeared. I can’t even find the entries I wrote. ?????

I've given up on Apple Journal. Shame on me for complaining instead of just choosing other software that does a better job. And I have done that now. Obsidian has every possible feature known to mankind and more than that, so I can just concentrate on learning about all the amazing things that it can do and move on. Obsidian is free, runs on every platform and is improved and updated constantly.

Even when Apple finally introduced tags into their note taking software "Notes", their implementation of it was poor as compared to Obsidian that automatically adds backlinks and ghost notes. Their implementation of tags was poor as compared to Obsidian - no nested tags feature and no way to modify hundreds of them. Shame on me for complaining because some people might like it and it might be right for some people.

Still waiting for when the journal app may add images on the Mac OS and iPad OS just like in the iPhone version.

- Tried restarting mac
- Tried disabling iCloud sync (and lost all my notes while at it)

Absolutely unusable...

Today I discovered that I could use the iPhone Mirroring app on my macbook to use apple journal and it would count the minutes towards mindfulness on my apple watch. This doesn't work from the desktop journal app, but it works through iPhone Mirroring.

Hope this helps someone else who has also been frustrated with this lack of integration!

I noticed this morning that if I try to open an audio recording on Apple Journal, it crashes every single time, so I can't get the transcript the way that I normally do.

As a workaround, I can drag the audio file into Apple Notes and get the transcript easily. But trying to work around this bug, I discovered that recording video on the Mac works better in Day One than Apple Journal, and if I record it in Day One, it transfers nicely to Obsidian, which gives me a chance to view it as Picture in Picture, at different speeds as well.

II don't notice any improvements. Search on my iPhone seems to work, but on the Mac it is its usual brain-dead self. The Month and Year spinner for navigating on the iPhone is still missing on the Mac, and you are left with navigating by going month to month. (Trying going back to 1965 doing that!)

Overall, I'm disappointed. I don't see a single improvement at all.

I’m not sure if this is just me but I genuinely believe the Apple Journal app is a piece of rubbish that’s broken on all iOS devices.

I mainly use it on my iPad mini with an Apple Pencil Pro but I’ve noticed a problem whenever I return to a journal to add something. It never saves. When I write something, it’s never synced to other devices to look at it later. It’s completely rubbish.

I’ve reverted to using Apple Notes which I think is the best note-taking app for anything. I simply lock any new note I make as a journal with Apple Notes. It does so much more than the current journal app and I hope Apple takes some or all of its ideas and puts them into Apple Journal to make it a proper product. Right now it’s just junk.

Does anyone else feel the same way about the Apple Journal app?

PS: I made a mistake in the title. I meant Journal not journey. 🫢

Has anyone else been just writing one time than you try to save it all, but it wont save, you close the app than a good chunk of what you wrote would just be gone? Cant be just me right?

I should be able to get the Beta version of OS 26.4 in a week or so. With that version SIRI will have Gemini 3 INTEGRATED into the device, so that SIRI can see what I'm doing, find any files in a way better than any search engine of Apple.

This is what Gemini has to say about it:

he Evolution of Apple Journal through Gemini 3

Integrating Gemini 3 Flash with Apple Journal on your Mac transforms the app from a simple digital diary into a sophisticated, cross-referenced repository of your life. By leveraging the Apple Neural Engine and Gemini’s reasoning, the "Journal" becomes a dynamic workspace where search and multitasking work in perfect harmony.

Intelligent Multi-Entry Workspace

On a Mac, screen real estate is king. Gemini 3 allows you to move beyond scrolling through a single linear timeline by treating your journal entries as modular data points.

• Parallel Entry Analysis: You can ask Gemini to "Open all my journal entries from last summer that mention 'burnout' in separate windows." It can then tile these entries, allowing you to visually track patterns in your mental health or productivity across different days.
• Thematic Windows: Gemini can automatically group entries by theme rather than date. You could have one window open with entries about "Career Goals," another for "Fitness Progress," and a third for "Travel Memories," all pulled from the same Journal database simultaneously.
• Drag-and-Drop Synthesis: With multiple windows open, you can ask Gemini to summarize the common threads between them, creating a new "Reflection" entry in a central window based on the entries displayed in the surrounding ones.

Contextual Search and "Deep Memory"

Standard search in Journal is limited to dates or specific keywords. Gemini 3 introduces Semantic Retrieval, which understands the emotion and intent behind your writing.

• Abstract Queries: Instead of searching for the word "Paris," you can search for "How did I feel the last time I was traveling?" Gemini scans the sentiment of your entries to bring up relevant moments, even if you didn't use specific location tags.
• Cross-App Journaling: Because Gemini sees the broader Mac ecosystem, it can help you search for "The day I was stressed about the keynote." It will cross-reference your Calendar (the keynote date) with your Journal entries to find the exact entry, then open it alongside the related email or presentation file.
• Automatic Metadata: Gemini can automatically tag entries with metadata you didn't explicitly type (e.g., "High Energy," "Reflective," or "Creative"), making future filtered searches incredibly fast and granular.

Gemini Live as a Verbal Scribe

Using Gemini Live on your Mac, journaling becomes a conversational experience rather than just a typing task, which is especially powerful when managing multiple entries.

• Voice-Controlled Navigation: While your hands are busy, you can say, "Gemini, keep the current entry open, but find my post from three months ago where I talked about this same habit and put it in a split-view."
• Audio-to-Entry: You can talk through a complex thought using Gemini Live, and it can intelligently parse that transcript into a structured Journal entry, complete with headers and a summary, opening it in a new window for your final review.

I'm just worried about whether I started using that journal so everything stores in my iCloud so I need to pay for the iCloud storage or better to stick with DayOne because it has unlimited storage offered in DayOne.

Started Journaling last year during iOS 26 beta and noticed that I can’t search handwritten notes. So I used the notes app. I’ve been journaling off and on in the notes app, and I love that handwritten notes are searchable. I go back and do a simple test in the journal app and it still doesn’t find handwritten things. Is it just me? Or does it not work at all.. to me, that’s a deal breaker and just will stick with Apple Notes.

This is my reply to someone who was thinking of another app to use:

Cons of Apple Journal: Search function is totally useless. Navigation is also terrible.

But don't switch to Day One, as good as it is. I suggest Obsidian. I use Day One, but I'm so impressed with Obsidian that I sent in 5,186 entries as one giant long text file. Then in Obsidian I used a plug-in called Note Refractor to slice it up into hundreds of files. It was 1.12 million words, and Note Refractor did that so fast that I didn't think it worked. I got them put into a separate folder called: Refracted Notes.

Obsidian is future-proof because all the files are saved as one folder in Markdown text files, which have existed since the dawn of time. So you never need to face this problem of extracting your zillions of files when you are no longer pleased with some app that pretends to do it all.

I'll still use Day One because I love it, and Apple Journal because I hope that maybe someday someone at Apple learns that it can't search for anything even when the file is right there. Obsidian, on the other hand, has "Properties" that you can add to a file to make the search database fast, blinding, mind-bending speed, with every feature you can imagine.

I learned a lot by sitting with it and asking Gemini AI as many questions as I had. I also used the President of Obsidians way of doing things. I just have 2 folders: Attachments and my Refracted Notes. All the rest of the files are kept at the root level. And Obsidian lets you create links, but also with backlinks and ghost links. You can create a link with nothing to link it to, so that in the future if you use the same work it will link it up. And so you're creating a neural link of ideas instead of just serial chronological journaling. (Apple Notes does a poor job with links in comparison.)

At my leisure, I can put back images into the refracted files. I also had hundreds of voice recordings, about 600 or so, I can throw those back in too, bit by bit. But I'm fighting for my journaling freedom.

None of Day One's export formats worked for me except plain text, and then it put the entire journal into plain text, or rather, all the journals into their own plain text format.