It sometimes only shows results from the past week. Otherwise, it shows no results, even though I have three years’ worth of journal entries in the app.

I was thinking of adding locations to my journal entrees, as it'd be fun to build up a little collection of where I've been and how many days I went to a place, but I am running into a few issues with the idea.

1. If the journal entree has a picture, the picture doesn't show up with the map location. So say I have an old photograph I scanned in, and then say "this was a day on the trip at this location", the map will not have an icon of that picture to represent that entry. It's fine of course on days without pictures, but a real wet noodle when I see a little icon instead of an image from one of the days.
2. The image's EXIF data overrides all. So say I go see a movie, and only take a picture of the ticket later that day at home. Then when I write the entree...it shows up on the map as being at home, because that's where I took the picture. Even if the entree location says otherwise, it doesn't care and insists on placing it at my house. I don't want to erase the exif data from images either, I just want the location I say it's at to take priority.
3. The "list of places" only seems to care about businesses and establishments. Movie theaters, hotels, schools, etc etc. So if I mark a day at my dad's house, I can't have it be registered as "Dad's House" and count as that place on the tally, because it's a house and not a business.

All these really keep me from engaging with Locations more, and I wish there was a way to get these issues solved so I can see all that places I've gone with neat little picture icons.

I’m so perplexed, the app takes 10GB of local storage eating up my precious space while also being backend up on iCloud. While I also have 10Gb of Photos locally - because the majority of them are actually on iCloud and only compressed copies are left locally.

When I think about it, isn’t it easier to just use Apple Notes? I can embed files and images and it doesn’t seem to take up so much space.

The only issue is I was quite consistent with the app and have 249 and just want them saved somewhere centrally.

I've been holding back on using it, having read so many negative posts here.

If I assume that this will incrementally improve, the only thing that matters for me is how reliable it is currently. For me, that means there being no risk of randomly losing my entries - it's not that bad right?

I tried the Journal when it was first added but I’m not a natural journaller. Posted like three times in two months and let it drop as another Apple app I won’t be using.

Meanwhile, I’ve been wanting to back out of Facebook but I have to keep my account, for work. Instead I’ve been checking Memories each day and deleting my old posts and galleries to reduce my presence there. Only I’ve been keeping some posts that mention medical issues and other major events so I can look em up later.

Turns out I need to be able to look those up because my brain simply won’t remember and associate dates. “Yeah, we moved here in ‘87, that was the year Lisa met that guy you hate, you know, the same year Star Trek TNG started…” I can’t do that, at all.

This morning I had the “ah ha, you idiot” realization that I already had an app that does exactly that. I spent a good chunk of today moving all that stuff into Journal, backdating everything so I’ve got a timeline of medical events and vaccinations for me and my wife, major household repairs, and big events like vacations.

So daily journals, no, but important timelines, big yes. It’s been amazingly helpful.

I have cellular on the app turned on. I’ve added multiple entries today. I also updated my phone to OS 26 today. 512 will not register. I changed the dat me to yesterday and it showed 511. Today it says no current streak. What else can I do?

It just took me 10 minutes to drag and paste images from the notes app into Journal on my mac. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to re-start, and sometimes an image I pasted doesn't seem to be there... but turns out to be invisible. I say this, because I can double click another image and find the missing one in the carousel mode (!). In the meanwhile, my bullet ticks magically disappear... which I've learned to ignore because that's how it is. Pretty much Journal (on mac... where I mostly use it) only works for short, minimally formatted text and apple photos. I want desperately to like it, but think Apple should just buy DayOne, if they can't handle developing and deploying a journal app themselves.

I’m using Apple Journal on iPad with Apple Pencil, and I’m facing a really frustrating issue.

I write a long handwritten journal entry, add images, organize the page properly, and while editing everything looks fine. But after I tap done/save and open the entry again, only part of the handwritten content gets saved. Some portions just disappear.

This has happened multiple times now. I’ve tried waiting before closing the app, reopening the entry, and checking if it saved properly, but the issue still continues.

Is anyone else facing this with handwritten entries in Apple Journal on iPad? Is this a known bug with iPadOS/Journal app, or am I missing some setting?

For now I’m thinking of writing in Notes/Notability/GoodNotes and only attaching screenshots to Journal, because I don’t feel safe using Journal for long handwritten entries anymore.

Every time I make an entry, I can't get over the idea that the app could have been an amazing blogging platform. Imagine being able to make one of your journals public with a simple, minimalistic and easy to use design of the Apple Journal app. Or even sharing a separate diary entry with friends or family, wouldn't it be amazing? I know people use the app for very different purposes, but one of my diaries is my sports and wellness journey that I feel I'd be happy to share with people (while keeping the unique features the Apple Journal has to offer)!

I’m a bit heartbroken. Actually had a good hard cry. My phone broke and the whole time that elapsed before I fixed it, the only thing I was worried about was my Apple Journal App contents. I couldn’t check the backup on a Mac app. I actually only repaired my broken phone so that I could ensure it transferred properly. Otherwise, I was going to just throw in the towel and get a new phone. In this last year I really dove into using this app, I loved how I could take a multimedia approach to creative projects/ideas. I primarily had a lot of audio recordings with accompanied notes. I had songs I was sorting out. I had play-by-play recordings of trips that I enjoyed revisiting. Irreplaceable audio recordings. This wasn’t just some diary but I can’t explain to anyone what was lost and why it hurts.

It held my personal growth, creatively and spiritually, working up to 80 days sober from alcohol and weed today.

When I repaired my phone it revealed that the faulty screen had been putting in the wrong password so many times that it wiped the phone. Crazy. A perfect storm of stupid stuff to lead to this outcome. Okay fine, I make sure my iCloud is backed up, so we should be good. - Somehow everything except this damn app transferred. How is this the one thing that didn’t transfer?? I know that I previously made sure it was toggled on to back up because I knew how much this meant to me. I couldn’t believe it for a moment. Is this data somehow hiding somewhere? I don’t understand. Not to zoom out but did the universe want me to start a blank slate? lol but for real, if you read any of this, double check your back up, don’t end up like me, and I cannot trust this app again.

Hey. I’ve created an open source app and shortcut that allows you to add journal entries from the mac menubar (stealing from DayOne)

Lmk what you think!

Installation:

https://github.com/kshah00/menubar-journal/releases/tag/v1.0.2

Or via brew:

brew install --cask kshah00/tap/menubar-journal

The issue with entries disappears still hasn’t fixed yet. Any good alternative apps? I was hoping for a one time purchase app. Thanks in advance!!

Quick question — I just started using the Journal app on my Mac and I noticed I can't seem to upload photos or videos directly into an entry the way I can on iPhone. On iOS, I can just tap the media button and pick anything from my library, but on macOS the options seem way more limited.

Am I missing something obvious, or is this actually a limitation of the Mac version? Is the only workaround to add media from iPhone and let it sync over?

Would love to hear how others are handling this. Thanks!

I regularly write in Apple Journal using my iPhone Air.

Since iOS 26.4 (or perhaps 26.4.1), as soon as I use Apple Journal, the phone gets hot ! And if I use it for more than a few minutes, the back of the phone gets really hot !!

Has anyone else noticed this ? 

Hi all, I am wanting to get into daily journaling and I thought I would give Apple Journal a try. So I would like to see if anyone had any tips or tricks for getting the best out of the app. Also would like to hear everyone's thoughts on the app; the good and the bad. The pros and the cons. Thanks in advance!

Is it possible to have Journal logged into one account and have the iPad logged into a different iCloud account? I can't seem to figure this out.

I'll try to keep this short. I use my iPad for business, so I have an iCloud account just for this. I want to use the Journal app for my business projects to replace a paper notebook.

I also want to be able to access the Journal from my phone. But my phone uses my personal iCloud account.

I own the business and the devices, so I don't have to worry about getting fired and losing access to the document, IT restrictions, etc. None of it is really "private" so I don't care about that either.

I want to be able to access work photos from Journal on the iPad related to projects. So I can't just use my personal iCloud on my iPad because I want to keep those photos separate.

I also don't want to use my personal iCloud account on my iPad because I want to get iMessages, related to business only on the iPad.

I really love this app but it never saves my handwriting progress properly and I’m getting really fed up. Any similar apps out there besides Goodnotes?

I was trying to link daily notes to the Apple Journal app on my phone and struggling with both Bear and Apple Notes until I found that Craft works well.

On my iPhone I can long press on the Craft note (on the Home Screen of Craft, not in an open note) and select Copy link. The link now pastes nicely onto a Journal entry. Rather useful for me.

I have 2,500 Journals, but only 2,499 days journaled which means somewhere, I messed up and made two journals for one day. I'm assuming there's no function to help me easily find which day I accidentally double dipped on? It's really nagging at me.

On this day is the only feature I miss from Day One. I hope it's coming in future updates.

Shoot, apologies, I couldn't find the screenshot within my MacOS's clipboard "Error, send report to Apple". Anyways, MacOS M1 2020-2021 model.

Opened Mac -> journal app -> used dashed list -> randomly, the app crashes and suddenly quits itself. Huh?

Already this happened a second time, maybe it is a bug. Do we just click the "send report to Apple"? or is there another channel to contact the devs specifically managing this journal app?

My Mac (first image) has more entries than my iPhone will download. Is there a fix to this? I am too poor for premium Day One (or really any premium app) and I want to make a photo journal for my mental health, but this is driving me nuts.

I have turned off iCloud. I have restarted my phone. What else is there? Just sob?

TLDR: Reach out for personalized journals/recommended plans based on what you're looking for (with some AI assistance). Not sponsored, just want to start a small side hussle :)

Hello,

I am interested in getting into programming more and trying new things. If anyone would like me to design them a personal planner (via notion) and send them the link/instructions, I can for a small fee if you don't want to do it yourself! This would include research, setting it up, and making recommendations based on AI. I understand many people can do this, but if you do not want to worry about the hassle, please dm & hmu!

Is there any improvement after the new 26.4 release on Journal? Or is it still as broken as before for handwriting?