Name: Day One Journal: Private Diary
Rating: 4.82941 (99987 reviews)

User Reviews for Day One Journal: Private Diary

4.83 out of 5

100K Ratings

4 years ago, Dejasmiles

Day One has come a long way!

I have been using Day One for about 4 years now. I have always kept a journal since I was a kid but I wanted something password protected to use on my MacBook. When I first started using the Day One, it was limited and the phone app was incredibly buggy especially on iPhone. Over the years the developers have absolutely refined Day One into one of the best apps you can invest in on the App Store. I truly enjoy looking back over the years to see how far I have come. I mainly use this app as a “mind dump” whenever I feel overwhelmed and to record my dreams. Over time it has expanded into several different journals. I’m just now starting to use it to record smaller and simpler thoughts throughout the day to replace social media and it’s doing wonders for my mental health. Since it’s much more stable and reliable on iPhone it’s been a joy to use on-the-go. We all have those thoughts we just want to get out and social media isn’t always the place for that. Day One is a perfect judge-free zone where I won’t look back on a post 5 years later and feel deep regret for making that thought public. I did try out Day One Premium for 1 year because I wanted to use the video feature. I could only record a couple of minutes at a time and I didn’t end up using it as much as I thought I would. I didn’t use any of the other features in that year so I ended up reverting back to the basic package, but I’m sure those extra features will be useful for others!

3 years ago, Ang.Mar1

A blessing disgusted as an app

I love to write, as an over-thinker and someone who ruminates on things a lot it’s something very therapeutic. It’s nice to write down a reflection of how your day was, a good or bad moment of your day, something that triggered you, someone that hurt you or about the past. Oh the past! I could write for days. What’s really great about this app is that it has a feature where you can create a passcode for the app or even choose to unlock it with your Face ID like your phone. I’ve tried other apps that don’t have that, or they do have it but you have to upgrade to premium for it but not this one. As a kid I grew up with very strict people around me, and privacy was something I didn’t have most of the time, I’m now 18 and have a cellphone that I bought and pay each month, so there’s that just for reference. I always wanted to start journaling but because of the lack of privacy I help myself back but this has helped me a lot, I feel safe I feel that my thoughts are safe and that I can express myself and actually write what I want to write about my life. The cool thing is you can also add pictures and audio notes, it keeps track of how many days in a row you’ve journaled to keep you motivated and to keep a streak going. 10/10 for me. I hope to learn to process my thoughts and emotions through journaling to then be able to learn and be more aware of myself, heal and grow as a person. Thank you Day One!

3 years ago, pankiol

Needs great UX/UI

hi guys, thanks for improving the app.. but i wanna point out some things. Make timeline page have a customizable ‘action’ button, because i wanted to just click once to pull a video and start recording me talking for 30 mins about my life. Currently there are photos, audio and text. Make it customizable. This will be very helpful to truckers, delivery drivers that works alone but don’t want to fiddle a lot of buttons just to record. And second, after recording a video, can you label the ‘input title’ field with ‘write your title’, because right now, there’s only blank which confuses the user to navigate the title field. Also the timeline, it’s way too cramped especially the bottom part where you’ll see the time of the audio, address and weather, can you put a separator between them, cause right now they are just connected in one line, makes the UI jarring to read. also for audio clips, put an icon on the right hand side, and maybe put the length of the audio overlaying the icon. instead of cramping it at the bottom of the journal entry in the timeline view.. make it look beatiful and simple, easy to navigate.. but i really love what youre trying to do, its the best journal app there is… i would love to subscribe if these features are available… theres more that i would love to input but its getting too long. Do you have suggestions email? Thank you, i’ll rate it 5 stars for you guys

2 years ago, DarkLuminosity

Highly recommend! Very customizable.

I can't update my old review which was 4 stars, so I'll just do a new one. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars at that time was a feature that they fixed (adding voice recordings within a text entry). Thank you! I love Day One and I use Premium which is worth it. I created a template for a daily journal which has become a mixture of habit tracking (using the checklist feature), voice recordings for reflection, pictures to capture memories or lessons, and actual written highlights and reflections of my day. I have found a way to use Day One that creates a powerful tool not just for capturing memories, but creating growth experiences and tracking my personal growth journey. I look back at old posts (On This Day) from 1, 2, or 3 years ago and am amazed with how far I've come, and by keeping track of what I've learned, I can reread it and remember to apply them over and over. Day One is so customizable as a journal, and you can even create multiple journals too with Premium if you want to separate your entries. I've recently started going through and taking notes on some of my audio lessons/recordings since Day One also makes it easy to keyword search what you're looking for, which is way faster than going through hours of audio lessons. The tag feature is also helpful here. Highly recommend!

4 years ago, Chachaflakies

PDF format has improved- Thank you!

THANK YOU for continuing to improve the PDF format! Just as I was about to give up and look for a journaling method elsewhere, the PDF format was improved and now there are multiple pictures per page, and the flow and format is a lot nicer. I also like that the text is larger and one page can even fit up to 9 pictures. It still isn’t perfect. If I could give the suggestion to make the date and time font darker and maybe a little bigger, it would be near to perfect. That is hardly visible, especially once printed out. But the picture flow has dramatically improved, and I applaud you! I am fine paying a subscription as long as these updates are being made, because I appreciate the continuous work to improve the customer’s experience. So far, to the best of my knowledge, these improvements haven’t been made to the book printing, but I assume they are working on that as well. Thank you and please, for your subscribers, continue with these improvements! It’s the only thing that keeps me hanging on to this app because a physical, printed copy is so important to me, and though I love everything else about the app digitally, I would be forced to look elsewhere if I wasn’t satisfied with the printing (via book or PDF). I’m sure I’m not the only customer who feels this way. Thank you for hearing me out!

6 years ago, Maazismail

A request to address certain problems

I’ve been using your app for years, definitely one of the best apps I have ever used. However lately I have been facing problems. I have an iPhone 8. Often times when I copy or past something, the app would lag a lot and then crash and I would need to restart it. Another huge problem I have is that when I want to edit an entry, the app would instantly take me to the bottom of the entry instead of the place I already was. I write long entries so if I’m in the middle of something and notice a typo, I don’t want to fix it because it will take me all the way to the bottom. And if I slide up and tap on the text I want to edit, most of the time the app just keeps taking me back to the bottom. I think I have to double tap it sometimes and make sure I am not sliding to get it to select the text I want. It is so frustrating for me, why can this not work like google docs where it just stays at the same spot I click edit instead of going all the way down. Please, I have been a loyal customer for a very long time and I hope you fix this, or either give me an option to disable this ‘function’. Lastly, I would greatly appreciate if you guys would give us the option to sync with iCloud/Dropbox again, if we’re paying for something we really should get the option of where we want to save our data.

12 months ago, mysoulishome

Finally paid for it

Been using Day One off and on for over 10 years. Recently I’ve been dealing with trauma recovery and an eating disorder and was looking for something to do 3 times a day “check ins” to stop and recognize what my body feels, emotions etc to recognize they are happening, feel them and allow my nervous system to let the feelings subside in a healthy way. I spent a day looking at different “check in” apps and journals. Thought about just doing little notes in the habits app I use. Or the check in apps where you tap emotions and smiley faces. All dumb and none of the journaling apps really do what Day One does. So I downloaded it again and realized a perfect solution is to pay for premium and have a “daily checkins” journal and a regular one. When I write a long form proper entry I can put it in the journal…the short ones that are just noticing thoughts and feelings (an exercise) I can put in the other. Eventually decided you know I pay $100 for each therapy session and incorporating Day One into my self care routine with all the features is definitely worth $30 a year. I can also send a quick email from work if I miss a check in and don’t want to pull out my phone. Last thought…please just keep developing and supporting the app! I would hate to see it abandoned someday.

2 years ago, Loden1111

A Gateway to Reality

I have always wanted to journal, but the inconvenience of having the small book, an appropriate pen, and the physical circumstances seemed to prevent me from doing so. As I have an iPhone, iPad, and a MacBook Pro, and have one of those readily available just about all the time, journaling becomes practice. The two missing elements are a busy life and moments I want to capture that are sufficiently stirring that they will make me want to record the event. Day One reminds me each day to journal (Important!) and allows me to take a photo either in Photos or right from the app. The combination inspires me to write about what I have photographed. I have been frustrated with photo apps in that they are not focused on a written description of what was going on a the moment the image was captured. Day One solves that. Perhaps the greatest benefit of Day One is that I can easily see and read (unlike my handwriting in awkward places and in a small journaling book) what I have written in the past. The "me" that is revealed in my writing is a different "me" than the one I perceive in my mind's eye. Writing is, as others have noted, a window into the soul and a reflection of reality. I am benefitting from that window and that reflection thanks to Day One. I am sincerely thankful for the creators of this wonderful app.

2 years ago, SB5111

Love the app, but your autocorrect is the WORST

Dear DayOne, I love you so much. I’ve been a user for 8 years and I’m not going anywhere because there’s nothing better. But what is up with your completely terrible speech-to-text and autocorrect?? I’ve been wrestling with this since I first started my account, and I kept thinking you would work out the bugs, but honestly it’s like it keeps getting worse. It feels like your AI is getting dumber. It regularly changes correct words to incorrect ones, it misses obvious corrections, it suggests completely random words that have nothing to do with the letters I typed. and it has never learned any of my family’s names - never offers correct spellings as suggestions, never seems to have noticed that those are words I use constantly. I’m a busy mom and business owner, and I’ve just had to live with it because I don’t have time to clean everything up. But either I’ll have to someday spend many many hours correcting all the dumb mistakes, many of them CREATED by your system, or I’ll have to live with my family history being riddled with errors. Please fix this bad feature in your otherwise amazing product! Giving 5 stars in hopes this message gets through to somebody, anybody.

1 year ago, Nmarble007

On the fence

I have only been using Day One for a few days now and overall I like it, I think. I think it is great how they offer a 1 month trial period for premium, that gives you a lot of time to really figure out all the features and whether it is the right app for you or not. The photos with the location options is a great feature and it is nice to be able to easily reflect back on specific days. My biggest “upset” with the app is that I wish the entries were distinguished differently. I am only using the iPhone version of this app so I cannot speak on any other version, but every entry and day just seems to blend together. The only thing too indicate that entries are from different days is a small date stamp on the right side of the screen. Ideally, I would like to see an option that allows you to only see that days entries and you can toggle left or right to go in between days. I say that as an option because it seems like the majority of users of this app have no complaints about the layout but for those that do, something like that would be a great feature. EDITED: So I literally found the Today View right after posting this review. If there was an option to have the Today View as the primary viewing option in the Timeline tab than that would be perfect!

4 years ago, bbyblanco46

PERFECT, EXCEPT ONE MAJOR ISSUE...

My favorite journaling app. I was never able to commit to journaling— I’ve tried keeping physical journals, I’ve tried other apps, but this app was the only one that was able to keep me committed to writing. It offers so many useful tools and options, like templates, the ability to add photos, etc. (I do have the paid version btw.) There is one problem I have with this app though, and that’s privacy. The app does allow you to have a passcode, but I’ve found that if you go to your device’s home screen and use the spotlight search to search on your device, you can actually use keywords to search for your entries and read them from there (therefore bypassing app’s passcode). For example, if you wrote an entry about apples, you could search “apples” on your device and the entry will show up there, where you can read the title of the entry, as well as a good portion of that entry’s content. This has actually gotten me into a good bit of trouble at home because someone else was able to search for keywords on my device and read my private entries from my device’s home screen. I really, truly hope this is fixed. I love this app and would hate to have to stop using it for this reason.

3 years ago, JoshCanHelp

Always looking for better, Day One always wins

I’ve been journaling and digitally archiving for decades now. If I could retire right now I’d do it a lot more but, in the meantime, it’s important to me to take and keep snapshots of my and my family’s life as the years roll by. I stopped using Facebook and Instagram years ago and journaling has been a great replacement. I still have motivation to take pictures of semi-ordinary events, along with a note about what happened. Beyond that, it’s helped me to see a picture of my overall mental health year by year and identify things I struggle with over and over. Day One has been a near-perfect companion for the last several years. The product is both easy and fun to use and it’s rare that I think of something I want but don’t have. The updates are thoughtful and have yet to encounter an issue of any kind. I would love to see more support for the more technical folks, like a first-class command line API, but I know that I’m probably in a tiny minority of folks that care about it. I would also love to see automatic bi-directional linking, like Roam Reaearch. I constantly try new note taking and journaling tools and keep coming back to Day One!

2 years ago, Standup502

Back up your data, I lost special entries.

Day one has been my go to journal since 2016. The other day I went to search for one of my child’s births only to find that the entries are no longer there. The entries have been accessible for 2+ years then suddenly disappeared. I do not recommend using this service for entries without backing up. I would like to note that I did pay for the pro service with them. I’ve checked for the entries on my iPad, Mac and phone. I’ve synced many times praying they will appear. I am missing more entries than my child’s birth. All missing entries seem to be older than 2 years. Worked with their support; their claim is I deleted the entries, they restored all entries, the entries regarding my child’s birth is still not there. I’ve lost all my memorial journal entries from my child’s birth, I’m heart broken. WARNING TO OTHERS. Routinely backup your data. Do not trust your entries will always be available. Their terms of service states “the Company has no obligation to store any of your content that you make available on the company properties.” Read the legal services, responsibility for content, storage. Their team was nice, quick to respond and I believe tried their best to figure out what happened. This app is an awesome journaling app.

2 years ago, djakmg

Can an App Change Your Life? — Yes!

Most of the apps we use provide information/entertainment, help us do things faster, or allow us to share with others. DayOne is not just a journalling app, not just a way to put thoughts and words on a piece of “digital paper”. No, DayOne provides an simple, clean environment to reflect on our lives, document the happy moments, express the angry frustrating ones, and help organize our life’s activities. The elegant design, clean interface, and robust features enable me to declutter and unstress each and every day. I look forward to opening DayOne and seeing my past entries and a prompt to write more. Clicking the “+” to add a new entry opens my mind and heart to share myself. As I begin to write, the keyboard shortcuts allow me to stay focused on my thoughts instead of searching for menus and commands. I use tags on every entry to help organize and group like writings. Finally, the ability to add media in any area of my journal page creates a wonderful professional looking product. All of these features allow me to focus on the writing and more importantly to put my life’s activities and emotions into perspective. Can your app do that? DayOne does!

2 years ago, Rae-wow

Best journal EVER

I’ve been using this app since 2013. I’m a premium member. I’m a writer so my preference is the old-fashioned pen to paper. I had a relapse in 2015 that ended up lasting 5 years. The entire thing is documented in my journal. I was also able to have Day One print out books for me for that period of time. It’s just awesome. They have everything. I remember asking if they could get more fonts and finally we got the option for new fonts. I love that it has a location tracker. In the beginning there were a few gaps where I tried out different journals because I’m always looking for the next best thing but this is it. I’m grateful that I have a lot of stuff documented that people wouldn’t normally keep track of. I chose the setting to take photos in the journal and not have them save to my phone. I haven’t looked back at my books yet but you get to choose the time period, the cover, the photos on the back… you can choose to remove certain entries. When I found out my now ten year old had autism, I have that documented in here from 2013. I can’t say enough about this app. I’ve pretty much been with them since DAY ONE too. I’d love to be a spokesperson.

3 years ago, g3ns4v4g3

best journal I’ve had

I got this at the end of 2020 and so far it’s the only journal I’ve been able to commit to. Physical journals can get tiring to carry around, longer entries get difficult to write and start to loose their meaning once I start to shorten phrases or words. Digital journals are great to be able to to carry around and have wherever you go, as well as the ease of typing but a lot of them feel tacky. Day one has such great and easy layout, with good daily questions that don’t feel cheesy to answer when you need some inspiration. I purchased the premium version yesterday and it doesn’t lack anything for me. I’m using two journals at the moment, one for just everything, and a 2nd to print out in a year with more important memories or ideas. The app has so many features without making it feel bloated or overwhelming to look at or use, it’s just a simple writing experience. I also really love how you can see where you took an entry/photo. It really adds to the experience to be able to look back on where I’ve been and what happened in different spots around town. I hope to use this journal for years to come, thanks to the developers for really making a great app.

4 years ago, kasecam

Don’t Get This For The Book Printing

I love journaling!! I came to Day One because a friend shared on social media about a book she printed over a year ago. I was so excited to finally move away from handwriting my journals, but still have a physical copy. For a year I’ve recorded about the birth of my second son and all our family’s adventures! I love it! But now that It’s time to print I’ve wasted a whole day (seriously, so many hours carrying my phone around and retrying to upload and enter the payment information) trying to order the book to no avail. I was given a few suggestions by the support team, but none of those worked either and I’m so sad! This was the whole reason I downloaded the app and now I feel like I won’t have a physical copy of all the things I journaled this year. I hope they sort something out ASAP for the book printing so I can come back one day and print all my memories. So for that, I have to take a star away, and let the book printers out there know that it may not be the app for you if a physical copy is your goal. But if you’re happy with the digital copy, then this app would be amazing!

1 year ago, Love2live4fun

I’ve been using this for years!

I would say that I am continually impressed by this app. I have printed out a book every single year. I love putting this together as a way of journaling memories. I love the idea of having pictures along with the stories, so this is right up my alley. journaling has definitely turned into a hobby for me. This app is great for other uses as well, I use this in church, I use this to take notes, I use this as a personal goal, setting journal, and I also use it to keep tabs on certain recipes that I love. I am really excited to print out a recipe book at some point! the only issue I have had is with printing. I accidentally had the wrong color selected for my book. I submitted it for printing. I emailed the company immediately after placing my order and they said that there was nothing they could do. In total I had probably spent a little over $100 to print, so this was disappointing to hear but I’ll admit, it was my fault originally. Overall, I have left using this app. I also don’t applications that have an annual fee, however, in this situation is very practical. I use this app every single day!

3 months ago, Running Gibo

Great Journaling App

Whether you are new to journaling or a seasoned pro, this app has something for everyone. Some of the things that I love about the app include pre-populated templates to begin your journaling. If you have never journaled, this makes it easy to get started because you don’t have to think about what to write about. If you are more seasoned and/or you know how and what you want to write about each day, you can easily build a custom template and begin with the same template each day. I love being able to add pictures to the journal as well. There are several ways you can use this, but I prefer to add any pictures from the to day to my daily journal entry. Some of the other features include being able to add or include other types of media to your entry. Although I personally do not use this feature, it is cool to know its there. I also appreciate the timeline feature of the app. This allows you to go back and see previous days, months and years. It also allow a streak building for your journaling habit. Highly recommend. This and the Bible app are two apps that I use every day without fail.

6 years ago, JupiterFlux

Wonderful Life Logging

I love Day One, I don’t do a whole lot of writing myself, or even audio recording, I have “photojournalistic tendencies”, that is I tend to just take pictures of everything. Or short videos. I used to do short text notes in iOS’ Notes App to complement my pictures, and I’ll admit, I still do on occasion, but I’m doing more and more in Day One, mostly because it’s easier to associate with a picture. I also love the location recording for notes, used to be I’d take pictures of just whatever wall or floor my phone was facing simply to record a location to accompany a text note in Notes, now, don’t have to. I still don’t write a whole lot, but the convenience of logging things, like weather and location has encouraged me to use Day One more. I highly recommend trying it for anyone who’s meticulous like I am about recording all the little details. Only thing I would improve is having the ability to save location data forever, currently location data is only saved for six weeks unless you manually save an entry for a place. I’d love to see that location history saved for forever.

2 years ago, Juniorraz

Very impressive but still has trouble uploading video.

DayOne really has become an impressive journal app, finding all sorts of ways to break down whatever is preventing you from journaling. It can send you prompts by text, have screen prompts that take you immediately to a blank entry, can record where you’ve been during a day to jog your memory in writing about it. The interface has also improved, although the back arrow still takes you to the options screen rather than move the cursor back. After all these advances, it’s a shame that video doesn’t load about half the time. This has been a known problem for DayOne for months and the resolution should have been implemented weeks ago but video still won’t load. I have entries from two months ago that still have blank spaces where videos were supposed to have been uploaded. I no longer recall which videos were supposed to go there since it’s been so long ago. It would be nice if DayOne could make sure some of its core functionality was working properly before expanding its offers.

3 years ago, TwisterClatterClash

Seems great but one request

Found this app today and was really excited to use it with my partner until I realized there was no simple collaboration feature. Right now we use SimpleNote, and although they do not have much in terms of designing the entry more creatively like this app, the one thing they do have, the most important for us, is the collab feature. We do a ton of self-growth work and like to share our notes with each other, adding to them or just simply reading them and feeling connected when apart. Why that feature is so convenient on theirs is because you simply click “collab” in the drop down menu of each entry, add someone’s email address, it sends them an email a note was shared, but then the entry pops up under their app too. No need to edit/collab via that email, because you can collab straight from the app. Any collab entries just show up like they are your entries on your app. It’s so convenient and helpful. I really would love to see this app bringing something easy like that to it, because it already has everything we could ask for in journaling, but this one majorly important thing. Aside from this, amazing job developers!

3 months ago, BCap

HARD PASS. ALL ABOUT THE MONEY NOW. Forget your long time purchasers

How about just charge us again 1x for the app and ditch this subscription bleed out model? I’m happy to pay just perhaps like CaptureOne model. Enough of the nickles and diming every month. It diminishes us as a whole. Ahhh yes I get it now. Let’s forget about all the original investors in your app and move along to the bloated subscription model. HARD PASS I see. I get it now. Classic. Premium. Nouveaux. Whatever you want to call it. We who bought your app from the early days. The ones who bought it SEPARATELY FOR ALL iOS iPad AND MACOS devices can now move along. Nothing to see here. Just call it whatever you want but no way is a subscription model worth anything when Apple has a perfectly great substitute NON SUBSCRIPTION ALTERNATIVE in the app store. You guys are all the same. Stop updating apps for those who were with you from the jump. Who overpaid from the jump because we believed in you. Wanted you to grow and succeed. Now its all cherry eyed happiness oh sorry no more updates we don’t need or want your support anymore. Just like Notability and all the rest. Good riddance. I will take my business elsewhere You don’t update or add features at hardly the rate to justify an annual subscription nor do you provide security for our personal journals. More of the money grubbing same.

4 months ago, PostalPower

Best Journaling App Ever

I’ve struggled for so long to keep a consistent journal routine. I try and I try but never manage to make it longer than a few weeks before I’ve given up on writing. Day One was recommended by a guest on The Tim Ferriss Show, so I decided to check it out. I’ve never loved something so much in my life. Writing has become part of my daily routine. The journal categories allow you to compartmentalize so many things and the fact that you can make notes on your phone to deep dive into later on the PC is just phenomenal. I can take create an entry while walking at the park and make quick notes of a podcast I’m listening to, then recall and complete the whole idea when I get home. If thoughts start creeping in while laying bed and I’m having difficulty falling asleep, again I can make a quick entry to dump the idea from my brain, and sleep comfortably knowing I can address the next morning on the pc. There’s just so much utility with this app. I love it. If I ever become a famous writer, this will be mentioned as one of my favorite and most valuable purchases of all time.

1 year ago, epocscods

My Fave App

I love and appreciate this app so much. My anxiety disorder has been out of control since the Pandemonium and while journaling never really stuck before for various reasons, this app is the first time i've been able to keep up with it and it’s been INSANELY helpful. I even told my shrink about it and he’s recommending it to other patients. In my darkest moments I have written novels to this app and it makes me feel good knowing it’s not at risk of seeing the light of day. I thought at first typing would lose some magic vs hand writing but I love the versatility more - if i need to, i can journal on my phone if that’s all i have with me. For an anxiety sufferer that makes a huge difference. I love that you can make a journal for each “thing” you want, so I have a regular journal plus one for therapy journaling and one for helpful notes and one for jotting down intrusive thoughts as part of a coping tool. This app is worth every penny and i wish more apps would just be paid upfront and then have a nice, ad-free experience. I love that they’re not trying to upsell me at every turn using it.

7 months ago, Pseudotsuga

Extremely useful, a pleasure to use.

I have used Day One almost every day for several years. It is versatile. I used to use Evernote until one day that app stopped working. Day One is a little different than Evernote, but just as useful. I have almost 50 journals on various topics and time periods. I use the app to keep track of my business and my nonprofit. I take notes for the books I’m writing. I use Day One to remember important things. My entries often use pictures, videos, and audio files. The whole thing is searchable. It is my brain, stored on a handy device in my pocket. For 2024, I plan to use Day One even more, recording notes and thoughts from almost every aspect of my life. It is effortless to use. I hope it remains just the way it is, for many years into the future. One improvement I wouldn’t mind would be if the voice to text was a little more accurate sometimes. It gets about 90% of the words right, and I can usually make the corrections pretty quickly. I wish every app I use was this dependable, versatile, and useful.

4 years ago, Malstein1

Awesome app and sure has helped me change my life

Journaling was very new to me about 2 years ago when I started on this version of Day one . I had the previous version that I downloaded from “starbucks app of the day” and then didn’t use it for a while in which time they had changed the entire interface and upgraded it to what it is today. Sadly I forgot my password for the first version and had no way of retrieving the entries. However I started this and glad they have back up options and so on. Anyways it’s been a great tool helping me through bright and dark days . The only thing I would ask of the Dev team is optimize syncing across devices, especially with notifications . I use my Mac to journal most of the time and when I do finish , I still get notification on my watch to “record my day” . Also the pop up mini reminder screen that comes up on the Mac to start an entry is a hit or miss with starting on the mini screen in which case I have to click “open” for the larger interface. Other than that all is good ! Thank you .

6 years ago, Tdj2591

Good...most of the time

When it works correctly I like it. When it acts quirky, I can’t stand it. I’ve been using it daily for over a year. My biggest gripe is losing paragraphs of information while I am writing. Poof! Suddenly it’s gone! I save often but it will sometimes drop my text before I save it, which is really frustrating. Or, it will show the text in the side panel yet the display for that day is blank, or vice versa. Quite often, there is a significant delay between when I type the letters and when the app shows the text on screen. I can type a full sentence then sit back and watch it display the letters slowly one by one. It’s nerve wracking! It seems that the apps synch on my devices only when the app is open simultaneously on each device. The support team is great about responding. Usually, they are aware of the problems and are working on them. I’ve been told to reload the app which sometimes helps and sometimes doesn’t. The problems are intermittent. Sometimes it works perfectly but most of the time I have some performance issue with the app.

4 years ago, dgazr

Really very good, not perfect though

This app is a very serviceable personable journal. I believe it’s worth the annual cost for the premium features if maintaining a journal is something that you find beneficial to your well-being as I do. I appreciate the synchronization between my devices more than anything, and the security seems adequate for such personal data. I also enjoy the metadata tagged in each entry (location, weather, activity, etc) which I feel will be very interesting in the long run as I review older entries. My biggest ask is that I very much wish the developer would make the journaling canvas more free form by allowing entries to contain mixtures of text, handwriting, photos, and drawings similar to how iPadOS notes works. As it functions at the time of this review the entry is more like an e-mail composer where you enter text, and then can attach photos and drawings in a somewhat rigid manner. Unleash the creative potential of the journaling canvas and I’ll call this the perfect journaling experience worthy of five stars! Unless something else comes along with that capability though, this is likely still your best choice for a journaling app.

4 months ago, swagnes lol

Top of the line!!! 🤩🤩🤩

I have a brain injury, so I have very very poor penmanship... but I have always love love LOVED the idea of journaling so so much though, so I started to journal first on Microsoft Word on that app on my phone, but the very annoying thing about doing that was that I had to keep scrolling down down down alllllll the way until I found where I left off! 👎🏼 I first got so annoyed that I started to reverse my order of journal entries so that the first thing I could do when I opened Word was write my newest journal entry! It eventually got so messy and long though, so then I thought, “there’s GOT to be something else out there!!! This is the 21st century for Christ’s sake!!!” Then, I opened the App Store and found Day One, and my life was literally changed forever, and I could not be more thankful for this app!!! 🤩🤩🤩 I’m currently using Day One’s free premium trial, and it’s so great that I wish so so badly I could make my own money bc if I did, I would TOTALLY pay for a subscription immediately!!! Too bad I only have so long until my trial ends... 😔

3 years ago, theycallmeamy

Very easy to use for basic journaling (can’t vouch for other features )

This makes it easy to just write a little bit about my day. Sometimes I would do the same thing in my Notes app, but somehow this feels much better, since it’s not mixed in with shopping lists, other thoughts, and other random notes that are in there. Somehow just having a separate app for it makes it a little more approachable. I can’t say it suddenly make me a daily journal-keeper, but I’m not sure how many entries, if any, I would have written in the past 3 months if not for this app. I think I have 5-6. So that’s a big win in my eyes. I’ve just used the text, but I really like that I can add a picture if I want to. I don’t know how many other features are available without paying, but I would say if you’re on the fence, you should get the app and put the icon in a place on your phone where it’s not necessarily in the way, but where you will see it. I made sure not to put mine within a folder mixed in with other apps.

3 years ago, Rvmpt

Writing prompts

I got the app mostly for the daily writing prompts. I already journal and have for years, but my journal entries are often short reports of what happened today. I am retiring soon and hope to do much more writing. I write for a living but again, very specific topics and audience, whereas what I hope to write is more of a memoir. My writer friends tell me they write for 30 minutes a day, but most belong to a group with a leader who supplies a writing prompt daily. I was hoping for that. Some days it is that. But way too many days it’s things like “come up with a crazy business idea” or “What were your 5 favorite movies.” Luckily, I have the free version so I can’t complain too much. But I would love it if the daily prompts could be less specific and more like open ended statements or questions that provoke thought. I also am not a fan of the writing streak function, which only records whether I have written in response to the prompt but not if I have done other journal writing on that day. I think it would be more accurate (and less annoying) if it counted any writing done on a particular day as part of the writing streak.

2 months ago, User4813

Didn’t save my writing

Well I’m only 10 mins into writing in this app and already found a major issue. I’m typing some pretty emotional stuff and for whatever reason, I guess a slight movement of my phone, the app tries to go in landscape mode and just shows a completely jacked up display (unusable or distinguishable screen the app is displaying since it glitched out trying to switch the orientation). Nothing makes it go back to normal so I close the app completely and open it back up. And just like that the last few minutes of writing are gone. That might not seem like a big deal but when you’re just pouring into something, it’s coming from the heart, you’re not thinking about remembering what you just typed. Why would you even make the app to do that? How is that even possible? Does your app just “save” every couple minutes? Even something as simple as the Notes app that comes with the phone has never done that - once you type it it’s there regardless of when or how quick you close the app. So right there I just didn’t like the experience and am going to look for another app. Completely throws off the experience and now you can’t even trust the app to do the most basic of things - save what you wrote.

4 years ago, WillTheZany

The Ease of Personal Growth

I have always been one to keep a journal and fail at maintaining one. Throughout my life, I have kept a written journal where I would process my day, my emotions, and my goals. But, I have always given it up after a couple of weeks or sometimes even days. Why this has happened so consistently throughout my entire life, I do not know. But then Apple recommends Day One, and I said, hey, let's give this a shot, and since then, I have not turned back. Day One makes it easy to journal in a meaningful way that a traditional journal has a problem. I can choose the form of my journal with pictures and videos, sound clips, or writing. Having the ability to create different journals around different ideas is also very helpful. I find it easier for me to track my health, emotions and thoughts, and exciting events that pop up in the day with the different formats. Day Ons gives me the urge to journal, and they make it simple and easy to do it. Let's just say I plan on having a long and fruitful relationship with this app.

6 years ago, bridgetbates17

My entire entry was deleted

I like Day One and have used it off and in for a few years now. I just redownloaded it a few days ago and wrote my first new entry this morning. It took me about 30 minutes and after I was done I was searching for a way to indent the paragraphs, so I selected the entire entry and was surveying the options when I accidentally pasted a link I had copied. Everything was deleted because I pasted the link when the entire entry was selected. Here is why I’m giving two stars: there is not an undo button or back button. I feel as though it is imperative and, quite frankly, obvious that a journaling app, centered around writing and composition would have a feature that allows you to undo the most recent change to an entry. I haven’t journaled in months and this easily avoidable accident does not make me very optimistic about trying it again any time soon, especially with Day One if there is a chance this could happen again. I would happily continue using the app if an undo feature was added, but for now I am too shaken up from those memories being deleted and having no way of getting them back to use Day One again without doubting that this will happen to any of my future entries.

5 years ago, Azankino

Better than classic

Holds more photos and more data to input. There seems to be a more added options to tailor the data better and this is very good. I highly recommend this app for organization and your life logging. Update. Taken 2 stars off simply because the devs tend not to include information in what they take out so a user will know if to up date or wait for the next version. Disabling things that a user is use to using on a daily basis is no cool, I use templates on a daily basis, they are fast and I don't need to retype things all over again and they also remind me as well at a certain time frame, very inconvenient for them to just turn it off it's not broken so why do that? Also the way to add locations has changed its more difficult to get a good on where you are if it's not saved this use to work flawless in early versions before iOS 12 they never seem to bring it back. Also you really need to pay for one black theme? Really? Hopefully iOS 13 will fix this nonsense.

6 months ago, L Shax

This app is everything!

OK, I am not a big journal writer, but the Day One app has so many capabilities and is so easy to use that I just love it! I keep a regular photo journal here where I put time stamped curated photos, and this can be done at the end of each day, or a month later when you have some free time or are home sick or whatever. I also use this to jot down some story about an event or day f I want. On any given day, I will snap a few pictures of something that brings me joy to include in this journal. I don't need to worry if the photo is 'good' or if anyone else will like it. It is just for me! When I go back through my phone camera roll, most days have something, and there are fond memories! This is also great for journalling trips, etc. I also keep a private journal (both are private, but this one double-checks before showing any previews on my screen), and this is where I vent, complain, record frustrating experiences, etc. It is so much easier to move on from something if you have documented how it made you feel. This journal helps me move past this, but also allows me to go back and process as needed, and can be a helpful reference for therapy sessions. Oh, there is also a email option where I can type an entry into an email that will send directly into my journal. I use this for longer entries. I really like having a separate app for all of this to avoid feeling like it might be a Google or Apple product that I might feel stuck with later.

6 years ago, Chip2.0

Upload issues with multiple devices

I think the layout and the format is fine but the device needs to work on how it handles uploads. I’ll use an example of an issue: I begin an entry on my iPhone but then I go to finish it on my Mac. Should be no problem with cloud storage. What’s happening is the app will often re-recognize uploads from other devices as your working on editing an entry and will completely overwrite your work with the previous upload. So in my example, if I’m picking it back up on my Mac. After 10 mins of typing my uploads will resync and it wipe all my work I was doing. And this is a very frustrating issue. The only way I’ve prevented this is by closing all other instances of Day One when working on another device. But this could be fixed by having user prompts for conflicting iCloud uploads for similar entries. I have seen other apps simply have a message pop up saying they detected multiple instances of the same thing and asking for me to choose which one to continue working on or delete. Why is it so hard to utilize that kind of feature? Anyways that’s a big issue for me. Especially when your typing something that’s a journal replacing pen and paper thats subscription based.

7 months ago, carrie3630

The best journaling app w/a solid history of improvements & support

I’ve been using DayOne for years and it just gets better and better. It is so easy to start a journal entry. DayOne is integrated across the iOS platform, so you can quickly send photos, articles, or inspiration from around the internet to your journal. The tagging and searching are top notch. You can even create separate journals for different projects or themes. One of the best features is the location, weather, and activity logging that seamlessly integrate into new entries. When I’m out and about, I take a lot of pictures, but don’t always add them to DayOne the same day. When I create a new entry, I can add the photos and am immediately prompted to apply the photo date and location, so it keeps everything in order. I love how the developer keeps making DayOne better. I know Apple has launched their own journalling app, but I’m committed to this wonderful app that has stood the test of time and is now a daily feature in my life.

1 year ago, Fatsjk

I use it every day

I’ve been using the app since mid-2014 (was grandfathered in to Plus and recently paid for Premium). The app has come a long way, and I use it at least once a day now. It’s well-built for a variety of use cases. I have a journal for daily recaps, one each for movie/book/restaurant reviews, a journal for work, and more. It’s intuitive. It’s easy to use, and also as complex as you want to make it (tags, journals, photos, voice recordings, templates...). The location data is key to me because I can get a map view of places I want to visit, or places I have visited. UPDATE: it’s been super buggy and inconsistent the last 2-3months. Streaks are rarely correct (will say 4 days but show a journal with a 21 day streak, or just show no entries at all despite there being some). Sync between devices is slow, used to be near-instant. The daily prompts are all messed up; sometimes showing an extra prompt in the “show all” list, sometimes I’ll click the day’s prompt and it will auto-fill the entry with yesterday’s. Overall, the experience has gotten less good (I won’t say it’s “bad”…yet…) in the last year or so.

2 years ago, marcwallis

Perfect journaling app

Update. April 2022. Still love this app. I use it as a sort photo diary. Every so often, I’ll post a picture of what I’m doing — traveling, fun project, or random thing from life. And I’ll make a note about it. I’ve been looking back at my photos and notes from four, five, six years ago and it’s so much fun. I love this app. Still recommend. Been using for over 2 years and still love it. I use as an photo journal and it's easy to use. Either snap a photo from in the app, or import a photo or "send" a photo into the app directly from the Photos gallery app. Exporting to PDF is the ideal archival tool. Highly recommend. Apr 2021 update. Still love using this app. Have been using it as a photo journal. I love going back 3,4,5 years and looking at photos of what I was doing then. It’s also a handy reminder - when I am trying to remember where I travelled or when we purchased the new “blah-de-blah”, I can scroll through and find a photo that reminds me of the date. Great app. Still recommend.

7 months ago, thedreamghoul

This got me writing again

I haven’t tried many journaling apps, but I know that I will be sticking with this one for as long as possible. I love writing, but I have always struggled with sitting down to write and getting overwhelmed while staring at a blank page. This app has a dictation feature which allows me to speak freely while the app transcribes it in real time. You can then go back and edit later. This is incredibly useful to me in the mornings, when most of my ideas hit me, but I have very little time to write them down because I’m getting ready for work. This app allows you to record and leave it running so you can simply talk at your device when you have something that you want to write down. There are many incredibly useful features in here, but the transcription is the one that wins the day for me. I highly recommend giving this app a try if you are a writer at heart, but struggle either with time or feeling overwhelmed in figuring out where to start.

2 years ago, kimberly614

Easy to use, complex enough to keep it organized

Day One couldn’t be easier to use. Just start writing. I use it for everything- personal journal, research notes, project ideas and so much more. One single place to keep everything in my brain and heart. The genius is how easy it is to find this information when I want it. I love how I can keep separate journals, yet I can also view everything I’ve written in all the journals in a single timeline. I don’t have to decide which journal should this note be in, I can just write and decide later, without it getting lost. Very thoughtful design. Easy to capture thoughts and ideas; easy to find them when I want to follow up on them. The only possible thing I can think of to add would be the ability to make covers for my journals. I’ve tried many journals, this is easily my favorite and I use it daily. There’s many more great features. I would recommend to just try it. The more you use it, the more you’ll love it.

6 years ago, Buyerdisg

Not good

This is the first journal app I’m trying to use. I don’t understand the positive comments. This app has a lot of glitches and a wierd design. I have never seen journal entries done backwards. You can’t change the design. You have to look very closely for the date, as they are in tiny print, and the only large part of the date is the day - 05. 05 of what? Just made an entry on March 2, it doesnt show up at the top, I made another one. Then found both amidst the entries made in February, before February 3d, because there was no entry made on 02 February, the designers desided let’s stick 02 March entry in there. I want to clearly see the full date the entry was made on or have an option to change the design - if someone wants to only see the day of the month, let them have it, but I want to see the month and the year, and have it run chronologically forward. For some reason the designers think that the time and place where it’s made is more important. Hello most entries by most peope are made at home, the same location every time. Why half the screen is taken by a plus sign and a camera? Why one of the lines tells me how many entries I made and pictures taken? Does it matter to anyone who keeps a journal? Also has glitches with fonts and formatting.

5 years ago, how do you get a nickname

What happened

I absolutely love Day one. It has met my journal needs for years. It has been so easy and intuitive and such a rock solid dependable, almost friend. I don’t understand why the designers and developers have to do updates that make a perfect thing go bust. This last update has driven me crazy. It seems like everything has been changed. I love to work on an entry and then see what happened on that day in the past. I used to have one click to bring up all the entries from multiple journals in a simple scrolling list that I could review. Not so now. In order to find a list of all the entries it takes about 3 or 4 clicks and searches and then the entries come up in backwards order from what it was so that the newest is at the bottom. Navigating in Day one one used to be simple and easy and now with this latest update it just feels so disjointed. If this was my first experience with Day One I would say no thank you. Since a huge chunk of my life is put down in it’s pages, I will have to get used to a whole new way of getting around. I just wished as with most updates that those who do the updating would leave things alone. Don’t fix something that is not broke.

1 year ago, AKatwiga

Fantastic journaling app!

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this app for anyone that wants to journal. I find that the paid version is definitely worth it but if too expensive the free version is fantastic as well. I’ve relied on journaling for a long time and downloaded this app for a change from my pen/paper approach. It does everything you could want. I especially love being able to record audio AND have it transcribe into written text so I can verbally process but don’t have to listen to my own voice if I want to review what I said. Also love being able to tag locations, add media/photos/videos/music. The tag function is also really nice so I can mark entries of things I want to discuss in therapy and not have to go searching for something. I’ll often create an entry for a given week’s therapy and have a chance to list out the important things beforehand. The app also has some great privacy/security options for anyone who doesn’t want someone snooping through your entries.

4 years ago, Glad_e

Perfect and getting even better

I own a business and manage another. I keep EVERYTHING in Day One and have almost 53k entries. Work items like PDFs of receipts and contracts, emails, screenshots, audio and dictation notes from meetings, plans for the day, CRM for sales. I also have personal items like daily gratitude, vision board, personal photos, tracking workouts. The amount of things you can do with Day One is endless! Every major update has been excellent. The developers respond to questions within an hour (even on weekends and late at night!) These guys are always grinding to ensure users have a great experience. I’m happy to pay $3 a month for easy access to basically every bit of information that I could need at my fingertips. And that’s only for the premium version. Those of you who are mad that they have a subscription can still do the basic journaling for free. I don’t know how Day One can get any better but I know it will. I’m never leaving this app. Most useful app I’ve ever bought. Thank you!!

2 years ago, M. A. Wright

Love it and use it far more than just a “Journal”

I’ve been using this app for a year now and love that I can create as many “Journals” as I want with a range of topics from personal to work. I can keep things organized and can easily look anything up by using keywords. I love how you can make lists, bullet points, or even just save something I saw on Pinterest. It’s easier than taking screenshots that I’ll never come across bc I take so many so this way, I can take a screenshot and save it in my Journal under the right category where I’ll be more likely to find certain items. I love that it’s extremely private and you can color coordinate each different Journal. I’d rather call it my sidekick for when I need ideas or use it to keep documents safe, esp with the end-to-end encryption. I had Pocket too, which is also a great app but it wasn’t as easy to navigate than this app. Finally I quit Pocket and stuck to Journal. Guess it depends on the type of person 🤷🏼‍♀️

5 years ago, Joshuads

Not a good choice for Apple Pencil (series 1)

I recently bought the iPad mini 6th gen and series 1 Apple Pencil and I was excited to explore its capabilities for drawing and writing. This app seemed promising for journaling but, honestly, it’s been way more of a pain for writing out a journal entry than is worth it. The closest thing I can find for writing is a “draw” feature that’s honestly super clumsy. You have to keep adding “new” pages before hitting done or else you just end up with a bunch of pages/files/entries instead of one cohesive piece, if something happens and you end up having to move away from the document before you’re finished there’s not a way to really edit the doc, there’s no way to add lines to make it act more like a page, and I could honestly go on. I’m disappointed in myself for not canceling the free trial before it charged the $35 annual fee since I won’t be using this app again and that’s now money down the drain. If you’re wanting to type or add pics it’s probably okay but don’t expect to have a good experience writing. You won’t find that here.

1 year ago, Miguel Jaime Acero

Wonderful, flexible journaling app

I am an avid journaler, and I’ve used many digital platforms for this. Day One is clean, organized, and flexible, with export options and the ability to do almost anything you might want it to do. The one qualm I have is about formatting. I often write drafts in other applications, including the iOS Notes app and Google Docs. When I past final versions into here, they lose formatting: any italicization or holding gets stripped away and I have to go through the entire document again. This is frustrating, a rare flaw with Day One. It’s also expensive and lacks an option to share with other individual users but remain private otherwise. That feature characterize my original journaling platform, and absent that choice, I have never made Day One my singular choice. It’s far better looking and much easier to use with a well-maintained app, but it still has room to grow to be a 5-star option for journaling.

Description

Apple’s App of the Year with over 15 million downloads and 200,000 5-star ratings globally, Day One has reinvented journaling, letting you record your life as you live it. Securely save audio, video, photos, notes, and more wherever you are, whenever you want. “Day One creates something so rare it feels almost sacred: A completely private digital space.” – New York Times “Day One makes keeping a journal delightfully easy.” – Wired WHY DAY ONE? Day One is the original digital journal app. A decade of updates and feature additions make it the most private, trusted, and easiest-to-use journaling app in the world. SIMPLE TO USE, EASY TO LOVE • Beautiful, award-winning design • Unlimited text entries • Powerful rich text formatting with markdown • Different journals for every aspect of your life* PRIVATE AND SECURE • Automatic backups keep your journal entries safe • End-to-end encryption, which is a fancy way of saying your entries are 100% private • Journal entries stay secure with passcode, TouchID, or FaceID • Export options (pdf, plain text, etc.) ensure your entries always stay yours FORM A HABIT & STAY CONSISTENT • Streaks and calendar view help keep your momentum going • Programmable reminders through text message or phone notifications • Unique, daily journal prompts help eliminate writer’s cramp • Customizable templates save time and add organization to entries • Today view provides a summary of where you’ve been and what you’ve done • Integrates with the Health app to track mindfulness minutes MORE THAN WORDS • Unlimited photos and video* • Auto-importer for your Instagram posts* • Handwritten entries or drawings* • Voice recording and transcription* JOURNAL FROM WHEREVER, WHENEVER • Cross-platform apps available on iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac • The ability to text or email entries straight to your journal BUILT FOR REMINISCING • On This Day feature allows you to revisit past memories • Tags, favorites, and search filters make it easy to find what you’re looking for • Map view quickly shows all the places you’ve journaled from • Print capabilities turn your digital journal into a premium physical book TYPE LESS, PRESERVE MORE • Time, date, weather, moon phase, and more are automatically added to every entry • IFTTT applets allow importing data from Spotify, YouTube, Strava, Fitbit, Facebook, Twitter, and more • Siri Shortcuts provides a powerful way to automate more of your journaling • Share sheet allows you to add content from other apps, like Apple Photos and Safari *Day One is FREE to use forever with unlimited entries. Additional features, including unlimited photos, videos, and audio recordings are available with a Day One Premium membership. Start a free trial today. Privacy Policy: https://dayoneapp.com/privacy-policy/ Terms of Use: https://dayoneapp.com/terms-of-use/ For technical assistance or other inquiries: https://dayoneapp.com/contact/