12 Best Digital Journal Apps for 2022
https://friday.app/p/best-digital-journal-apps
The Five Minute Journal App
The Five Minute Journal app is based off the bestselling physical journal. In the morning you receive specific prompts on your iPhone/iPad or Android such as:
I am grateful for...
What will I do to make today great?
Then in the evening, you can answer questions like:
3 amazing things that happened today
How could I have made today even better?
Additionally, you can add a photo to your post and you'll receive a daily quote that you can share on social media. This is an effective structure and covers the key aspects of journaling. It's ideal for beginners who are trying to build a regular habit of journaling, but if you're looking to customize entries, prompts, and the cadence; you may need to look elsewhere.
The app has close to a 5-star review (over 10,000 reviews) on the Google Play store and iTunes.
Cost: $4.99
2. Day One
Day One is a personal journaling app that is available across the entire iOS ecosystem (including iPads and a Mac app) and Android. This app is much more free-form than structured apps like Friday or the Five Minute Journal; it's a bit more like an open-ended digital diary.
There's quite a few useful features you may like in Day One:
Tagging
Advanced Encryption/Security
Various integrations (it will pull in your posts from other systems, available on the Premium plan)
Location tagging
Markdown formatting
Export/backup options
You can see more in this video review below:
The only downside to Day One is that it's open-ended, so you will need to come up with your own journaling prompts. For beginners, staring at an empty page can be intimidating.
Cost: $35/year
3. Penzu
Next up, we have Penzu, one of the earliest digital journaling apps available (founded in 2008!). Penzu is very similar to Day One, as it's more of a freeform diary app vs. being a structured journal. It boasts more than 2 million users.
Penzu offers a free plan, and two paid offerings. The free plan offers unlimited entries, access to mobile apps, and basic font options. Yes, the reminders are included in the free plan.
Unfortunately, the app seems to have lost a bit of its luster over the past couple of years - it looks like only one founder is still working on the project (see LinkedIn company page). The app currently has a 4.3 star rating on the iTunes store and 4.3 stars on the Play store.
The paid offerings have features like:
Encryption
Various Journal Covers
Different Background colors
Tagging
Search
Custom reminders
PDF Export
Cost: $19-$49/year
Friday might be an interesting alternative worth considering.
4. Dabble.me
As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, I used to use Ohlife before it shut down. Dabble.me is the closest alternative I've found to the email-based journaling method. As I mentioned before, this app delivers an email on a regular interval. All you need to do is reply via email. You can see in the screenshot below, it will also show a past update:
If you live in your email inbox, this is worth a second look. The free plan offers restricted functionality, like the email notifications are sent every other week.
The paid offering unlocks the following features, such as:
Ability to change the frequency
Attach a photo
Edit entries
Rich text formatting
Year in Review
If you are looking for a simple way to start journaling, Dabble.me is worth a look, or you could consider an alternative.
Cost: $36/year
5. Daybook
Daybook is another journaling app similar to Day One or Penzu. The user experience is extremely minimal (see example below), but it bills itself as a free cloud-based journaling app.
One major benefit is that the app is free. It has over 16,000 reviews on the Google Play store as well, with close to a 5-star rating. There's an iOS app as well.
Cost: Free
6. Journey.cloud
Journey is the new kid on the block and appears to be the most popular regular journaling app in this list, with over 65,000 reviews on the Google Play store and nearly 2,000 reviews on iTunes. Once again, it's pretty similar to Penzu and Day One, but it looks like Journey is a newer, more up-to-date version work exploring.
Similar to other apps, the free plan offers basic journaling capabilities, but you will need to upgrade to access advanced functionality like:
Formatting
Unlimited entries
Create an entry from email
Pull in social media posts from Zapier
This pricing isn't obvious from their website, which is a little disappointing and a bit sketchy. With that being said, they seem to have many happy users.
P.S. - if you're looking for an alternative to Journey.cloud, we might be able to help.
Cost: $30/year
7. Daylio
Ok, here's an interesting pick. Daylio: a "micro diary and mood tracker." I've been using it for a couple weeks and have found it to be an interesting alternative to the traditional journaling apps.
Unlike traditional journaling apps, you are prompted to journal with "labels" and short snippets of text vs. being a pure "writing" app. You also share your general mood/sentiment on a regular basis.
This breaks down the barriers to journaling because it's so easy to use. This app boasts a crazy number of reviews on the Google play store - over 250k! Additionally, the iOS app has over 20k reviews.
The free plan restricts certain feature and is ad-supported. The premium plan offers the following functionality:
Unlimited moods
Unlimited reminders
Unlimited goals
Ability to export entries
Automatic backups
Various themes
Overall, I really like the approach Daylio is taking, especially for people who are looking for a new digital journal app. With that being said, I think there is immense power to spending some time writing things down in a structured way. Sentiment tracking is only one piece of the puzzle.
Cost: $9
8. 750 Words
This is called 750 Words and it's based on morning pages from the book, The Artist's Way. The general theme is that you should write in a stream of consciousness. The process can be therapeutic. 750 words will keep track of your word count, sentiment, and how frequently you write, which can be helpful to know.
You can see a bit more of the user experience from this video:
If you are a writer or someone who wants to write more often (like me), you should check this out. If you are a beginner, this habit takes quite a bit of effort to stick.
Cost: $60/year
9. GoodNotes
If you're a visual thinker and you need more than a text-only journaling system, take a look at GoodNotes. A stand-out feature to GoodNotes is how flexible it is. You can quickly take notes with shapes, different highlight colors, and even in your handwriting. Customize the flow of the pen.
Create shapes, move them, stretch them.
Even add photos to your day's events.
It works as a Mac app, on your iPhone, or iPad.
Others use it like a digital bullet journal system, and its flexibility makes it easy to do so. Because of its wide-open format and design, it positions itself both as an Evernote alternative and a digital journaling app.
It's simple to do both, especially with their Notebook feature, which is essentially a filing system. There are different canvasses, including a blank page or grid-style. Can more than 4.8 stars with 17,000+ reviews be wrong?
Cost: $7.99
10. Momento
Momento is an app where you can capture everything that you do in your life. It’s a multi-purpose private journal that can benefit you as a personal life journal, a work journal for keeping track of your tasks, and much more. Memento has many different templates that you can choose from, depending on what you want to journal.
This app is available for all iOS devices on the App Store and was even awarded App of the Year Runner Up in 2011.
Some cool features Momento has includes:
Add details to your journal entries like specific people and locations to look back on
Incorporate photos and videos in your entries to bring it to life
Sync Momento with your social media apps, so you can import different photos and videos directly
Search feature
Overall, Momento is a great app to “capture everything in the moment”. Due to its ability to sync with your social media, you’ll be able to bring in all your different activities and updates all in one app.
Cost: Free for basic version, Premium monthly subscription is $2.49
11. Grid Diary
Grid Diary is a combination of keeping a diary while also incorporating planner features to help keep you on track when writing about your day. You have many different prompts you can choose from to help guide you through your journaling process. Spend less time worrying about what to write, and spend more time getting into the habit of reflection and insight.
Grid Diary includes the following features, such as:
Add a password to keep personal entries private
Different journal templates to direct you
Sync your data across devices
Export your diary in multiple formats
Dark and Light mode depending on preference
12. Diaro
Diaro is a journaling/diary app that allows you to organize your entries in ways that make sense for you. You can organize them by date, add tags to the entries, set a location, and even place them in different folders.
Some great features Diaro includes are:
Translated in over 30 languages for accessibility
Sync Diaro online and Diaro on mobile devices
Search feature
Cost: Free, $2.99-9.99/month/per item
Conclusion: Which Digital Journal App Will You Choose?
In conclusion, there are a ton of various apps to choose from. We recommend focusing on establishing the habit first - the various features won't make a huge difference if you don't make journaling a regular habit.
That's why you should try Friday (get started for free). We are the only fully customizable tool available, which means that you can mold the software to fit your needs instead of trying to create new behaviors that confirm to how the app functions. That won't work in the long run.