Here are the best mobile apps for getting your thoughts down. A new year means a new opportunity to put into practice all those good habits you keep promising to stick to—like keeping a journal. Best Diary Journal apps for iOS Filter by: Free password protection customer service daily journal personal journal secret diary Diary with lock. Lifestyle 'Use this diary app to make your own personal journal of daily events, appointment' Free 9.7 859K ratings Journey: Diary, Journal.
While many still keep a paper journal or diary handy, the Windows Store has a large selection of apps that can make recording the day's events a little easier. These journaling apps for Windows 10 have the ability to store your written thoughts, photographs and even drawings. Many are password protected to secure your personal thoughts and some have the ability to share your thoughts with other when desired.
These apps can be used to document personal experiences, work-related adventures or any other daily event you encounter. After careful consideration and searching high and low down the Windows Store aisles, we've pulled together a collection of the best journaling apps for Windows 10. I'm still partial to paper journals but these apps make a very strong argument for going digital. Let's see what we have discovered.
Journalist is more of a scrapbook than diary app but is a very capable app for Windows 10. The app has a variety of drawing tools as well as support for inserting images to your journal pages, audio clips and video footage. You can create vertical or horizontal scrolling parallax pages with four independent layers and save scrolling pages as videos.
Journalist has support for launching your camera to capture new images for pages, or you can insert existing photos from your gallery. There is also support for inserting map images of your location.
Additional features include:
Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, Journalist does play out a bit better on a tablet than a phone. The larger screen of a tablet offers more real estate for designing and creating journal pages. Journalist is also available for Xbox One, but several features are disabled.
Journalist is a free Windows 10 app and a colorful option for documenting the events of your day.
PaperStreet Journal
PaperStreet Journal is a free journal app that is available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile. The app has support for both type written entries and drawn entries, but you cannot combine them. Additionally, switching between the two methods of entry could be better.
While the interface could use a little fine-tuning, PaperStreet Journal does offer password protection for your journal, entries can be searched by keyword and the app has a built-in spell checker. There is also support for voice-to-text entry, making PaperStreet an appealing option for hands-free journal entries. Your journal can be backed up locally in .RTF format with drawn entries saved in .PNG format.
When viewed in landscape orientation, a summary of your journal entries line the side of the display. Tap on an entry and the remainder of the screen is filled with the content, where you can add to or edit things.
While a capable journal app, switching between drawing and text entry requires you to go to the settings and make the change in the Preferences menu. If you do not switch between entry types, this is not an issue. If you do, I can see it being a bit cumbersome but not a deal breaker.
Dear DiaryBest Journal For Mac
In many ways, Dear Diary is the tale of two apps. The Windows 10 PC version of the journal app offers a few visual enhancements, while the Windows 10 Mobile version is more simplistic in nature.
The Windows 10 PC version offers password protection for your diary, mood music to play in the background and an illustrated journal sitting on a wooden desk for visual effects. Journal entries are made by keyboard (on-screen, or physical) and you can scroll through the journal pages with navigation a buttons or by specific date.
The Windows 10 Mobile version is more down and dirty. You do not have the mood music, password protection of the serene visual appearance. Just a blank page where you can log your journal entries. Entries can be entered through the on-screen keyboard or through a voice-to-text feature. Plus, you can have your Windows 10 Mobile device read back your entries. Scrolling between dates can be done by navigation buttons only.
Neither version of Dear Diary has support to insert images or drawings into your entries, nor can entries be synchronized between devices. While not as feature rich as other options, the simplicity of Dear Diary may be the app's strength. I would have liked to have seen the features of the app be more consistent, but in using both over the past few days, the simpler Windows 10 Mobile version seems to be the better of the two.
Dear Diary is a free app and if you are looking for a basic journal solution, it is worth checking out.
![]() Diarium
Diarium may be the most functional diary/journal app for Windows 10. It allows you to keep up with all your memories through text entries with support to add audio, video, photos and more to fully document the events of your life.
Diary Journal Apps
Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, Diarium has full integration with your system calendar, password protection, along with integration with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Swarm. You can back everything up to OneDrive and synchronize all your entries between devices and export the diary in DOXC, RTF, HTML or TXT format. If to add motion data to your diary entries there is a setting to achieve that, and you can automatically add weather data to boot. Diarium has support to add your location, include tags and rate your day from 1-5 stars.
If all that is not enough, Diarium also has notification support to remind you to make your daily entry. Best hard drive for mac mini. If you have ever tried to keep a journal or diary, one of the biggest challenges is remembering to make your entry. This feature is a great way to beat back that challenge.
On the downside, Diarium isn't the most glamorous app in the journal genre. You do have light and dark themes, along with a color wheel for custom accent colors, but there isn't a lot of flash to this Windows 10 app. And that may not be a bad thing. Diarium makes up for the lack of bling with a boatload of features to fully document your thoughts, experiences and memories.
Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, Diarium is currently priced at $4.99 and well worth the price of admission.
If you have experience using any of these journal apps for Windows 10, let us know what you think of things in the comments!
As with any roundup, we may have overlooked your favorite journal app. If such is the case, feel free to toss out your journal app recommendation in the comments as well.
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Most productivity experts agree that if there is one habit you should take up, it’s journaling. Steadily tracking your life has multiple benefits, such as meeting goals and new year resolutions, as well as being more aware of what makes you happy and grateful. If you haven’t started yet, these are five of the best journal and diary apps to ease you into the practice.
These apps introduce journaling in different ways, from gentle reminders to harsh goals that take your money away if you miss your journaling deadline. By some way or other, you will learn the art of journaling here. And remember, we have an entire beginner’s guide to digital journalingThe Beginner's Guide to Digital Journaling The Beginner's Guide to Digital Journaling Maintaining a private journal is a great way to build your writing skills, spill out your thoughts, desires, worries, and reflections on paper. The very act of writing itself can often help you think through..Read More, which tells you how to go about it.
1. Life Calendar (Android, iOS): Color-Coded Weekly Journaling for Beginners
Daily journaling is a difficult habit to form, especially if you have other resolutions to keep. Life Calendar takes a weekly approach to journaling, and adds a few color-coded tricks to make a dotted visual dashboard of your life.
Diary Journal Software
At the end of each week, give it a color based on how the week went. You might want to have green for happy, red for angry, blue for sad, and so on. The app’s built-in reminder will also ask you to write a note about the week that went by. And your birthday week has a different diamond-shaped icon to mark it separately.
As you start adding each week’s big events and mood, you’ll start seeing a snapshot of your life. Suddenly, you might find that you are happier in the summer and winter gets you in the doldrumsHave A Happy Year -- How To Combat Seasonal Affective DisorderHave A Happy Year -- How To Combat Seasonal Affective Disorder'Happy New Year' wishes can ring false to those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or 'Winter Blues'. This round-up of tools could help to improve the quality of your life.Read More. And you can take action accordingly.
Download: Life Calendar for Android (Free) | iOS (Free)
2. Journal Jerk (Email, Web): Takes Away Your Money If You Don’t Journal![]()
Sometimes, you need a kick up the rear to get things done. Journal Jerk is a subscription-based service that gives you a money-based motivation to never miss journaling.
Here’s how it works. You sign up for a $5 per week subscription. Journal Jerk will send you a daily email. Reply to that email with a note to count it as a successful journal entry. Every week that you meet your journaling deadlines (based on how frequently you want to journal), the price drops by 50 percent. So keep at it and it will go down to a paltry $0.09 per week. Miss a deadline and you’re back to $5 per week, so there’s that added motivation to keep going.
It’s a variation of Jerry Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break The Chain” productivity method to form a good habitStick to Your New Year's Resolutions with 5 Smart (and Cruel) ToolsStick to Your New Year's Resolutions with 5 Smart (and Cruel) ToolsKept new year's resolutions in the past and found them difficult to stick to? Try these smart apps to finally keep your resolutions for a better you.Read More. You can also export your journal at any time, and stop the subscription if you want to.
3. Journaly (Android, iOS, macOS): Making Journaling Easy by Getting Data Automatically
Journaly is among the best full-fledged journaling appsKeep a Digital Diary with Day One for Mac OS X and iOSKeep a Digital Diary with Day One for Mac OS X and iOSEveryone has a story to tell. It's not always a story in need of an audience, sometimes a story just needs to be told. You may want to continue the journal you started when you..Read More that we’ve seen. It can give heavyweights like Day One a run for their money, without ever costing you a penny.
It supports all sorts of journal entries, such as photos from your phone camera, emojis, GPS locations, and so on. Of course, you can add notes to everything to maintain a proper journal. Importantly, Journaly is a smart app that fetches a lot of data about your life automatically. It tracks and updates your time, date, place, activity, sleep, and weather, to eventually give you a comprehensive data plot of your life.
If you’re new to journaling, such automatic updates make a big difference in forming the habit. Even on days you missed actually writing anything, Journaly has tracked some data that you forgot about. At times, that’s all you need to keep going.
Download: Journaly for Android (Free) | iOS (Free) | macOS (Free)
4. Gratefulness (Web, Email, Phone): Daily Gratefulness Journal
Maintaining a gratitude journal5 Awesome iOS Apps for Starting & Keeping a Gratitude Journal5 Awesome iOS Apps for Starting & Keeping a Gratitude JournalKeeping a gratitude journal can result in higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism, and energy – and we can all be grateful for that.Read More is one of the best mental health practices you can adopt. It builds a greater appreciation for the world around you and squashes the human mind’s inclination towards negativity. To get started, try out Gratefulness.
The app works via either SMS (U.S.-only) or email. Sign up and you will get a daily reminder in the morning or evening (or at both times), asking what are you grateful for today. Reply to it and forget about it. Gratefulness tracks all your replies to prepare your journal, which you can check out any time on the site and download or export too.
The simplicity of Gratefulness is what makes it stand out. There isn’t anything more to do than add 5-10 words a day about something you are grateful for, in an easy format by replying to a message. You might not even open the app for months, but a simple reply to a text message gets the job done. The trick to a journaling habit is all about making it easy to write every day, and that’s what Gratefulness excels at.
If you enjoy capturing thoughts in your journal and want to take your writing to another level, take a look at these writing apps for beating procrastination5 Writing Apps That Can Help You Beat Procrastination Right Now5 Writing Apps That Can Help You Beat Procrastination Right NowIf you are a writer or want to start writing, try these five apps to see if you can defeat procrastination and writer's block.Read More.
5. Dream Journal Ultimate (Android, iOS): Track Your Dreams (and Read Others’ Nightmares)
What did you dream about yesterday? Most of us forget what we dreamed about in a short while after waking up. But what if you could remember all your dreams? Dream Journal Ultimate asks you to track your dreams for a whole new perspective on life.
The app will automatically remind you to write your dreams every morning, so you don’t forget what you still remember. The more you do it, the stranger the picture gets. A few weeks down the line, you’ll be surprised by what goes on in your mind, and you’ll actually get better at remembering your dreams too.
Dream Journal Ultimate also has a built-in social network so you can share your dreams on the public “Dream Wall” and read what others are dreaming about. It can even be fun to have strangers jump in and interpret your dreams, giving you insights you never thought about.
Download: Dream Journal Ultimate for Android (Free) | iOS (Free)
Should Journals Be Digital or Paper?Best Journal Diary Software
For ages, people maintained journals in the form of books, but there is a shift towards journal apps now because of how we always carry our smartphones everywhere. But there is a movement that says journals should be about paper because part of its therapeutic effect lies in writing by pen on paper. The templates are the same, only the method changes.
Best Diary Journal
If you enjoy journaling, you might also appreciate the benefits of keeping a food diary5 Food Diary Apps to Track What You Eat and How It Affects You5 Food Diary Apps to Track What You Eat and How It Affects YouWhat you eat affects how you are. Track what you eat with these food diary apps to discover how food impacts you.Read More or for expanding your writing beyond journaling, check out these programs for creative writersThe Best Programs for Creative WritersThe Best Programs for Creative WritersAs a writer, you need the best creative tools available. Try these fantastic programs that can cover all your writing needs.Read More.
Explore more about: Bullet Journal, Cool Web Apps, .
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