Top 6 Essential Journaling Apps You Can’t Live Without

With the right journal app, you can make a journal or diary entry truly yours by adding images, tagging locations, setting reminders to write, exporting entries, and so much more.

Here are the best journal and diary apps you can use both online and offline, either from a web browser or on a mobile device.

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The Most Secure Journal App to Protect Your Information: Penzu

What We Like

• Secure journal for ultimate protection and privacy.
• Customizable covers, backgrounds, and fonts.
• Easily insert images between text in entries.

What We Don’t Like

• Requires a monthly plan or yearly for advanced features.
• Some users report with saving and app crashing.
• Last updated for iOS in 2019.

Many journal apps offer security and privacy features, but Penzu is one that excels at it. This great journal app keeps your entries 100 percent safe with encryption and military-grade 256-bit AES encryption, provided that you sign up for one of two paid subscriptions.

The Pro and Penzu Pro+ plans also provide a fully customizable journaling experience, with personalized colors, fonts, and covers, version history and recovery, handwritten fonts, among other features.

You can enjoy unlimited entries with a free account, and write across your devices without losing your work. The free account also provides access to a few basic cover and font variations.

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Most Intuitive Interface and Best Looking Layout: Journey

What We Like

• Attach multiple images and videos to entries.
• Protect with Touch ID, Face ID, or PIN.
• Automatic Google Drive backups.
• Works on numerous platforms.

What We Don’t Like

• Recurring monthly or annual fee to access to more features.
• Separate fee for each platform version.

Whether you’re keeping a dream journal, a gratitude journal, a work journal, or any other type of journal, Journey is one of the best apps out there. Its crisp, clean layout is a pleasure to use for crafting your journal entries so they suit your personal journaling style.

You can share your entries, participate in the community forum, and benefit from end-to-end encryption and Google Drive syncing with a free account. However, some of the best features, including attaching media, exporting posts, and custom templates, require a Premium or Membership subscription.

Journey is widely compatible with various operating systems and devices. In addition to a web-based version, there’s an app for iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, and macOS.

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Simple and Beautiful Design With All the Right Features: Day One

Day One

What We Like

• Option to create multiple journals.
• There’s a nifty dark mode for writing in lower light.
• IFTTT integration for automatic journal entries.
• Available for Android and iOS.

What We Don’t Like

• It’s inaccessible from a web browser.
• There’s a Mac app, but no options for PC users.

Similar to Journey, Day One features an interface that’s clean, minimal, and very pleasing to the eye. Despite its simple look, it packs all the features you’d want in a powerful journal app.

Day One offers users unlimited entries in one journal, including one photo per entry, and syncing across devices (iPads, Apple Watches, iPhones, Macs, and Android). The free tier also provides secure cloud backup, Face ID or Touch ID protection, search, tags, maps, content exports, and book printing, among many others.

The Premium subscription ups the ante by allowing users to have multiple unlimited journals and entries with media uploads, IFTTT support, and scanning to PDF capabilities.

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Great Diary App for Quick, Short Journal or Diary Entries: Write Diary

What We Like

• Customizable background colors, text, and fonts.
• Share entries via email and other platforms.
• Insert popular emojis directly into entries.

What We Don’t Like

• Only available on Android and via the web.
• Occasional pop-up ads with free version.
• Not as streamlined as alternatives.

If you’re looking for an app that makes it as quick, easy, and effortless as possible to start and keep a diary or journal, Write Diary has you covered.

Like other popular journaling apps, Write Diary lets users customize the look by adjusting background colors and fonts. This program also incorporates emojis, a search function, pin protection, reminders, and syncing between the web and mobile apps.

While the app is only available for Androids and the interface isn’t as streamlined as some, it’s a simple, yet powerful journal app that combines an easy-to-use interface with more advanced features.

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Use Grid-Style Templates to Encourage Yourself to Write: Grid Diary

What We Like

• Inspirational questions and prompts.
• Personalize journal entries with images, etc.

What We Don’t Like

• Only available on iOS. No web or Android support.
• Password protection and other features require purchase.

Grid Diary puts a unique spin on journaling by displaying a series of different questions in a grid-style layout, essentially making it easier for you to keep a diary or journal.

The built-in library of suggested prompts are available for inspiration so you never get stuck with writer’s block. You can add images to entries and use tagging and categories to give you a calendar view to create and keep track of goals.

Personalization with photos and stickers is free, but more color customization and advanced features, like password protection and cloud storage syncing, require either a monthly subscription or one-time purchase. This app is also exclusive to Apple device users.

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Capture Your Exeriences Without Having to Write Anything: Daylio

What We Like

• Ideal if who want to journal without writing.
• A smart interface and beautiful icons.
• You can always add notes to your entries.

What We Don’t Like

• No traditional writing options for wordier entries.
• Some features are Android-specific.

Not so much into writing, but want to find a super quick and easy way to record the things you experience in a day? Daylio is a micro-diary app that lets you simply pick your mood state and activities so you can spend more time doing things and less time writing.

The layout is clean and easy to use, with attractive icons for recording daily updates about your activities and moods. You can customize the look by choosing different colors and also add text to entries if you’d like to include some written details—though more traditional journaling isn’t supported.

With the free version, you can view your data at a glance, but a paid subscription offers more advanced metrics, and unlimited library of moods, automatic back-ups, and an ad-free experience. These premium features are available on Android only.

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