The Best Journaling App

This is not a paid review. I am just a fan of this app

I’m an avid journaler. I have been journaling for about 7 years now and I started off with a paper journal. I got obsessed. I started buying nice pens and journals with nice paper from Baron Fig. I probably wrote at least 200 words a day for the better part of 2 years.

My journals started to pile up. I accumulated about 7 or 8 paper journals over two years and thought about how many I’m going to have in 10 years. Am I going to keep all these? As a person who tries to practice practical minimalism, this isn’t the way to go. I imagined myself moving a trunk full of journals when I was 35 and deep down, I knew I wouldn’t reflect back on them.

Then I stumbled upon DayOne. A journaling app. At first when I started using the app, it was simple. You basically could only write and add tags in the original DayOne app. I got a keyboard for my iPad and started to log my days in this app. As I found out that I could sync it with my phone, iPad and my Mac. I fell in love with it. I know this is nothing new today but in 2015 it became seamless and I always had my journal with me everywhere I went.

Later on, DayOne launched their DayOne 2.0 app. They switched from the one time purchase to a subscription version. I’m usually hesitant to add more subscriptions since everything is a subscription now a days. I decided to give it a try since they were only charging about $3/month or $22/year. I rationalized to myself that is the same price I would pay for paper journals yearly so why not?

DayOne held up their end of the bargain and added so many new features over time. I’m going to go through the list below:

Video/Audio Journal Support

You can add 5 minute videos on day one which can be an interesting way to journal. Normally I’m a person who prefers writing, but having the ability to vlog and see my emotions and facial expressions has had a pro founding effect when reflecting back.

The audio support is another feature that I don’t use to much but it’s nice to have. They also incorporated voice to text…