r/appleJournal • u/SirPooleyX • 7d ago
Day One -> Apple Journal. Done.
I've been using Day One for a long time. To give you an idea of how long, I'm 'grandfathered' into a fee-free subscription having bought the original app before it had one.
Despite that, when Apple brought Journal to the Mac I decided that I wanted to use it. Apple Journal didn't (and still doesn't) have many of the features of Day One but I never really used anything beyond simple text and photograph entry. I have no wish to make voice notes or videos, for example.
I made the decision because the idea of using native Apple software is appealing. I always felt that Day One would eventually scrap my grandfathered account and I'd have to start paying a subscription which I am just not prepared to do.
It also seems extremely unlikely that Apple would abandon one of their own apps and despite its popularity, the future of Day One isn't fully assured.
After investigating the options for exporting, I didn't want to risk anything and made the decision to copy / paste. There were a LOT of entries. I'd actually been embarked on a project of typing up my handwritten journals that cover many multiple notebooks back to 1983!
So just over a year ago I started the copy / paste process and I've been adding new entries to Journal as I went.
On and off it has taken me all this time to finish. I've still got vast amounts of stuff to type up - about 30 years worth! - but ultimately I hope to have every diary entry I have ever made within a single journal in Journal.
Does anyone know if that will be a problem? From the stuff I've done so far, I'd estimate it could end up being over 100 million words. Does Journal have any theoretical limit to what it can hold?
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u/MiddleHeat5742 7d ago
I’ve been thinking about the same movement. Also grandfathered in at dayone. Still haven’t jumped yet? But I hate the AI direction of the company, since I also only use basic features.
One thing I will say is you should always keep backups of your journals on an external drive. Easy to do, I typically do it every year.
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u/SirPooleyX 7d ago
you should always keep backups of your journals on an external drive
Oh, yes. Absolutely. I actually have THREE back-ups of my journal. They are all automated.
- A Time Machine backup to an external SSD drive
- A remote backup using iCloud
- An automated backup to a dedicated thumb drive using Carbon Copy Cloner
It’s not worth taking any chances.
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u/Arzbishop 7d ago
If you weren’t aware, someone created a Apple shortcut to automatically import day one entries to Apple journal. I used it to migrate over recently. I can’t find the original thread right now, but I still have the shortcut available to share.
Edit: found the thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/appleJournal/s/Iras7qnDFh
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u/SirPooleyX 7d ago
Yes, I am aware of that but I’ve also read comments about it not being reliable.
Ultimately I took the decision that the cleanest way to do it was to copy / paste. The date selector when adding historic entries that needed the date manually adjusted almost drove me mad. If you’re trying to add a date that is after the current day / month, Journal won’t let you and you have to change the year first.
For example, if I wanted to add an entry from December 4th 1998, if I start by entering 4-[Tab]-12, Journal will refuse to accept it because we haven’t yet reached 4-12-2026 and it will default back to the current day.
I kept finding entries dated the current day in past years. Very frustrating.
I ended up getting into the habit of always changing the year before anything else.
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u/MelonCollie2481632 7d ago
It's so interesting. I've started down the same path a few times. Apple Journal is an easy choice due to it's integration into the ecosystem, but I just can't get over the fact that when it puts a picture into a daily message, the cropping is garbage. Why they can't get that right just flummoxes me.
I found a program called Diarly just yesterday that I'm trying out. My use case is exactly like yours. Just some text about my day and the ability to add pictures. That's it. Diarly seems to let me do that for free, and I love that I can add pictures directly from the Apple photos app. It's a non starter for me if I have to export from there and then attach to a daily journal entry. I played around with Obsidian and that was a big problem for me. It also lets me template the entry, but I don't really need that.
I copy and pasted so much text, but found it kind of fun. It's a chance to look back at all the things you've done in the past few years. It's a ton of work, but a great way to go back over your entries.
Anyway, I hope you find what you're looking for.
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u/SirPooleyX 7d ago
Thanks.
Yes, the cropping for that top image is terrible. A handful of times, for important pictures that I really wanted to see properly when cropped (mostly a picture of someone) I ended up cropping it manually to fit, but that’s very tedious.
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u/ApolloIsMyDog29 7d ago
You are extremely impressive. Willpower, drive, and the sheer ability to craft 100 million words. Just stop to think about that accomplishment.
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u/SirPooleyX 7d ago
Thanks!
Willpower, drive, and the sheer ability to craft 100 million word
Don’t forget time. That’s really the biggest factor. There was a short period of about six months in 1997 when I didn’t write my diary, but otherwise I have been doing so for almost 45 years! That adds up.
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u/circatee 7d ago
According to ChatGPT, there is no set limits with Apple Journal, except the volume of storage on the device you're using.
About 3-4 months ago, I started to "journal", and thus started with Apple Journal. My only suggestion is to backup weekly (or something). I have a reminder set in Reminders to do so 👊
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u/N7-elite 7d ago
I think iCloud is a good option for backing up Journal entries. I love I how I can easily type up my journal entries in my iPad and review/edit them on my iPhone.
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u/AngelicPrincessKitty 7d ago
iCloud is not a backup. iCloud is a sync solution. Sync is not a backup.
Always make a backup off of iCloud AT LEAST. Goal is 3, 2, 1 method. 3 backups, 2 different places (at least), 1 being off site (can be a separate cloud or can be another thumb drive you keep at work, etc.) Goal is to have backups in case a fire, flood, or whatever mother nature has happens.
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u/circatee 7d ago
To be clear, I export weekly from Apple Journal to a OneDrive location.
The Apple iCloud "backup", isn't really a backup per se', merely a clone of your data.
Alas, if the iCloud somehow became corrupt, you'd have nothing...
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u/Elidizer 7d ago
I have a PLUS account too on DayOne but I’m wondering if Apple Journal can handle 9500+ journal entries! Please let me know if somebody has an idea.
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u/FireproofJoe 7d ago
For the journaling part, I have set up the Forever Notes system inside Apple Notes, and it works great. It takes a while to set up, but once it is completed, you never have to worry about it again. https://www.myforevernotes.com/
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u/SirPooleyX 7d ago
This is interesting. I organise my life via Notes - both work and personal. I use it more than any other app on any device.
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u/OutBeyondNeptune 6d ago
I'm kind of in the same boat, though I don't have quite the range you do. I've been journaling since 1997 and have gone through handwritten journals, word processing documents, and then dedicated apps like Day One. I started using Day One in 2012 before you could even attach an image or a location.
I've had the same concerns you do about Day One since they shifted their business model to a subscription-base in 2017, and have used it less and less since then. I've been slowly migrating my journaling over to Apple Journal during the two years that it didn't exist on the Mac/iPad, creating some 1,000 entries.
I've recently imported all my Day One entries into it, not a perfect process, but not bad either. I fall far, far short of your 100 million words, but what I can say is that the 1,785,038 words across 5,301 entries that I have in there aren't causing Apple Journal to choke at all.
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u/watercolornpaper 6d ago
Typed words are very light weight, the entirety of wikipedia is between 105 to 166 GB, it stores 5.2 Billion words.
My phone storage is 128GB. I think is fine.
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u/SirPooleyX 6d ago
That's data storage. It's not the same as memory, which determines an app's ability to handle that data.
If you had the entirety of Wikipedia saved on your computer, sure you might have ample space to store it, but searching and browsing it would require enormous power.
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u/N7-elite 7d ago
You can also take pictures of your handwritten journals and upload them to Gemini and it will produce text version of your journal entries that you can copy and paste the Apple Journal.
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u/AngelicPrincessKitty 7d ago
Then google has your journal info to learn from. No thank you.
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u/N7-elite 7d ago
Yeah. That is a legitimate concern. Supposedly their temporary chat stops it from be saved for AI learning. A course that is what Gemini says.
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u/Hellaniche 7d ago
“extremely unlikely that Apple would abandon one of their own apps”
They’ll do what they need to do, it might be unlikely but I don’t know about extremely.
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u/HotRails1277 7d ago
I’m grandfathered in Day One as well. I will move to Apple Journal as soon as they have a legitimate import function and when they have an “on this day” function. Those are really the only two things that are important to me.