7 Best Journal Alternatives on iPhone
The day finally arrives when Apple launches its own diary app so users can keep track of their thoughts and reflect on life’s best moments. There’s no doubt that the Journal app in iOS 17 is the best to record your thoughts every day. However, it isn’t the best journaling app available right now. There are some cool alternative journal apps on the App Store that you may enjoy writing in.
So if you’re looking for one perfect journal app to document your thoughts, we’ve compared several great choices. Until Apple makes Journal a perfect match, let’s discover these third-party apps and see what they have to offer.
Table of Contents
1. Stoic. journal & mental health
Meet Stoic, your personal mental health companion designed to guide you through the hurdles of life, boost your happiness, and enhance your productivity. At its core, Stoic is all about helping you kickstart your day with a personalized daily planner, ensuring you’re ready for whatever comes your way. As the day unfolds, track your mood and engage in bite-sized mental health exercises tailored to your needs. The app goes beyond traditional journaling, offering a diverse range of guided journals with prompts and suggestions spanning topics from productivity and happiness to stress, relationships, and self-discovery.
Whether you’re a seasoned journaling pro or just starting out, Stoic provides a welcoming space for you to express yourself. Not a fan of typing? No problem—journal with voice notes or capture your day in pictures and videos. With templates for various situations, such as preparing for therapy sessions or engaging in CBT-based thought dumps, Stoic ensures you have the tools you need. Dive into mental health tools like guided meditation, breathing exercises, and the Stoic Shield to manage screen time. Plus, sync effortlessly with iCloud and export your journal entries for a seamless experience.
Key Features:
- Guided journaling experience with daily prompts
- Features meditation and breathing exercises
- Features quotes & affirmations and therapy notes
- Build streaks, trends and privacy features
2. Day One Journal: Private Diary
Welcome to Day One Journal, a decade-strong powerhouse that stands as the epitome of private, trustworthy, and user-friendly journaling apps. It’s not just an app; it’s a decade of dedication, updates, and feature additions that have sculpted it into the go-to haven for those seeking a digital sanctuary for their thoughts. With an award-winning design, Day One Journal offers unlimited text entries, empowering you with robust rich text formatting using markdown.
Your entries are not only beautifully organized but also securely stored with automatic backups and safeguarded by your choice of passcode, TouchID, or FaceID. Keep your momentum alive with streaks and a calendar view, and let programmable reminders nudge you gently through text messages or phone notifications. Say goodbye to writer’s cramp with unique daily prompts, and save time with customizable templates that bring order to your musings. Today’s view gives you a quick snapshot of your journey, while integration with the Health app tracks your mindfulness minutes.
Key Features
- Streaks and calendar view for building a journaling habit
- Prompts for a unique journal every day
- Customizable templates
- Attach unlimited photos and videos
- Available for iPad and Mac
3. Journey – Diary, Journal
Enter Journey, the epitome of aesthetic pleasure in the realm of journaling apps. More than a mere diary, it’s your personal motivator and happiness coach, guiding you through the highs and lows of life. Immerse yourself in the beauty of moments by capturing them with photos, videos, or audio, creating a tapestry of memories to revisit in the future.
Journey’s Diary Editor is a playground for expression, offering a variety of tools to stylize your entries. Bold, italics, strikethrough, and a palette of text colors let you craft your narrative with flair. Dive into your emotions and track the ebb and flow of your mood across entries, visualizing a 30-day emotional journey in your stories. Your musings are guarded by a fortress of privacy, with options like passcodes, Face ID, and Touch ID standing sentinel over your precious thoughts.
Key Features
- Available on mobile, desktop, and web
- Search by activity, mood, or favorites
- Features journal coach & various templates
- Track emotions with mood-tracking
- Custom create templates
4. Gratitude: Self Care Journal
This is not just an app but a well-calculated self-help tool that will be with you in the effort to improve your mental health. This app is beyond ordinary; it offers an all rounded approach which includes a gratitude journal, affirmations, vision board and daily motivational content. It is an armory of motivation as well as a strong arsenal of self-love routine. The Gratitude journal becomes your window to reflection, encouraging you to appreciate the small blessings that enrich your life.
But it doesn’t stop there—it nudges you with reminders and prompts to make journaling a habit, ensuring you stay committed to your well-being journey. With the ability to add photos to your entries, build a gratitude journal streak, and access a treasure trove of prompts, Gratitude becomes your personalized sanctuary. Dive into a vast collection of affirmations, either listening to them or reading, and add your own touch by crafting personalized affirmations, complete with music and your recorded voice.
Key Features:
- Journal streak and hundreds of journal prompts.
- A number of affirmations to help you stay positive
- Create great vision board using sections, goal ideas
- Record voice notes, change background and much more
5. My Diary: Journal with Lock
More than just a digital diary, this app is a canvas for your memories, allowing you to add photos, themes, and background details, creating a vivid record of your life. Capture your daily life with the option to write photo diaries, adding a splash of color and emotion to your personal narrative. Customization is at the heart of My Diary, offering themes, moods, font effects, and stickers to tailor each entry to your unique style. It doubles as a mood tracker, providing insightful mood analysis as you navigate life’s ups and downs.
The user-friendly interface, complete with beautiful diary themes, ensures that every moment of your daily journaling journey is a delightful experience. Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, My Diary caters to all with a night-dark theme, making journaling at night a comfortable and visually pleasing activity. Pages with well-designed layouts simplify the process of starting a journal or taking notes while journaling guides lead you through the steps to complete your first entry.
Key Features
- Stickers, font effects, themes, and moods
- Track your mood and get a mood analysis
- Design-savvy pages to add color to your journal
- Enjoy the Diary illustrated themes.
- Journals for travel, health, mood, or girls
6. Daylio Journal
Welcome to Daylio Journal, your self-care bullet journal and the ultimate mood diary cum happiness tracker. With Daylio, the beauty of journaling lies in simplicity – no need to type a single line. Choose your mood, add activities that colored your day, and even jot down notes for that old-school diary feel. Daylio goes beyond the surface by collecting your recorded moods and activities, offering insightful statistics and a calendar view to reflect on your journey. Add a personal touch with a vast database of beautiful icons for your activities, and get creative with funny emojis to express your unique moods.
Take control of your narrative by customizing color themes and setting daily, weekly, or monthly goals. The app transforms your daily reflections into a journey of self-discovery, making each entry a celebration of your life’s intricate tapestry. Dive into the colorful world of Daylio, where every mood and activity is a stroke on the canvas of your well-being.
Key Features
- Record you mood using emojis
- Beautiful icons for your personalized activities
- Customize color themes
- Create daily, weekly or monthly goals
- Build habits and collect achievements
7. Diary With Password
Introducing Diary With Password, the haven for your emotions where secrecy meets simplicity. Dive into the most minimalist electronic diary, offering a clean slate with simple writing options against a soothing monochromatic background. Set a password to guard your innermost thoughts, ensuring that your diary remains exclusively yours. Touch the inconspicuous clock button to note the time, capturing the essence of your moments with precision. This unobtrusive feature adds a subtle timestamp to your entries, making your reflections more vivid.
The app becomes your friendly companion, gently reminding you to pen down the happenings of your day, turning each entry into a timeless record of your life. Designed for ease, Diary With Password cares for your eyes by providing a dark mode, making late-night reflections easy on your vision. Safeguard your memories by backing up and restoring data on your iOS device, ensuring your reflections remain intact.
Key Features
- A journal with minimal features
- Basic features include time stamp, reminder and night mode
- Different font sizes and styles
Conclusion
There are always some best alternatives you can use for an existing Apple’s app on your iPhone. Today, we took a look at the best alternatives for iOS 17’s journal app, and all the apps in the list are worth checking out. Whether you need to practise gratitude or mindfulness, we’ve provided apps that will meet your needs.
So don’t think too much, pick the best app for your needs and start jotting down whatever comes to mind and document your life.
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