Day One is an easy, great-looking way to use a journal / diary / text-logging application. Day One is well designed and extremely focused to encourage you to write more through quick Menu Bar entry, a Reminder system, and inspirational messages. Support for Dropbox syncing allows easy backup and syncing with the Day One iPhone application.

Features

• Customizable reminder system
• Quick-entry via the menu bar
• Inspirational messages to encourage writing
• iPhone application sync (via Dropbox)
• Starred entries list

Note: Day One is not encrypted or password protected on this version. If this is an issue for you, please do not purchase this app yet.

Note: This application contains in-app and/or external module purchases.

Version 2.6:

• Touch ID to Unlock Journal
• Various bug fixes and performance improvements

I bought it when it was version 1, and I upgraded when it became version 2. Then, after learning the value of computing simplicity and the danger of being locked into a proprietary app, I abandoned it. Now, I just write a diary in a plain text file saved inside an encrypted Disk Image. It’s just a folder full of plain text files, written in Markdown.

My approach is simplistic; it does not give me all the bells and whistles that Day One affords, such as auto-tracking of your whereabouts, the weather, the photos taken on your phone, and so on. But do these features matter? Would you honestly care every bit of mundane details of today years later? I contend that they don’t matter at all when it comes to writing a diary.

What matters is whether your data is readable many years later. What matters is whether your most inner thoughts are protected from prying eyes. And what matters is whether your developer feels like keeping up with this app many years later. Day One utterly fails in these criteria.

Day One locks your diary data into Day One database format which then will reside on Day One server if you choose to sync your journal data. Its ability to export does not count, because you are screwed if Day One tanks and the developer doesn’t feel like fixing it in the next moment you need it. The database file is a collection of text files, but they are all serialized with non-semantic file names, and they are in an user-unfriendly format. It doesn’t count as “no lock-in.”

I strongly recommend against using something like this for writing diary notes. Keep it simple. Keep all your personal data in an open format, and make sure you will be able to access it even when some apps are discontinued a few years later.

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