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Charting Your Journey with Apple's Journal App: A Comprehensive Guide to Upgrading Your Journaling Experience on iOS

Both the Apple Journal and Journey offer unique features and functionalities that can create a great journaling experience for anyone. But if have ever wondered what exactly the differences between the two are, read on to find out more.

Shruthi Nair

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Shruthi Nair , Ashley

During this year's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple introduced Journal, a new journaling application for iOS that is designed to enable iPhone users to regularly record their daily activities. Apple Journal joins other iOS apps like Fitness, Sleep, and Breathe, which assist users in monitoring and managing various aspects of their daily lives. This announcement signifies the company's latest venture into the realm of health and wellness.

Apple Journal is set to be launched alongside iOS 17.2, scheduled for release in late December 2023. Apple states that this new iPhone app will employ on-device machine learning to offer personalized recommendations to users for inclusion in their digital journal. It will gather information from contacts, photos, music, workouts, location data, and other sources to curate these suggestions.

How does Apple's Journal work?

Apple mentioned that the new journaling app for iOS will use “on-device machine learning” to create customized journaling prompts based on your contacts, photos, music, workouts, location data, and even podcasts, essentially working off deep iPhone integration. It is said to be able to tap into Apple's services to paint a complete picture of one's day. With machine learning, Journal makes suggestions to inspire journal entries by analyzing all the recent activity from one's iPhone.

For example, Apple Journal might prompt users to document or write about their recent coastal holiday by highlighting a newly created photo album showcasing pictures that the user might have snapped at the beach. It would provide details about the location and the music users were listening to during that time. By tapping on this suggestion, the information would be automatically included in a draft post within the user's journal. Notably significant entries in the journal can be marked, making them more accessible and convenient to find and look back at at a later time.

Comparing Apple's Journal and Journey

There’s an existing and growing body of research that suggests and proves that gratitude journaling may help boost your mental, emotional, and even physical health. Apple's intention with the new journaling app is to help you cultivate gratitude by commemorating positive moments.

However, the tech giant’s latest effort in the mental and physical health technology market comes with some drawbacks. While Apple is claiming that's it's newest app would function as a digital diary for iPhone users to log their thoughts and activities, there are some essential journaling tools and features that Apple Journal does not provide.

1. Cross-Platform Sync

Unlike Apple's Journal that is designed for specifically iPhone users ( Yucks, not even on iPad! 🤦🏻‍♂️), Journey is a multi-platform digital diary app that can be accessed almost anywhere and at anytime.

As a journal and diary app that is available on multiple platforms; iOS, Mac OS, Web, Chrome OS, and Android, you can sync your app across any device you choose to use. With Journey's cross-platform capacity, if you were to switch to another operating system, they do not have to worry about their data and journals being lost. They will be kept intact and accessible.

2. Fully-equipped Journal Editor

Apple's Journal provides journal prompts to inspire your writing and a platform to record your thoughts. However, the platform does not offer text formatting options. Journey's editor offers you multiple writing tools to customize their journal entries. Within the editor, you can change the paragraph style, emphasize text with bold, italics, and strikethrough, organize your writing with bullets, tables, blockquote or checklists, and experiment with text color as you please.

You can also link your journal entries to external links or interlinks if you wish to reference external sources or other journal entries you may have created on Journey; making navigation a lot more seamless within the app.

3. Shared Journal

When comparing Journey and Apple Journal, one notable distinction is the shared journal feature present in Journey. This allows you to collaborate and share their journal entries with others, fostering a sense of connection and shared experiences. On the other hand, Apple Journal does not offer a similar shared journal feature. This aspect sets Journey apart, enabling you to engage in collaborative journaling, whether it's for personal projects, collective memories, or creative collaborations.

With Journey's shared journal feature, you can enhance their journaling experience by engaging with others and creating a sense of community within their journaling practice.

4. End-to-end Encryption

Both Journey and Apple Journal prioritize the security of user data by offering end-to-end encryption. This means that your journal entries and personal information remain private and protected from unauthorized access. Whether you choose Journey or Apple Journal, you can have confidence that your thoughts and memories are encrypted and secure. This emphasis on privacy allows users of both apps to journal with peace of mind, knowing that their valuable content is safeguarded.

5. Connect to Third Party Apps Using Zapier

In the realm of digital journaling, the flexibility to integrate with third-party apps is becoming increasingly important for a seamless experience. Journey offers a distinct advantage in this area with its connectivity to third-party applications using Zapier such as Instagram, Gmail, Google Docs and more. This feature greatly expands the capabilities of the journaling experience by enabling users to connect with a myriad of other services and tools. In contrast, Apple Journal lacks such integration capabilities, potentially limiting users who are seeking a more interconnected digital ecosystem for their journaling and productivity needs.

6. Add Entries into Journey by Using Email

Journey sets itself apart from Apple Journal with its versatility in entry methods, including the option to add journal entries via email. This feature is particularly beneficial for users who are on-the-go and prefer to update their journal without opening the app. Users can simply compose an email and send it directly to their Journey account to create a new entry. This convenience is not mirrored in Apple Journal, which does not support adding entries by email, potentially making Journey a more attractive choice for those seeking varied and flexible journaling methods.

7. Custom Journaling Templates

Apple's Journal creates journaling prompts with the help of deep iPhone integration. It uses information gathered from your contacts, photos, music, workouts, location data, and others to generate journaling prompts for you. You then can choose to write with the prompts created for you.

Journey adopts a different approach to this. Instead of creating journaling prompts for you, tools such as custom templates allows you to tailor your journaling experience to suit your specific needs and preferences. You can design templates that resonate with your unique goals, challenges, and areas of focus.

You can incorporate elements that are meaningful to you to already existing templates on Journey; like adding more prompts, including additional questions, or sections dedicated to specific topics, or make templates entirely from scratch about a topic that you wish to work on. With this feature, you have the chance to create a journaling experience that feels personalized and relevant.

Journey's Custom Templates feature allows you to create, access, delete, or duplicate custom templates. You have the ability to write and reflect about anything you wish, work on journal prompts that speak to you at given time, and customize your journal entries as you please.

8. Curated Journaling Templates

One limitation of Apple's Journal is the absence of curated journaling templates. Journey understands that journaling can sometimes be challenging to initiate. If you're uncertain about how to start or hesitant to use stream-of-consciousness writing, you might find a journal template particularly helpful.

Journey's curated templates can help you get the ball rolling. From templates on self-improvement, to healthy living, practicing gratitude, and planning and organization, Journey's wealth of journaling templates provides you with relevant prompts, sections to reflective, questions you can answer to gain clarity, tables to organize your feelings, and various metrics to track your progress and development.

While journal prompts can help you get started, other writing tools like the ones stated above allow you to delve deeper into your reflective process, and the benefits you reap can prove to be a lot more helpful.

9. Coach Programs

If you're new to journaling, Apple's Journal can be appealing; considering that it collates information for you and presents you with prompts that you can immediately write with. Journal also comes with a helpful feature called "Purpose" that provides users with daily quotes that could positively influence their journaling.

However, "Purpose" currently does not extend past these daily quotes to provide curated or specialized journaling guidance. To provide users with a tools that could aid their journaling, Journey's Coach Programs offer step-by-step journaling guides to journaling. For people who are looking to start journaling regularly, these programs are apt starting points for anyone who is journaling for the first time. Journey's Coach programs have daily and weekly journaling prompts about a specific topic to help you get started.

The coach programs span across a wealth of journaling topics that users can choose from; depending on their needs for the day. These curated journaling programs from topics such as self-confidence, boundary making, and practicing mindfulness.

10. Archive Your Memories

If you wish to work outside of Apple's Journal app, or you're looking for ways to share or print your journal entries, Journey allows for users to exporting your writing to PDF or DOCX. On mobile and desktop, you can access, view, share, or print your journal easily with these accessibilities.

While you do write on a digital diary app, information such as the date created, time created, and all your formatting will be included in your exported documents. These files will even retain information like your photos and the thumbnails of video attachments. The entirety of your text format would also be preserved in your final document.

11. Publish to Ghost, WordPress, or Tumblr

While most journals or diary entries are meant to be private, there are times when people decide to share their writing and work with their family and friends, or a larger audience. Instead of having to copy and paste your writing, or worry about the compatibility of your digital writing app with other writing platforms, you can choose to directly publish your work to external platforms.

Once you have successfully added Ghost, WordPress, or Tumblr as blog services on Journey, they will be added to the list as a Linked Publishing Service.

12. Personalize your Journal

Customization is a cornerstone of a meaningful journaling experience, providing a platform that mirrors a user's personality and intensifies their attachment to their journal. Apple Journal tends to provide a static user interface with minimal customization, while Journey encourages a deeper personal touch.

In addition to choosing from the 13 theme colors, Journey allows users to customize font family, line height, and other aesthetic details. This extensive level of customization, coupled with functional flexibility, ensures that every aspect of the Journey app resonates with you. By doing so, Journey transforms your journaling experience into a personalized and enjoyable expression of self, intimately connecting you with your canvas of thoughts.

13. Table for comparison: other things that make a difference

Moving forward: journey's approach.

Apple's Journal makes use of Apple journaling suggestion API to draw information from photos, videos, audio notes, and other media that you would have captured on your phone and suggests journal prompts for you to start writing with. It then automatically adds all of this information to a draft post in the user’s journal for them to start writing in. This powerful journaling suggestion API will be made available to developers.

Journey will be integrating Apple's journaling suggestion API in its upcoming update, enabling you to enjoy the new "Moments" feature. Through this integration, Journey will have the ability to intelligently extract data from various sources, such as photos, videos, music, places, people, and other information stored on your phones. Subsequently, the app will provide relevant journal prompts and generate draft posts for you to explore and utilize within the app.

This remarkable addition enables Journey to effortlessly extract information from your photos, videos, music, locations, and more, streamlining the process of recording and journaling life experiences. By providing relevant prompts and generating draft posts, Journey's Moments feature saves your valuable time, ensuring that their journaling journey is both effortless and meaningful. Embrace this new way to capture and preserve memories without the need for excessive time, making each moment count within Journey's immersive platform.

If we were to compare Apple's Journal and Journey, there is no denying that both offer unique features and functionalities to enhance your journaling experience. Apple Journal is a great addition to the iOS ecosystem and Apple users can benefit from the integrative approach that this app takes. However, Journey's intuitive and customizable user interface, cross-platform access, journaling programs and templates that people can benefit from, and journal editor that allows for creative exploration also promises users from multiple platforms the opportunity to capture memories and moments as they please.

If you're new to journaling, Apple's Journal provides a great space for you to collate information and memories and write on the spot. But if you're ready to unlock the full potential of journaling and wish to do so through a digital diary app, Journey could be the tool that you need.

A Little Journal… These Digital Travel Diary Apps Are Worth Your Time

Last updated on January 4, 2024 by Shannon

As travel enthusiasts, we yearn to capture the essence of extraordinary travel moments and freeze them in time. We even want those mundane details preserved—what was the name of that hilarious taxi driver who shuttled you from the airport to your guesthouse?

If you’ve logged those details in a travel journal, you don’t have to remember—that’s where travel journaling apps come in, offering a digital travel scrapbook that easily documents even the craziest travel adventures.

I’ve been traveling the world for 15 years, writing, photographing, and sharing my travel stories from the first day. That means I have pretty high expectations when it comes to using digital travel diaries meant to preserve the memories of your expeditions. Here’s what you need to know about the best online travel journal apps available.

Table of Contents

What are Digital Travel Diaries?

While journaling about your travels via a paper notebook used to be called a travel log, the more modern equivalent is an online travel journaling app. That said, even diary app is just a new way to log the most important moments of your travels—and the mundane ones too.

Travel journals essential just document your experiences, capturing your memories as you travel the world. By logging your travel memories in real time via a journaling app, you ensure the smaller details are captured.

Was it a torrential downpour on the day you had booked an “any-weather” tour of the Norwegian fjords? Log that and then share how you felt at that very moment, otherwise the details fade with time.

That’s the real magic of keeping a travel log in any form, a beloved notebook, an app, or a blog. I’ve used all three over my 15+ years of travel. This travel blog was my primary travel log, but at times I’ve used these travel apps to capture moments more immediately.

And no matter my online travel journal app of choice, I always, always have a small physical journal. Even if you diligently record all of the best moments of your trip in your digital travel diary app, you should also carry a small travel journal that acts as your travel log—you use it to jot down funny off-the-cuff moments, or even just mundane details.

Perhaps you press between the pages ticket stubs, a pretty flower from your world wanders, and other small memorabilia that can’t be captured in a journaling app. It becomes a place to log currency conversions you can surreptitiously glance at when haggling at a market, or jot down lists and travel plans.

I never travel without a pocket Field Notes waterproof notebook and this Moleskine travel journal —its these two things that have allowed me to share such rich details on this blog, my personal travel log that’s been running 15 years and counting.

How to Choose an Online Travel Journal App

Travel journal apps are not one-size-fits-all. The best apps offer the exact range of features you need and at a price point you can afford—which can mean free! Many journaling apps offer a free version that may just meet your needs. Often its the more sophisticated features that require a paid upgrade.

Given that you’re probably snowed under travel planning, don’t waste your time downloading every travel diary app here. To pick the right app for your travels, consider these things before you download it:

When choosing an online travel diary app, there are several factors to consider that can help you find the one that best fits your needs. Here are some tips to help you make a decision:

• Features : Review what the journaling app actually does—what are the key features these app developers believe are the hallmarks of their app? That will tell you a lot about functionality. Standard features of most digital travel diaries include: text entry, photo and video uploading, geotagging, and weather data. Decide which features are important to you and ensure that the app provides them. Maybe you want an awesome map interface because you’re hopscotching around the world for a year ? Or you’re studying abroad you might want an app with more functionality around text and photo entries.
• Platform Compatibility : Check if the digital journaling app is available on your preferred platforms, such as iOS, Android, web-based, and desktop. If you’re bringing both a smartphone and laptop on your travels , you may wan a travel diary app that seamlessly switches between the two devices.
• Syncing and Backup : Consider whether the app offers syncing and backup options—and if those are free or paid features. You want access your travel diary across multiple devices, and you want it securely backed up to the cloud.
• Export and Sharing Options : If you plan to share your travel diary with others or would like to have a backup of your entries outside of the app, check if it offers export options, such as PDF or other file formats.
• Company Story : If the travel journaling app you’re considering using hasn’t been around for at least two-to-five years, run in the other direction. Companies, especially app makers, fold quickly. The last thing you want is an email saying you have a matter of days to download your cherished memories before they’re all deleted.

Best Travel Journaling Apps

Day One tops most of these lists because it’s actually that good—and it’s been around since 2011, so you know your travel memories are safe with this online diary app. The company has invested in a high-quality product, and updates over the years have responded to user reviews and feedback—which is enthusiastic across the board.

Its clean interface and seamless integration with iOS (both iPhones and Macs) and Android make it a joy to use. You can effortlessly capture each destination through text and photos, while popping in location data too.

Best app features : The “On This Day” functionality is neat because it doesn’t pull in the best of anything, but rather that exact moment years ago when you were on an incredible adventure out there in the world—or maybe you had logged a tasty hot chocolate at a hipster spot near that landmark you were visiting.

Either way, you’ll be transported back there in an instant and that app feature is maybe one of the strongest motivators to journal about all the big (and small) things that happen as you travel.

Cost : The free version is enough to see if you like it, but if you’re using this as your main digital travel journal then the one photo per entry restriction on free plans isn’t going to cut it. Premium is affordable though, at just under $3 per month, which buys you unlimited photos, videos, audio, drawings, and more.

If you go all in on Journey as your travel journal app, it will become your trusted companion. Rather than being a journaling app that’s great for travel, this travel-centric journaling app goes above and beyond with its extensive features.

Geotagging allows you to pinpoint the exact location of you experiences, while the inclusion of weather data and “mood” status adds depth to entries. You can import photos from your camera roll directly into journal entires, creating vivid visual narratives of your travels.

This robust app works on iOS devices and Android phones, Mac or Windows computers, and there’s even a web app! Basically, it’s an accessible and essential tool for any travel writer seeking to document their adventures with style and precision. Not only because of the features, but also because it allows multi-media exports in PDF or doc format.

It’s also a bit cheeky and has a handy guide to what Journey offers versus Day One or Daylio .

Best app features : Stand out for many will be the features that let you automatically sync and import social media content from Instagram and the like—what a time saver! And the full text editing screen is nice—you can bold, bullet, color, or link to anything you’d like right inside the text. Surprisingly, that’s not in every diary journaling app.

But one of the neater travel-focused elements are the three views for your journal—media (where you scroll by photos), map (which shows your entries pinpointed on a map of the world) and calendar (journals organized by date).

Cost : Unlike essentially all competitors, Journey offers a one time purchase license—currently $18. You can buy a membership for ~$4.20.

Daylio , billed as a “simple micro-diary app,” adds an interesting twist to a travel journaling routine. As a mood and activity tracker, it enables you to record daily experiences and emotions with ease—and without writing anything. It’s an interesting way to to reflect on how your travel adventures have impacted your overall well-being .

It’s not for the hardcore travel writer, but rather, Daylio captures the essence of the travel experiences in a uniquely personal way. It’s a good companion for those seeking to intertwine their emotional journey with their physical travels. And for those who want a more streamlined diary app with fewer features and just straight to the meat of what you want to do.

Best app features : This app is dead simple to use and can be updated in under a minute thanks to the tap interface. It’s certainly not going to be the only way you record you travels, but if you’re already planning to share extensively on a Facebook or Instagram page , then this ease of use may just ensure that you use it every day.

Cost : You could get pretty far with the free version, or upgrade for just $3 per month—only the premium version supports exporting to PDF.

4. Evernote

Real talk: The digital travel journal of your dreams may be something you’re already using. When it comes to versatile note-taking, Evernote reigns supreme. Its functionality goes beyond simple journaling, allowing the creation of multimedia-rich entries.

I’ve organized my entire life via Evernote—travel pans, stories, etc—and its robust features make a compelling case for this being one of the best journaling apps out there, period. Not just in travel, but in general.

As one of the best digital diary apps, you can update it seamlessly across iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows.

Best app features : Well, you could use Evernote to basically plan and execute your trip, in addition to using it as a digital journal. You can also stay ruthlessly organized.

Cost : The free version offers 60 MB monthly uploads, which is constraining for travelers looking for an online app where they could add photos and videos to Evernote itself—this would like be better if you’re embedding YouTube videos, for example, versus storing them in Evernote.

The Personal version offers a more reasonable 10 GB in monthly uploads, but costs $11/month for that perk. If you’re already paying for Evernote for other reasons then this could be an excellent online travel journal, otherwise some of the other ones are likely better priced for a traveler.

5. Travel Diaries

For those seeking a dedicated travel journaling app, Travel Diaries hits the mark. It’s really a truly solid option. As a travel writer, I’m captivated by its interactive features. You can easily create immersive travelogues, complete with photos, maps, and annotations.

It’s also a captivating way to showcase your journey to fellow travelers (and your family and friends back home, of course!). The ability to share your travel stories and explore others’ adventures on the platform adds a sense of community not available in the other digital travel journaling apps.

It’s available as software for web, iOS and Android, but will only work with an internet connection (either cell data or wifi)—which means this might not be the best journaling app for those going far off-the-beaten path .

Best app features : A broad range of fonts and styles allow you to design your travel diary according to your own taste, and your travel log can include itineraries, travel photos, and a traveling map. The layout as an actual travel journal is a fun and personal touch that makes it feel like your digital diary is just as capable of creativity as a blank page in front of you.

Cost : There is no free version of Travel Diaries—it’ll be a subscription for as long as you want access to your travel journal. The basic plan costs $1 a month and includes unlimited storage and is really all most travelers will need for a robust travel journal. If you want to export your stories to PDF, you’ll have to upgrade to $3 per month.

Diaro App is a reliable companion for millions of people, not just globetrotters. This comprehensive diary app offers an array of features that elevate a travel journaling experience. Sometimes the best travel journal is, well, just a great online diary that you happen to use to document your travels.

The ability to add text, photos, tags, and organize entries into folders keeps this app well-organized—you can effortlessly find specific memories or delve into specific themes from your trips. It has a map of entry locations, which is especially important for those using this as a travel journal diary.

Diaro’s sleek interface and user-friendly design make the process of documenting adventures a true pleasure. Available on web, iOS or Android devices (with cross-device syncing via Dropbox) Diaro is a go-to app for travelers who want to capture the essence of their trip with elegance and efficiency.

Best app features : The multilingual UI (30+languages) may be a real boon for those for whom English is not their native language, but the shining standout features is just how easy it is to create a robust diary accounting for all of the key moments on your trip.

Cost : The free version has robust functionality. Upgrading to Diario Pro costs $10 per month and offers more customizability.

7. Polarsteps

Polarsteps is a great travel journal app that offers automatic tracking of your journey, making it effortless to document and share your trips. With its GPS technology, the app traces your route in real-time, creating a visually appealing map of your adventure without requiring any manual input.

This feature sets Polarsteps apart from other travel journal apps, as it eliminates the need for constant updates and allows you to focus on enjoying your trip while the app takes care of recording your route—and uses minimal data and power to do so.

What truly makes Polarsteps unique is its ability to create a beautifully presented travel log that showcases your journey. This app is made for the travel photographers out there also wanting a digital travel log of their journey.

Along with the automatic tracking, the app allows you to add photos, captions, and personal insights to your entries. These elements are then combined to create a visually stunning travel journal that can be shared with friends, family, and fellow travelers. I think this is one of the prettier apps—the maps alone are just a step up from the others.

Best app features : The GPS tracking is easily the standout here. You’ll know the precise spot you took a photo, and can then include a quick note—an inside joke you shared with a friend while there, a tidbit about the day, and more. This kind of precise location data is invaluable in the months and years after you travel.

Cost : It’s free! Polarsteps offers you a printed travel journal of your trip, which is how it’s monetized.

8. Waffle Journal

Waffle Journal stands out from the rest as a a collaborative journaling app that allows you to document and share your travel experiences with others—probably those on your same trip. Its unique approach fosters collaboration, allowing friends, family, or fellow travelers to contribute to your journal. With the ability to add stories, photos, and memories, everyone can create a collective travel diary that captures the essence of your adventures.

The app goes beyond traditional journaling by integrating multimedia elements. You can include photos, videos, and audio recordings. It’s not a travel journal specifically, so you’re not going to have any of those map features the travel apps have integrated into the experience, but it could be a great option for those travel in a group, or a group of friends who just love to share their travel adventures with each other. Social sharing features make it easy to showcase your travel adventures on social media platforms or via email.

BONUS: RIP: Bonjournal

Bonjournal captured my attention many years ago for its visually stunning approach to travel journaling. As you penned your travel stories, this app transformed them into beautifully presented narratives—and it made you choose just one photo to represent your day. Which was really quite neat.

This travel journal app is no longer available! Even though other websites are still recommending it as a travel diary app, the gorgeous app that debuted more than a decade ago is no longer up and running. Instead, a new app with the same name launched in 2021—it’s not a viable alternative. This new Bon Journal diary app is glitchy and poorly rated—storing your cherished travel memories there is not a good idea.

Don’t forget a paper journal as well.

This Moleskin travel journal is well made and worth the space it will take up in your bag. There will be times you just want to put pen to paper—you’ll be glad you have an analog record of your travels too.

How to Safely Store Travel Photos and Videos

These travel journaling apps are a terrific way to document your journey for personal memories, and to share with others. Although some long-term travelers create a travel blog to record their trips, using a travel diary instead is a great alternative.

You get amazing functionality and the ability to share your travel stories without the hassle of running a blog—which can get pricey and generally lacks the ability to share some stories privately with family, or keep other journal entries entirely private.

One thing all of these apps have are general constraints on how you upload, store, and present your travel photos and videos. Although some of these apps offer paid subscriptions with unlimited uploads, you’re likely safer if you store your actual travel photos elsewhere, too. Here’s a quick review of other places you can store travel photos, and the perks of using them in addition to, or instead of, a travel diary app.

• Facebook pages : Rather than use your personal profile, consider setting up a Facebook page for your trip—then you can share unlimited stories, photos, and videos. And you’re creating and sharing in a place where it’s likely your family and friends are already hanging out.
• Instagram : This is a great way to share photos, but videos and stories are a little more constrained on this platform. This might be a good option in addition to a digital travel diary.
• SmugMug : If you need a place to both store and display all of your travel photos, SmugMug is a great option. I’ve had an annual plan for more than a decade and it offers unlimited storage for all of my photos from all over the world for $88 per year. And it’s totally customizable—you can create gorgeous albums on a custom domain name if you own one.
• Google Drive : If you just need a backup solution without the need to share then Google Drive is a good option (I find Google Photos a chore to use). It’s just $2 a month for 100GB of cloud storage.

Ready for some travel inspiration? These are the best travel stories of travelers to follow now, inspiring books from historic travels, and short reads, too.

Essential Travel Planning Resources

❗ Yes, you need travel insurance . IMG Global is the travel insurance I’ve used for well over a decade of traveling solo, and with kids. Here’s why .

🧳 Smart packing can save your trip. Shop my favorite travel gear , including all of the packing essentials for world travel , gear to keep you safe on the road, my favorite travel books , and more.

🛏️ Find great accommodation . Booking.com is essentially the only hotel booking site that I use. It has a wide and affordable selection of traditional hotels, but also hostels and vacation rentals, too. Use these pro tips to find the best travel accommodation .

📍 Navigate more effectively. Rome2Rio is super handy to assess the full range of transport options between two cities—shows everything from flights to trains, buses, minibuses, and more. If you’re booking a rental car, I’ve always found the best deals on RentalCars.com .

✈️ Book affordable flights. Expedia is one of the first places I look for low-cost flights .

☕ Peruse all of my tips for round the world travel , or learn how to move and live abroad .

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The 6 Best Journal Apps for 2024

These apps help gather your moods and thoughts into one place

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With the right journal app, you can make a journal or diary entry truly yours by adding images, tagging locations, setting reminders to write, password protecting folders , 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.

The Most Secure Journal App to Protect Your Information: Penzu

An incredibly secure journal for ultimate protection and privacy.

Fully customizable journal features for personalized journal covers, backgrounds, and font faces.

You can easily insert images between text in entries.

You'll have to upgrade to a $4.99 a month plan or a $19.99 a year plan if you want access to its full offering of customization features.

Some users report issues with saving entries and the app crashing.

Last updated in 2017.

Many journal apps offer security and privacy features, but Penzu is one that excels at it. This great journal app keeps your entries 100% safe with double password protection and military-grade 256-bit AES encryption.

Download For:

Most Intuitive Interface and Best Looking Layout: Journey

The ability to attach multiple images and videos to journal entries.

You can protect your journal with Touch ID, Face ID, or PIN-protected journals.

Automatic backups in Google Drive .

You'll have to upgrade to a recurring $3.99 monthly or $29.99 annual fee if you want access to more features.

You'll have to pay a separate fee for each different platform version if you plan to use the app on different platforms.

Whether you're keeping a dream journal, a gratitude journal, a work journal, or any other type of journal, Journey is simply 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.

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

You can create multiple journals if you upgrade to a premium account for $2.99 a month or $24.99 a year.

There's a nifty dark mode for writing in lower light.

You can take advantage of  IFTTT integration for creating automatic journal entries.

It's available for Android. Previously, it was only available for iOS devices.

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–including search, tags, maps, photos, and so much more.

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

Fully customizable background colors, text, and fonts.

The ability to share diary/journal entries with friends via email and other platforms.

You can insert popular emojis directly into your entries.

Only available on Android and via the web. No iOS app.

Occasional pop-up ads with no premium version to upgrade to if you want to get rid of them.

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, Diary has you covered. It's a simple, yet powerful journal app that combines an easy-to-use interface with more advanced features like password protection,  cloud storage , reminders, and more.

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

Inspirational questions and prompts to help give you ideas for what to journal about.

The freedom to pick what you want to write about and personalize journal entries with images, etc.

Only available on iOS. No access via the web or from an Android device.

Features like password protection and cloud storage syncing are only available to Pro users for either a $1.99 monthly subscription or a $4.99 one-time 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. It has a built-in library of suggested prompts so you never get stuck with writer's block.

Capture Your Exeriences Without Having to Write Anything: Daylio

Ideal for people who want to journal without having to write anything.

A smart interface and beautiful icons.

If you do want to write more, you can always add notes to your entries.

No traditional diary/journal writing options for wordier entries.

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.

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The 13 Best Digital Journal Apps for 2024

For years I've tried to keep a journal for my life and work. I've purchased several paper journals . Despite these attempts, I never established a habit of regular journaling, especially for work .

But it didn't stick. Some days I'd forget to bring it with me, other days I'd get too busy to spend the time to write. I recognized the importance of regular reflection & planning, but I couldn't always get it to work for me.

Then I tried a digital journal .

The app was simple - every day (or week), I'd receive a notification in my email inbox encouraging me to reply.

I'd add a response over email. It was super simple to use, and the habit stuck!

This made me realize that digital journals have massive benefits , especially if you need help establishing the habit.

In the rest of this post, I'm going to share a list of the best digital journals or journaling apps that you can use to kickstart a regular habit of reflection & planning.

ClickUp is a powerful productivity platform designed to manage everything—tasks, goals, ideas, roadmaps, notes, and even your entire workflow, all on a single screen. Whether you're new to bullet journaling or simply looking for a reliable app to reflect on your personal growth, ClickUp is packed with hundreds of intuitive features to enhance your creativity in and outside of work.

Maintaining the practice of regular journaling can be difficult without the proper tools to hold yourself accountable, and ClickUp's unique organizational Hierarchy is ideal for cultivating that healthy habit. When it comes to bullet journaling, ClickUp's private Lists, tasks, subtasks, and Checklists can break down any idea into a clear structure, while Custom Statuses and its Goals feature help you track your progress every step of the way.

Also among ClickUp's list of reliable features is a dynamic document editor for all other personal journaling needs. ClickUp Docs are connected directly to your Workspace so you can easily open, update, and capture ideas at any time. And since all of your Docs are automatically saved in ClickUp, you can easily manage or refer back to your journal entries via a simple link or tags—even from your mobile device.

ClickUp Docs make digital journaling convenient and enjoyable with customizable features including:

• Customizable settings for privacy, guest, or public access for any type of journal entry
• Access ClickUp on your mobile device to journal at any time
• All Docs are connected directly to Workspace
• Nested pages add structure to your entries
• Convert text from your Docs into trackable private tasks for personal growth
• Rich text editing and slash commands to format text quickly
• Styling and formatting options to customize your text
• Create sections for additional journal organization with color-coded banners
• Update workflows from your Doc using custom Widgets, statuses, and more
• Add comments, edit as needed, and assign action items within your Doc
• Real-time editing feature to edit Docs alongside team members or clients, if applicable
• Embed information from over 1,000 other tools into ClickUp Docs for more context in every entry

Cost:  Free Forever to access ClickUp Docs and other powerful digital journaling features. Gain access to additional productivity tools with paid plans starting at $5 per month.

Get started with ClickUp for free.

2. The Five Minute Journal App

The  Five Minute Journal app  is based off the bestselling physical journal. In the morning you receive specific prompts on your iPhone/iPad or Android such as: 

• I am grateful for...
• What will I do to make today great?

Then in the evening, you can answer questions like:

• 3 amazing things that happened today
• How could I have made today even better?

Additionally, you can add a photo to your post and you'll receive a daily quote that you can share on social media . This is an effective structure and covers the key aspects of journaling. It's ideal for beginners who are trying to build a regular habit of journaling, but if you're looking to customize entries, prompts, and the cadence; you may need to  look elsewhere .

The app has close to a 5-star review (over 10,000 reviews) on the  Google Play store  and  iTunes . 

Cost:  $4.99

Day One  is a personal journaling app that is available across the entire iOS ecosystem (including iPads and a Mac app) and Android. This app is much more free-form than structured apps like  Friday  or the Five Minute Journal; it's a bit more like an open-ended digital diary.

There's quite a few useful features you may like in Day One:

• Advanced Encryption/Security
• Various integrations (it will pull in your posts from other systems, available on the Premium version)
• Location tagging
• Markdown formatting
• Export/backup options

You can see more in this video review below:

The only downside to Day One is that it's open-ended, so you will need to come up with your own journaling prompts . For beginners, staring at an empty page can be intimidating.

Cost:  $35/year

Next up, we have  Penzu , one of the earliest digital journaling apps available ( founded in 2008 !). Penzu is very similar to Day One, as it's more of a freeform diary app vs. being a structured journal. It boasts more than 2 million users.

Penzu offers a free version, and two paid offerings. The free plan offers unlimited entries, access to mobile apps, and basic font options. Yes, the reminders are included in the free plan.

Unfortunately, the app seems to have lost a bit of its luster over the past couple of years - it looks like only one founder is still working on the project (see  LinkedIn company  page). The app currently has a 4.3 star rating on the  iTunes store  and 4.3 stars on the  Play store .

The paid offerings have features like:

• Various Journal Covers
• Different Background colors
• Custom reminders

Cost:  $19-$49/year

Friday might be an interesting  alternative  worth considering.

5. Dabble.me

As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, I used to use  Ohlife  before it shut down.  Dabble.me  is the closest alternative I've found to the  email-based journaling method . As I mentioned before, this app delivers an email on a regular interval. All you need to do is reply via email. You can see in the screenshot below, it will also show a past update:

If you live in your email inbox, this is worth a second look. The free plan offers restricted functionality, like the email notifications are sent every other week. 

The paid offering unlocks the following features, such as:

• Ability to change the frequency
• Attach a photo
• Edit entries
• Rich text formatting
• Year in Review

If you are looking for a simple way to start journaling, Dabble.me is worth a look, or you could consider  an alternative .

Cost:  $36/year

Daybook  is another journaling app similar to Day One or Penzu. The user experience is extremely minimal (see example below), but it bills itself as a free cloud-based journaling app. 

One major benefit is that the app is free. It has over 16,000 reviews on the  Google Play store  as well, with close to a 5-star rating. There's an  iOS app  as well. 

Cost:  Free

7. Journey.cloud

Journey  is the new kid on the block and appears to be  the most popular regular journaling app in this list , with over 65,000 reviews on the  Google Play store  and nearly 2,000 reviews on  iTunes . Once again, it's pretty similar to Penzu and Day One, but it looks like Journey is a newer, more up-to-date version work exploring.

Similar to other apps, the free plan offers basic journaling capabilities, but you will need to upgrade to access advanced functionality like:

• Unlimited entries
• Create an entry from email
• Pull in social media posts from Zapier

This pricing isn't obvious from their website, which is a little disappointing and a bit sketchy. With that being said, they seem to have many happy users. 

P.S. - if you're looking for an  alternative to Journey.cloud , we might be able to help.

Cost:  $30/year

Ok, here's an interesting pick.  Daylio : a "micro diary and mood tracker." I've been using it for a couple weeks and have found it to be an interesting alternative to the traditional journaling apps.

Unlike traditional journaling apps, you are prompted to journal with "labels" and short snippets of text vs. being a pure "writing" app . You also share your general mood/sentiment on a regular basis.

This breaks down the barriers to journaling because it's  so easy to use . This app boasts a crazy number of reviews on the  Google play  store - over 250k! Additionally, the iOS app has over  20k reviews .

The free plan restricts certain feature and is ad-supported. The premium plan offers the following functionality:

• Unlimited moods
• Unlimited reminders
• Unlimited goals
• Ability to export entries
• Automatic backups
• Various themes

Overall, I really like the approach Daylio is taking, especially for people who are looking for a new digital journal app. With that being said, I think there is immense power to spending some time writing things down in a structured way. Sentiment tracking is only one piece of the puzzle.

9. 750 Words

This is called  750 Words  and it's based on  morning pages  from the book,  The Artist's Way . The general theme is that you should write in a stream of consciousness. The process can be  therapeutic . 750 words will keep track of your word count , sentiment, and how frequently you write, which can be helpful to know.

You can see a bit more of the user experience from this video:

If you are a writer or someone who wants to write more often (like me), you should check this out. If you are a beginner, this habit takes quite a bit of effort to stick.

Cost:  $60/year

10. GoodNotes

If you're a visual thinker and you need more than a text-only journaling system, take a look at  GoodNotes . A stand-out feature to GoodNotes is how flexible it is. You can quickly take notes with shapes, different highlight colors, and even in your handwriting. Customize the flow of the pen.

Create shapes, move them, stretch them.

Even add photos to your day's events.

It works as a Mac app, on your iPhone, or iPad.

Others use it like a  digital bullet journal system , and its flexibility makes it easy to do so. Because of its wide-open format and design, it positions itself both as an Evernote alternative and a digital journaling app.

It's simple to do both, especially with their Notebook feature, which is essentially a filing system. There are different canvasses, including a blank page or grid-style. Can more than 4.8 stars with 17,000+ reviews be wrong?

Cost: $7.99

11. Momento

Momento is an app where you can capture everything that you do in your life. It’s a multi-purpose private journal that can benefit you as a personal life journal, a work journal for keeping track of your tasks, and much more. Memento has many different templates that you can choose from, depending on what you want to journal.

This app is available for all iOS devices on the App Store and was even awarded App of the Year Runner Up in 2011.

Some cool features Momento has includes:

• Add details to your journal entries like specific people and locations to look back on
• Incorporate photos and videos in your entries to bring it to life
• Sync Momento with your social media apps, so you can import different photos and videos directly
• Search feature 

Overall, Momento is a great app to “capture everything in the moment”. Due to its ability to sync with your social media, you’ll be able to bring in all your different activities and updates all in one app. 

Cost : Free for basic version, Premium monthly subscription is $2.49

12. Grid Diary

Grid Diary is a combination of keeping a diary while also incorporating planner features to help keep you on track when writing about your day. You have many different prompts you can choose from to help guide you through your journaling process. Spend less time worrying about what to write, and spend more time getting into the habit of reflection and insight.

Grid Diary includes the following features, such as:

• Add a password to keep personal entries private
• Different journal templates to direct you
• Sync your data across devices
• Export your diary in multiple formats
• Dark and Light mode depending on preference

Diaro is a journaling/diary app that allows you to organize your entries in ways that make sense for you. You can organize them by date, add tags to the entries, set a location, and even place them in different folders.

Some great features Diaro includes are:

• Translated in over 30 languages for accessibility
• Sync Diaro online and Diaro on mobile devices

Cost: Free, $2.99-9.99/month/per item

What Makes a Great Journal App?

When looking for a digital journal application, here are some features you may want to consider:

User-friendly interface : Look for an application with a clean and intuitive interface that makes it easy to create and organize entries.

Security : A digital journal can contain personal information that you may not want others to see. Therefore, make sure the application has appropriate security measures, such as password protection or encryption.

Customization : The ability to customize your journal entries can make them more enjoyable to create and review. Look for an application that allows you to choose from different fonts, colors, and backgrounds.

Search and tag functions : Being able to search for and tag entries can make it easier to find specific information or themes in your journal.

Integration with other applications : If you're looking for a journal app to help you with project management, you may want to consider a tool with multiple integration capabilities.

Online sync and backup: Check if your digital journal app offers a way to back up and export your journal entries which can be accessed from multiple devices

Some digital journal applications offer additional features, such as the ability to add photos, and voice memos, or integrate with other apps. Consider other additional features that you may need.

Conclusion: Which Digital Journal App Will You Choose?

In conclusion, there are a ton of various journal apps to choose from. We recommend focusing on establishing the habit first - the various features won't make a huge difference if you don't make journaling a regular habit.

That's why you should try ClickUp ( get started for free ). It is the only fully customizable tool available, which means that you can mold the software to fit your needs instead of trying to create new behaviors that confirm how the app functions.

Digital Journal FAQs

What is the best app for journaling, how do you create a digital journal, is there a daily journal app, is it better to journal on paper or computer, how often should i journal, want to try our #1 recommended daily planner, free forever. no credit card required..

The 4 best journal apps in 2024

The trouble is, keeping a journal isn't easy. It takes dedication to this new habit and a willingness to open up when writing on a blank page. What have you done today? Who are you, really? Journaling apps can help you figure this out and help you establish a daily writing routine.

After testing nearly two dozen options, these are the top journaling apps to record your memories this year and in years to come. Click on any app to learn more about why I chose it, or keep reading for more context on journal apps.

The best journaling apps

Day One for Mac and iOS users

Diarium for Windows users

Grid Diary for templated journaling

Dabble Me for journaling over email

If you don't want a completely new app, you can always use your current note-taking app as your journal. Or, do one better and build your own journal app without any code—just a quick automation.

What makes the best online journal app?

How we evaluate and test apps.

Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog .

A paper notebook and pen are fine for journaling, but apps offer more. They give you more context on what you've accomplished and where you might want to go. They also let you include photos from your phone or posts from your social media feeds to make the journaling experience more rewarding. Add in reminders and the ability to search your journal entries, and digital journaling is almost a no-brainer.

I've been testing and writing about software professionally for over a decade. I've also journaled every day for the past five years. It's an important ritual for me, personally, and it's also where a lot of the best ideas in my writing originate. In my experience, the best apps for keeping a journal have a few things in common:

Easy entry: If it takes more than a couple of clicks or taps to add a journal entry, chances are you're not going to do it.

Pleasant interface: A minimalist, uncluttered interface helps you focus on your thoughts and makes journaling a pleasant experience.

Reminders: Perhaps the biggest challenge to online journaling is remembering to do it. Automatic reminders help you keep up the habit.

Exporting: In case the app stops being developed or you want to move to a different journaling platform, you'll want to be able to export your entries in a format other programs can read, such as PDF or RTF.

Syncing: Syncing will make sure your journal's up to date no matter what device you're using.

Affordability: I eliminated some apps because of the high price. Journaling shouldn't be expensive. If you're looking for a free journal app, some of the options on this list will do the trick, just with fewer features than the premium plans.

Other features for a digital journal that might be important to you include password protection, Markdown support, the ability to add more than one photo, location and weather tags, and journaling prompts.

To update the list this year, I spent time testing every diary app I could get my hands on. For each one, I started by creating a handful of new entries, complete with images. I then spent some time exploring the settings, testing the daily reminders, and ensuring that syncing and exporting worked as described. These are the journal apps that came out on top.

The best journal apps at a glance

Best journal app for mac and ios users, day one (mac, ios, watchos, android).

Day One pros:

Beautiful and intuitive interface

Easy to use and set up

Supports Markdown formatting

Great reminders

Day One cons:

Paid version required for core features like syncing

Since its release in 2011, Day One has been one of the most highly recommended journaling apps, landing a spot as Apple's Editors Choice in the App Store numerous times.

It's not hard to see why. The app offers a wide array of features—just about everything you might want or need in a digital journal. You can create journal entries in one click on the Mac from the menu bar, use templates to make journaling easier, and automatically add metadata, such as location, weather, motion activity, currently-playing music, and step count. There are optional prompts, if you're not sure what to write about. You can also tag entries with hashtags, insert photos and videos, password-protect your journal, and format entries in Markdown. And all of this is within an elegant, unobtrusive design. There are no gaudy, cluttered toolbars in sight: everything on the screen is useful for journaling.

Perhaps Day One's best feature is the ability to customize multiple reminders. Most other journal apps only send you one reminder during the day. But with Day One, you can get prompted to write, say, when you start the day, at lunchtime, and then at the end of your workday to keep track of your activities and thoughts throughout the day.

The free app offers pretty much all of the core journaling features, but for syncing, unlimited photos, handwritten and audio entries, and multiple journals, you'll need to subscribe to the Day One Premium service.

Day One pricing : Free version available; $2.92/month for premium features when billed annually

Apple launched its own journal app (called Journal) on iPhone in the past year. It's in many ways comparable to Day One except it's completely free. The main reason I'm not including it on this list is because there's no Mac version—which means there's no way to sync entries to a computer.

Best cross-platform journal app

Diarium (windows, android, macos, ios).

Diarium pros:

Native apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android

Configurable reminders

Syncing with multiple cloud services

Export to multiple formats

Diarium cons: 

Can be a little confusing

Diarium offers beautiful native apps for every platform. The Windows application, in particular, is nicer than any other I could find. But there's so much more to recommend here. You can add multiple media types to your journal entries. If you'd rather speak than type, you can dictate your thoughts with accurate speech recognition. You can attach an audio file, inked drawing, or any other type of file to your entries, as well as multiple photos. Heck, you can even rate your journal entries (perhaps most useful as a way to track how happy you are each day).

Diarium works without any sign-in, or you can sync using your choice of cloud apps—OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or WebDAV. You can also export your entries to DOCX, HTML, RTF, or TXT formats—with separate files for media attachments—so you can rest assured that your data will always be accessible. 

To make journaling even easier, Diarium can automatically pull in feeds from Facebook, Untappd, Trakt, or Instagram; or fitness apps, including Google Fit, Fitbit, and Strava, among others. It can also pull in your calendar appointments and even the day's weather. Combine this with daily reminders and beautiful native apps for every platform, and you've got the best cross-platform journal app on the market.

Diarium pricing : Free version available on Android ($4.99 for Pro), iOS ($4.99 for Pro), and macOS ($8.99 for Pro). Windows version for $9.99.

Best journal app for templated journaling

Grid diary (macos, android, ios).

Grid Diary pros:

Grid of recurring questions is accessible for journaling beginners

Recurring questions are customizable 

Offers reminders

Grid Diary cons:

Not ideal for long-form journal entries

Grid Diary bills itself as "the simplest way to get started with keeping a diary." Instead of a blank slate, this diary app gives you a grid of boxes you can give custom headers to. The defaults are things like "Today's wins," "Heath and Fitness," and "Personal growth," though you can customize these to say whatever you want. 

This gives you a detailed and bird's-eye view of what's happening in your life, one day at a time. You can review entries using the built-in calendar, or you can use the Titles view to review all entries for a particular grid. There's also support for attachments, encrypted private journals, and syncing between multiple devices if you're using the paid version. Instead of wondering what you should write about each day, use Grid Diary to write down simple responses that help you reflect on your days. 

Grid Diary pricing : Free version available; paid version from $2.99/month for syncing, encryption, unlimited journals, and exporting to PDF.

Best journal app for journaling over email 

Dabble me (web).

Dabble Me pros:

Journal by responding to an email

No need to form a new habit

Dabble Me cons:

Free version doesn't offer reminders

The main problem with journal apps: you have to remember to open them. Dabble Me doesn't have this problem because it works entirely over email. The paid version ($3/month) will email you once a day, reminding you it's time to journal—respond to that email, and you've journaled. The free version doesn't give you the daily prompts, but journaling is still as easy as writing an email—you can find a custom email address to send entries to in the settings.

You also can see the complete archive of your journals on the website, which also offers search, a calendar view, and even a page for reviewing and listening to any Spotify links you've included in your entries. There's also support for exporting your entries to TXT or JSON files, so you can take your entries with you should you decide to shut down your account. 

One way to journal is to pretend that you're writing letters to a friend. Dabble Me is great for this because it lives where you're already writing emails.

Dabble Me pricing: Free version available; Pro (with reminders) starts at $3/month. 

Should you use a journaling app?

You don't necessarily need a dedicated diary app for journaling—lots of people, after all, use a simple notebook for the job. Some other categories of apps can also work perfectly well.

The best note-taking apps all work really well for journal entries. Just make a new notebook and create a new entry every day.

There are a number of AI-enhanced journals entering the journal market right now. I opted not to include any—some out of privacy and security concerns and some because they're not quite ready. Of those I tested, I liked Mynd best: it's mostly a standard journal app that uses AI to provide summaries and follow-up questions. Just keep in mind that, as a rule, anything you share with AI probably isn't very private .

If you don't feel like writing every day but would still like to keep track of your feelings over time, there are a number of mood tracking apps on the market. I've tested and like Daylio .

5 Minute Journal is only available on Android and iOS , but its simple approach makes it a great option for beginners (with timed prompts throughout the day). It's based on the popular paper journals of the same name—and it's focused mostly on building a gratitude habit—but that website has removed the apps from the page, so I'm not sure if they're planning to maintain them.

You can make your own digital bullet journal using a tool like Trello or Airtable.

If you really want something custom, you can build your own journal app with no code using Zapier.

Zapier is a no-code automation tool that lets you connect your apps into automated workflows, so that every person and every business can move forward at growth speed. Learn more about how it works .

As always, the best tool for the job is the one that works best for you. If something helps you start a journaling habit and stick to it, use that.

This article was originally published in January 2019 by Melanie Pinola and has previously had contributions from Emily Esposito. It was most recently updated in April 2024.

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Justin Pot is a writer and journalist based in Hillsboro, Oregon. He loves technology, people, and nature, not necessarily in that order. Learn more: justinpot.com

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15 of the Best Journaling Apps to Make Self-Reflection More Convenient

By Anna Borges and Jenna Ryu

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it before: Start journaling ! Jot down what you’re thankful for ! Track your thoughts and feelings! To be fair, self-reflective writing has been shown to improve mood and mitigate stress and anxiety . But even though this self-care ritual seems so simple and doable in theory, some of us consider it a total chore to break out the pen and paper daily. That’s why we’ve rounded up some of the best journaling apps out there to make the process a lot more convenient for folks looking for an alternative method .

One great perk of a digital diary is that you’re less likely to lose it compared to a regular ol’ notebook . Plus, many of these mental health apps include a bunch of fancy features that allow you to personalize your writing experience: Some, for instance, are designed for people who just want a quick way to record important memories and events. Others focus more on gratitude , self-care, and reflection, and guide you via thought-provoking prompts that can help you learn more about yourself. Plus, let’s not forgot that these techy options can guarantee more privacy than a paper journal (thank you, password protection).

So whether you’re a note-taking pro looking to experiment with more modern methods or a newbie who’s ready to do some soul-searching on your phone, we’ve rounded up 15 of the best journaling apps to download.

1. Reflectly

On top of encouraging a regular practice by motivating you to look inward, Reflectly uses positive psychology, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to teach you how to reduce stress , cultivate gratitude, and generally gain perspective in life. It also doubles as a mood tracker, thanks to AI-generated prompts and questions that are curated and personalized for you based on your past responses.

Use it: Free or $60 per year for a premium subscription; iOS and Google Play

You can use this multiplatform digital journal across your devices, whether you want to tap out entries on your phone, tablet, or laptop. It’s beginner-friendly, with lots of easy-to-use features including the ability to attach photos or videos to your notes, personalize the theme and color scheme of your journal, and even organize your thoughts (by folder, tag, or location). Android users especially love this app—it’s currently sitting at a 4.6-average rating across more than 100,000 reviews.

Use it: Free or $9 per year for a premium subscription; iOS and Google Play

3. DailyBean

One of the most straightforward options in this roundup, DailyBean is a user-friendly journaling app that encourages you to log your mood with whichever colorful bean best represents how you’re feeling. (If you’re in good spirits, for instance, you might tap a yellow, super smiley bean. On bad days, you can opt for a more distraught, tearful one.) You can also jot down why you’re in a great mood, say, or what exactly you’re stressed about.

Use it: $2 per month; iOS and Google Play

If you’re not the type to write long, rambly journal entries but still want to keep track of your life, Daylio might be a good option for you. You can create a daily log with basically two taps of your finger, recording your mood and activities. The app also helps you visualize your everyday patterns with fun and informative charts that depict your mood fluctuations over time so that you can monitor your progress

Use it: Free or $24 per year for a premium subscription; iOS and Google Play

On top of its easy-to-use interface and elegantly designed space for journaling, Day One also has plenty of suggestions for those times when you have no idea what to write (or type) about. Some example questions: “What’s one small improvement you can make in your life” or “What is your favorite form of exercise?” While the premium version does come with some extra bells and whistles—like unlimited video and audio notes, and the ability to sync across multiple devices—the free version has what matters most: unlimited text entries.

Use it: Free or $35 per year for a premium subscription; iOS and Google Play

6. Happyfeed

Therapists often recommend a gratitude practice for better mental well-being. If you’ve had a hard time picking up the habit, try Happyfeed. Each day the app will send you a custom prompt reminding you to continue your journaling journey, accompanied by a quote about happiness or a joke to brighten your day. And along with recording the little (and big) things you’re grateful for, you can also upload pics and memories to go with what you wrote. When you need a pick-me-up, shake your phone to access your “Happiness Jar” and you’ll be able to look back on a random day from the past.

Use it: Free or $4 per month or $40 per year for a premium subscription; iOS and Google Play

This is another convenient option for anyone who wants to start practicing gratitude through journaling. The diary app allows you to keep all of your sacred photos and videos in one place—with the option of noting your thoughts and feelings about those wonderful days or events. Think of it as a photo album you can store in your pocket.

Use it: Free or $8 for lifetime premium access; iOS and Google Play

8. Reflection.app

Just because this one has a minimalist (and calming) aesthetic doesn’t mean it skimps on features. A safe space to explore your thoughts, identity, values, or passions, Reflection.app makes it easy to organize and scour through previous entries. Plus, it helps guide your future journaling practice with monthly and annual recaps that can help you, yep, reflect and grow.

Use it: Free or $6 per month; iOS and Google Play

9. Grid Diary

More than just a journaling tool, Grid Diary doubles as a personal planner to keep you organized and productive while simultaneously challenging you to embrace mindfulness and self-care. Its unique grid format (hence the name) allows you to fit all of your thoughts, and feelings on a single, customizable page—so you’re not stuck scrolling through multiple ones just to find a specific entry.

By Julia Sullivan

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Use it: Free or $3 per month or $23 per year for premium; iOS and Google Play

10. Zinnia Planner & Journal

This one’s for folks who prefer to go old school (because let’s face it, not everyone is tech-savvy). Zinnia Planner & Journal replicates the nostalgia of keeping a traditional paper notebook (especially if you use a stylus to mimic the writing experience). You can choose from a variety of different fonts, templates, stickers, and other in-app designs to express your creativity and curate your own personalized diary on your phone, tablet, or laptop. Plus, if you’re someone who loves bullet journaling, this is a solid way to translate that habit to a more accessible online platform.

Use it: $40 per year; iOS

The great thing about Penzu is that it’s made for both beginners and seasoned self-reflecters. Daily email notifications can help new users maintain a consistent journaling habit, but more advanced features—like the ability to include photos in each entry or customize every page with different themes and formatting styles—can make the experience more fun and creative. Another pro: You don’t need WiFi to use Penzu, which is convenient when you’re on the go in a car, on an airplane, or maybe taking an internet-less vacation.

Use it: Free or $5 per month or $20 per year for a premium subscription, iOS and Google Play

11. Prompted Journal

Maybe you don’t know where to start or how to articulate your thoughts into words. In that case, Prompted Journal is perfect for you. One of its standout features is that it generates plenty of gentle and stimulating “conversation starters” for “chats between you and…you.” Get to know yourself better, develop self-compassion , and reflect on your life up to now. Even cooler, some prompts recur every few months so you can keep an eye on how you’re changing and growing over time.

Use it: $1 per month; iOS and Google Play

12. My Diary

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when a high-tech app includes so many (perhaps too many) features, but that’s not the case with My Diary. You can log your innermost thoughts as you would with any standard journal or notes app—but also bring it to life by adjusting the color of the background, for example, switching up fonts each day, and adding adorable stickers and drawings to make the space really feel like your own.

Use it: Free or $3 per month or $20 per year for a premium subscription; iOS and Google Play

13. Five Minute Journal

Based on the best-selling Five Minute Journal notebook ($29, Amazon ), this app aims to make journaling for mental health as simple and easy to maintain as possible. Because let’s be honest: When you’re going through a tough time, you may not have the mental energy to fill out a bunch of questionnaires and add silly little emojis. Each entry—designed to be completed every morning—contains three questions about your mood and only takes a few minutes to complete, making the process a little more doable and realistic.

Use it: $25 per year for a premium subscription; iOS and Google Play

14. Longwalks

Half journal, half social media network, Longwalks is designed to spark meaningful connection through self-reflection. Every day you can answer a new thoughtful prompt and share your answer with friends on the app or with the Longwalks community at large. It’s not your typical diary by any means, but hey, it’s sort of like having a really deep blog and support system all in one.

Use it: Free; iOS and Google Play

15. Reflect

This guided daily journal is relaxing to use simply because its interface is so soothing in and of itself. But the content is just as notable. It’s a mix of straightforward check-in questions (“How are you feeling right now?” “What’s making you feel this way?”) and more intriguing prompts about a variety of mental health topics like settling conflicts , finding motivation, or appreciating others. The longer you use it, the more you’ll learn about yourself—not just through your own reflection but also through the app’s insights: Yep, it also provides intelligent reports on your strengths and values through methods drawn from solution-focused coaching, leadership development theories, CBT, and positive psychology.

Use it: Free or $6 per month or $18 per year for a premium subscription; iOS and Google Play

• 41 Mental Health Apps That Will Make Life a Little Easier
• Try This Quick, Easy Tip to Feel More at Peace When You’re Spending Time Outside
• How Journaling Can Help You Adjust to a Bipolar I Diagnosis

SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does journeyapps do.

JourneyApps is a cloud-based all-in-one platform that allows you to build, deploy and run powerful cross-platform business apps for mobile (smartphones and tablets), computers, web browsers and RealWear®.

How much experience do I need to use JourneyApps?

JourneyApps can be used by junior software developers who have entry-level experience with scripting languages such as JavaScript. Senior software developers also feel right at home with JourneyApps. Technically-minded people who don’t have a professional software background, but have some scripting experience, can quickly learn how to use JourneyApps. If you’ve written an Excel Macro, you can quickly learn how to use JourneyApps.

How do I deploy my apps?

Apps are deployed to the built-in JourneyApps cloud backend with a single click, and immediately work on all supported operating systems and devices. Users install the JourneyApps container to access the app on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS or RealWear®, or simply access the app in their web browser. The JourneyApps container can also be custom-branded, so that your apps are fully white-labeled — to your end users, it looks and feels like a normal native app.

How does JourneyApps define a user?

Developer Users are the software developers who use JourneyApps to build your apps.

App Users are the end-users who use your apps. JourneyApps billing works on the basis of unique named enabled users.

Building a product for your customers to use? Contact us for information on our economical 3rd Party App User licensing.

How does the JourneyApps subscription model work?

Our subscription fees are billed annually, payable in advance. Unlike perpetual licenses, there are no upfront costs or multi-year commitments. Subscription fees are based on the number of app users you need.

Does my subscription fee include everything I need to build enterprise-grade apps?

Yes. There are no additional fees or other services that you need to purchase in order to use JourneyApps. Your subscription fee includes access to our platform, cloud storage and technical support — everything you need to build, deploy and run enterprise-grade apps.

How do I purchase additional app user capacity?

Additional app user capacity can be purchased in fixed increments of 10 on the Starter and Professional Plans. For the Enterprise Plan, additional app user capacity can be purchased in fixed increments of 100 up to 1,000 app users, and thereafter in increments of 1,000. There is no limit to the number of app users you can add to your subscription plan.

We use the stair-step pricing model for volume discounts, meaning you pay a flat subscription fee based on the highest app user tier reached.

How can I ensure the roll-out of my apps to a large user base remains affordable?

Can i enroll my customer or supplier end-users in my apps.

In addition, our Enterprise plan offers economical 3rd Party App User licenses, which you can use if you are building a product for your customers to use. Contact us for information.

Can I really build an unlimited number of apps on the Professional and Enterprise plans?

Yes. There’s no limit to the number or complexity of apps you can build. Our subscription fee is based only on the plan you choose and the number of app users.

Where can I hire JourneyApps developers?

Almost anywhere! Because development in JourneyApps happens in two of the most popular languages in the world – JavaScript and Microsoft’s TypeScript – there are hundreds of thousands of developers who can already develop in JourneyApps.

Can JourneyApps help me build my apps?

We offer a number of app development and deployment assistance services to help you develop your apps. Our implementation partners also provide end-to-end app development services if you do not have your own app development capacity. Visit our Customer Success page to learn more.

How long does it take to build an app on JourneyApps?

App deployment timelines depend on the complexity of the app and the stakeholders involved. Basic apps can be developed in a matter of hours or days. Even highly complex apps can be shipped in a matter of weeks. Our platform is designed to support rapid, iterative development to deliver tangible results quickly.

Can I use JourneyApps if I do not have my own app developers?

Yes. JourneyApps has a network of implementation partners who can take on your app development projects, so your organization can benefit from digital transformation even if you do not have software development capacity. Visit our Customer Success page to learn more.

Who owns the apps I develop?

The app source code you write is yours, and so is your data. This means only you benefit from your investment in JourneyApps, and your proprietary business processes and customizations are protected.

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The World Doesn’t Need More Journal Apps

Picture it. The year is 2013. Something called a “cronut” keeps popping up in your Instagram feed. You went on a trip with your best friend, so you made an album on Facebook, tagged her, and geotagged the restaurant. Then you wrote a Yelp review. Maybe you publicly disagreed with a stranger on Twitter about a movie. Then you go about your day.

These types of interactions are disappearing, in a process that Cory Doctorow famously called “ enshittification .” All those places on the internet—X, Facebook, TikTok, dating apps—where you once went for connection are now places where you either feel bad or buy things. Technological research firm Gartner predicts that 50 percent of users will abandon or significantly limit their interactions with social media by 2025.

In response, we’re seeing a boom in journaling apps as safer, easier ways to ease us back into posting everything online. Last year, Apple released a journal app with iOS 17 . Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer just unveiled a photo app called Shine, which is made to share photos and memories with a select group of people. Today, Retro—a startup that we called “ the new Instagram ”—is launching a feature called Journals within the app, which lets you record both photos and notes for a select group of people.

As a lifelong journaler, it’s hard to forget that I already have an intimate, safe space to record my life and share memories. It is a notebook. I don’t have to worry about marketers selling my information, because it’s not accessible. What if creating a safe space all of your own means just getting off the internet altogether?

Better Together

Most of these apps are based on the central premise that most of us would rather talk to family or close friends than with a pretty stranger shilling snack boxes. As we reported previously, Retro has a few standout features. Once you join the app, you’re prompted to select a few pictures to post per week. In order to see your friends’ and family’s photos, you have to share photos of your own. That keeps people actively participating instead of lurking.

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You also get no help in selecting these photos. The company does not use AI to prompt or resurface memories, the way that pretty much every other photo app does. “There’s a big difference between passive reminders and actively chronicling the moments that matter to you,” says Retro founder Nathan Sharp in an email.

Retro’s team is made up of six former Instagrammers, and their original intention was to create a better Instagram, a place where you can share snaps and commentary with people you actually care about. The Journals feature expands on that by allowing you to share that content with a larger group of people.

For example, if you’re a parent, you can create a Journal for each of your children. You can post photos to that journal and share with grandparents. Then you can share public links to that journal via Instagram or Facebook. People you are not friends with on Retro will see your Journals as curated photo albums.

“We wanted to emphasize the ongoing use case,” Sharp said. “This isn’t just a photo dump. This is building something for your future self to look back on.”

Shine’s use case is similar. It’s aimed at people from multiple generations with different phones who want to pool photos on similar themes or events. (Even the seemingly dated color choice and app design seems a deliberate callback to an earlier time.) Let’s say you attend a baby shower. You can create an album for that baby shower and add photos via two separate modes. In Magic Mode, Shine’s AI will select pictures for you, or you can add photos manually. Then you can share that album with whomever you choose, and they can also add pictures.

As we discussed in our review of the feature, Apple’s Journal app also prompts you to write about your day on a regular basis. You can schedule reminders and turn on prompts. You can paste in photos, locations, and voice memos. This feature is, of course, available only on iPhones; moreover, it’s not remarkably different from a few other, older apps that also provide journaling services (WIRED has a few other suggestions here ). Apple is presenting the feature as part of its new suite of mental health services.

Paper Trail

How do you make or share memories? Like most people, I share my photos haphazardly: in photo batches texted to group chats on different messaging apps, in shared Google Photos folders, in Instagram posts, or in the occasional Story or Facebook Reel. It would be very nice if every single person I know could get on the same app. Unfortunately, every person in my life also has other people in their lives, so I suspect this will turn out the same way as when everyone tried to force everyone else to use Slack, or Discord, or WhatsApp. I half-heartedly texted Retro invites to a few friends, but only got a disinterested “What is this?” in response.

Sharp also suggested creating a private journal with my husband, but with a 6- and 9-year-old, we are unfortunately too busy making memories to document them thoroughly (my spouse also hates social media). I scrolled back through our text messages for possible snaps, but I really do need to enlist an AI to help me decide which of our constant backs-and-forths of “Where are you?”, “Where did you guys go?”, and “Did you get garlic bread?” moments are worth memorializing.

Before I could even begin to start thinking about Apple’s Journal app, I realized I had to turn off the pings immediately. As an iPhone user, I started getting constant location-based push notifications from the app to quickly jot down my thoughts on the bar that I’d just popped my head into, or my son’s violin lesson. As Sharp notes, there’s a difference between consciously choosing to remember a sweet moment between you and your spouse or child, and having a robot ask you repeatedly at the most inane moments whether you’re having a good time.

At some point, maybe we have to acknowledge that the reason why finding a new way to regularly share information about ourselves feels a little forced is because, at this point, it is a little forced.

Even mental health apps are acknowledged to have some of the worst privacy protections . I checked Retro’s privacy policy , which includes the disclosure that it collects marketing information about you (of course, you will have the ability to opt out). Shine’s is similar . Even Apple’s ostensibly privacy-focused Journal uses Bluetooth to make you discoverable by others by default .

The final straw? I don’t have to find a good online journal because I am, as I mentioned, a dedicated paper journaler. I have kept a daily handwritten journal in a notebook since I was 12 years old. I just walked upstairs and flipped through them. All I have to say is, thank God none of it is on the internet (although I do have a lot of taped paper concert ticket stubs tucked into the pages, and those are very cool). It is all raw and real, and intimate, and as true as I could make it at the time. With minimal effort, that data—on where I went and with whom, and what we did—will remain mine and mine alone.

Of course, I will lose them all if my house burns down or if there’s a flood. But the server will never go down; the parent company will never shut down the app. It can’t be leaked, and no one can mine it to sell nostalgia-based Olive Garden merch to me (although I would probably buy it). Even if the rest of our lives are online, not all of our memories have to be .

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Mapping success: optimizing the app user journey.

Imagine this. You’ve built an app. It’s slick, functional, and ready to rock the digital world – but will it, truly? The  app user journey  isn’t a straight line; it’s an odyssey, each step crucial to retaining every user who gives your creation a spin.

The exhilarating rush of downloads might give you a buzz, but it’s what happens next that counts. Engage? Convert? Stick around? That’s where the real game begins.

And that’s precisely what this deep-dive article unfolds. It’s a treasure map to navigating the choppy waters of user acquisition strategies and conversion funnels.

Here, we strap you in for a ride through the veins of the  user experience (UX) , outwitting drop-off points, fuelling touchpoint optimizations, and pivoting around churn rates quicker than a tap on a screen.

By the end , expect to harness the horsepower of behavioral analytics, refine onboarding processes, and snag those app retention rates you’ve dreamt about.

We’re going under the hood of app user journey – no frills, just the essentials – enlightening you, step by decisive step.

The Stages of the Mobile App User Journey

Navigating the ins and outs of the app user journey is like guiding a rocket through space – every stage is a mission critical phase. So let’s buckle up and launch into the cosmos of clicks, taps, and scrolls that define this epic quest.

Discovery and Awareness

Channels of discovery.

Space is vast, and so is the online galaxy where users discover apps. The journey kicks off with organic search, a universe where keywords play a pivotal role.

Then there’s paid advertising, like a billboard in the sky, capturing attention with its bright lights. Social media referrals act as trusty sidekicks here, buzzing about, pointing folks to shiny new apps.

The Role of App Store Optimization (ASO)

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How to create an effective user journey map

No matter what you’re working on, the key to customer satisfaction and business growth is understanding your users. A user journey map helps you uncover pain points, explore the touchpoints from their perspective, and learn how to improve your product.

Imagine you just launched a new ecommerce platform. Shoppers fill their carts with products, but they abandon their carts before checkout. With a user journey map, you can pinpoint where the customer experience is going wrong, and how to enable more successful checkouts.

Read on to find out:

• What is a user journey map, and how it captures user flows and customer touchpoints
• Benefits of user journey mapping to refine UX design and reach business goals
• How to make user journey maps in five steps, using FigJam’s user journey map template

What is a user journey map?

Think about the path a user takes to explore your product or website. How would you design the best way to get there? User journey maps (or user experience maps) help team members and stakeholders align on user needs throughout the design process, starting with user research. As you trace users' steps through your user flows, notice: Where do users get lost, backtrack, or drop off?

User journey maps help you flag pain points and churn, so your team can see where the user experience may be confusing or frustrating for your audience. Then you can use your map to identify key customer touchpoints and find opportunities for optimization.

How to read a user journey map

Most user journey maps are flowcharts or grids showing the user experience from end to end. Consider this real-life journey map example of a freelancing app from Figma's design community. The journey starts with a buyer persona needing freelance services, and a freelancer looking for a gig. Ideally, the journey ends with service delivery and payment—but customer pain points could interrupt the flow.

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5 key user journey map phases.

Take a look at another Figma community user journey template , which uses a simple grid. Columns capture the five key stages of the user journey: awareness, consideration, decision, purchase, and retention (see below). Rows show customer experiences across these stages—their thoughts, feelings, and pain points. These experiences are rated as good, neutral, and bad.

To see how this works, consider a practical example. Suppose a new pet parent wants to learn how to train their puppy and discovers your dog-training app. Here's how you might map out the five key user journey stages:

• Awareness. The user sees a puppy-training video on social media with a link to your product website. They're intrigued—a positive experience.
• Consideration. The user visits your product website to preview your app. If they can't find a video preview easily, this could be a neutral or negative experience.
• Decision. The user clicks on a link to the app store and reads reviews of your app and compares it to others. They might think your app reviews are good, but your price is high—a negative or neutral experience.
• Purchase. The user buys your app and completes the onboarding process. If this process is smooth, it's a positive experience. If not, the customer experience could turn negative at this point.
• Retention. The user receives follow-up emails featuring premium puppy-training services or special offers. Depending on their perception of these emails, the experience can range from good (helpful support) to bad (too much spam).

2 types of user journey maps—and when to use them

User journey maps are helpful across the product design and development process, especially at two crucial moments: during product development and for UX troubleshooting. These scenarios call for different user journey maps: current-state and future-state.

Current-state user journey maps

A current-state user journey map shows existing customer interactions with your product. It gives you a snapshot of what's happening, and pinpoints how to enhance the user experience.

Take the puppy training app, for example. A current-state customer journey map might reveal that users are abandoning their shopping carts before making in-app purchases. Look at it from your customers' point of view: Maybe they aren't convinced their credit cards will be secure or the shipping address workflow takes too long. These pain points show where you might tweak functionality to boost user experience and build customer loyalty.

Future-state user journey maps

A future-state user journey map is like a vision board : it shows the ideal customer journey, supported by exceptional customer experiences. Sketch out your best guesses about user behavior on an ideal journey, then put them to the test with usability testing. Once you've identified your north star, you can explore new product or site features that will optimize user experience.

How to make a user journey map in 5 steps

To start user journey mapping, follow this step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Define user personas and goals.

Gather user research and data like demographics, psychographics, and shopping behavior to create detailed customer personas representing your target audience.  In your dog-training app example, one key demographic may be parents. What’s their goal? It isn't necessarily "hire a puppy trainer"—it could be "teach kids how to interact with a puppy."

Step 2: Identify customer touch points.

Locate the points along the user journey where the user encounters or interacts with your product. In the dog training app example, touchpoints might include social media videos, app website, app store category search (e.g., pets), app reviews, app store checkout, in-app onboarding, and app customer support.

Step 3: Visualize journey phases.

Create a visual representation of user journey phases across key touchpoints with user flow diagrams , flowcharts , or storyboards .

Step 4: Capture user actions and responses.

For each journey stage, capture the user story: at this juncture, what are they doing, thinking, and feeling ? This could be simple, such as: "Potential customer feels frustrated when the product image takes too long to load."

Step 5: Validate and iterate.

Finally, show your map to real users. Get honest feedback about what works and what doesn’t with user testing , website metrics , or surveys . To use the dog-training app example, you might ask users: Are they interested in subscribing to premium how-to video content by a professional dog trainer? Apply user feedback to refine your map and ensure it reflects customer needs.

Jumpstart your user journey map with FigJam

Lead your team's user journey mapping effort with FigJam, the online collaborative whiteboard for brainstorming, designing, and idea-sharing. Choose a user journey map template from Figma's design community as your guide. With Figma's drag-and-drop design features, you can quickly produce your own professional, presentation-ready user journey map.

Pro tip: Use a service blueprint template to capture behind-the-scenes processes that support the user journey, bridging the gap between user experience and service delivery.

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AI + Machine Learning , Azure AI , Azure AI Services , Azure AI Studio , Azure OpenAI Service , Best practices

AI study guide: The no-cost tools from Microsoft to jump start your generative AI journey

By Natalie Mickey Product Marketing Manager, Data and AI Skilling, Azure

Posted on April 15, 2024 4 min read

The world of AI is constantly changing. Every day it seems there are new ways we can work with generative AI and large language models. It can be hard to know where to start your own learning journey when it comes to AI. Microsoft has put together several resources to help you get started. Whether you are ready to build your own copilot or you’re at the very beginning of your learning journey, read on to find the best and free resources from Microsoft on generative AI training.

Build intelligent apps at enterprise scale with the Azure AI portfolio

Azure AI fundamentals

If you’re just starting out in the world of AI, I highly recommend Microsoft’s Azure AI Fundamentals course . It includes hands on exercises, covers Azure AI Services, and dives into the world of generative AI. You can either take the full course in one sitting or break it up and complete a few modules a day.

Learning path: Azure AI fundamentals

Course highlight: Fundamentals of generative AI module

Azure AI engineer

For those who are more advanced in AI knowledge, or are perhaps software engineers, this learning path is for you. This path will guide you through building AI infused applications that leverage Azure AI Services, Azure AI Search, and Open AI.

Course highlight: Get started with Azure OpenAI Service module

Let’s get building with Azure AI Studio

Imagine a collaborative workshop where you can build AI apps, test pre-trained models, and deploy your creations to the cloud, all without getting lost in mountains of code. In our newest learning path , you will learn how to build generative AI applications like custom copilots that use language models to provide value to your users.

Learning path: Create custom copilots with Azure AI Studio (preview)

Course highlight: Build a RAG-based copilot solution with your own data using Azure AI Studio (preview) module

Dive deep into generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service

If you have some familiarity with Azure and experience programming with C# or Python, you can dive right into the Microsoft comprehensive generative AI training.

Learning path: Develop generative AI solutions with Azure OpenAI Service

Course highlight: Implement Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) with Azure OpenAI Service module

Cloud Skills Challenges

Microsoft Azure’s Cloud Skills Challenges are free and interactive events that provide access to our tailored skilling resources for specific solution areas. Each 30-day accelerated learning experience helps users get trained in Microsoft AI. The program offers learning modules, virtual training days, and even a virtual leaderboard to compete head-to-head with your peers in the industry. Learn more about Cloud Skills Challenges here , then check out these challenges to put your AI skills to the test.

Invest in App Innovation to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Challenges 1-3 will help you prepare for Microsoft AI Applied Skills, scenario-based credentials. Challenges 4 and 5 will help you prepare for Microsoft Azure AI Certifications, with the potential of a 50% exam discount on your certification of choice 1 .

Challenge #1: Generative AI with Azure OpenAI

In about 18 hours, you’ll learn how to train models to generate original content based on natural language input. You should already have familiarity with Azure and experience programming with C# or Python. Begin now!

Challenge #2: Azure AI Language

Build a natural language processing solution with Azure AI Language. In about 20 hours, you’ll learn how to use language models to interpret the semantic meaning of written or spoken language. You should already have familiarity with the Azure portal and experience programming with C# or Python. Begin now!

Challenge #3: Azure AI Document Intelligence

Show off your smarts with Azure AI Document Intelligence Solutions. In about 21 hours, you’ll learn how to use natural language processing (NLP) solutions to interpret the meaning of written or spoken language. You should already have familiarity with the Azure portal and C# or Python programming. Begin now!

Challenge #4: Azure AI Fundamentals

Build a robust understanding of machine learning and AI principles, covering computer vision, natural language processing, and conversational AI. Tailored for both technical and non-technical backgrounds, this learning adventure guides you through creating no-code predictive models, delving into conversational AI, and more—all in just about 10 hours.

Complete the challenge within 30 days and you’ll be eligible for 50% off the cost of a Microsoft Certification exam. Earning your Azure AI Fundamentals certification can supply the foundation you need to build your career and demonstrate your knowledge of common AI and machine learning workloads—and what Azure services can solve for them. Begin now!

Challenge #5: Azure AI Engineer

Go beyond theory to build the future. This challenge equips you with practical skills for managing and leveraging Microsoft Azure’s Cognitive Services. Learn everything from secure resource provisioning to real-time performance monitoring. You’ll be crafting cutting-edge AI solutions in no time, all while preparing for Exam AI-102 and your Azure AI Engineer Associate certification . Dive into interactive tutorials, hands-on labs, and real-world scenarios. Complete the challenge within 30 days and you’ll be eligible for 50% off the cost of a Microsoft Certification exam 2 . Begin now!

Finally, our free Microsoft AI Virtual Training Days are a great way to immerse yourself in free one or two-day training sessions. We have three great options for Azure AI training:

• Azure AI Fundamentals
• Generative AI Fundamentals
• Building Generative Apps with Azure OpenAI Service

Start your AI learning today

For any and all AI-related learning opportunities, check out the Microsoft Learn AI Hub including tailored AI training guidance . You can also follow our Azure AI and Machine Learning Tech Community Blogs for monthly study guides .

• Microsoft Cloud Skills Challenge | 30 Days to Learn It – Official Rules
• https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/offers/30-days-to-learn-it/official-rules#terms-and-conditions

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Reframe: Drink Less & Thrive 17+

Cut back/quit drinking alcohol, glucobit inc..

• 4.8 • 24.8K Ratings
• Offers In-App Purchases

Screenshots

Description.

Reframe is the #1 alcohol reduction app, built to help you drink less and live more. Whether your goal is to cut back or quit drinking entirely, Reframe’s neuroscience approach can help you change the way alcohol shows up in your life. With a core 160-day, evidence-based, education program, progress tracking, a private community, and a multitude of tools (think meditations, games, and more!), you’ve got everything you need to change your relationship with booze at the click of a button. Need extra support? Uplevel your alcohol-free or alcohol-reduction journey with Reframe’s premium Thrive Coaching and get 1:1 access to a certified recovery coach, live coaching calls, and exclusive video content. Try Reframe FREE for 7 days, and Reframe the way you think and drink. SUBSCRIPTION AND PRICING TERMS Reframe currently offers auto-renewing subscriptions for accessing the app. Payment will be charged to iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. Account will be charged for renewal 24-hours prior to the end of the current payment period. Prices listed in the app are USD and may differ outside of the United States, depending on country of residence. You may turn off auto-renew at any time by accessing your iTunes account settings. Payment must be canceled at least 24 hours prior to renewal. To read Reframe’s terms of use & privacy policy, please visit: https://www.theglucobit.com/terms-of-use and https://www.theglucobit.com/privacy For more information or feedback, please contact us at [email protected]

Version 3.6.7

Bug fixes and performance improvements.

Ratings and Reviews

24.8K Ratings

The best investment you will ever make

I don’t even know where to begin to explain the many ways this app’s content has helped me change my relationship with alcohol and get to a better headspace. Over the years I’ve been through periods of frequent alcohol use, including drinking almost every day to unwind after working 80hr weeks for the last couple years. Since I’m finally done with education/training I don’t have nearly as much stress anymore, and I came to the realization with the help of the app that alcohol doesn’t serve me anymore and my alcohol use was a part of my identity that I didn’t want or need anymore. It’s only been a little over two months but I’ve made a lot of progress and am in the middle of a 30 days sober challenge when I can’t remember the last time I went two weeks straight without drinking. On top of that I went from drinking about 85-95% days of the week to only about 40%, and the quantity is a lot less as well. I have a lot of this journey ahead of me but I know with this app and all the hard work the developers and content contributors put in I can get there. The biggest help of this app is shedding light on why I drink in the first place and building better coping mechanisms and ways of thinking to get through life’s challenges without alcohol. There’s no better gift you can give yourself than becoming the happiest, healthiest, and best version of yourself and this app can help you do that for yourself when you put in the work.

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for this beautiful feedback! We are so happy to hear about your progress; you absolutely deserve to feel your happiest and healthiest! 😊

Reframe saves my life!

Sounds extreme but it is true. i’m been questioning my relationship with alcohol for many years. I’ve tried many different ways to quit or cut back one lucky day Instagram’s algorithm pushed the Reframe app onto my feed. Reframe offered away to not quit completely, but cut back. This was tempting as I was in 100% sure that I wanted completely. However, I definitely needed to cut back in order to improve my health and my life. It was gonna teach me all about drinking and what it does to my body. It was going to offer me tasks to do every day to keep me accountable. It also has distractions built into the app that will help me when I have cravings… These are all things I learned about it or neon and well worth trying out. What I didn’t know was that the app was gonna bring me a community of people that would help support me through my sobriety journey. has a chat feature built-in that’s available 24 seven where I can connect with people ask questions and get support. There are also daily zoom meetings, where people come to listen connect and share about their sobriety journey. Those meetings have become my livelihood. There are coaches in those meetings that help moderate offer feedback and support. A few short weeks into my cut back journey with alcohol. I decided to switch to quit completely. I’m close to 500 days sober. I have a new lease on life and I have this app to thank for it and his amazing coaches and community.

WOW! 🤗 Congratulations on your hard work -- 500 days of progress is a huge milestone and we are so honored to be a part of your support system on your journey. Thank you for taking the time to put together this feedback for us.

Life-changing

This app has been incredibly helpful & I’m so glad I found it. I read one of those books a year or two ago to help me stop drinking, and I expected the app to be something like that. The book was helpful and I learned a lot but I think this app did more for me in just a few days, and now I have learned so so much more. I went from 1-2 glasses of wine every single day, for most of the last 8+ years, to 0. And that’s after trying and failing multiple times to stop within the last few years. I have had a couple drinks here and there but haven’t had a real craving for weeks. It’s worth every penny & I recommend it to anyone who listens! My only complaint is that if you don’t log in every single day and do the readings and exercises, it just skips ahead to the next day and so you miss out unless you go back. I can go back, but it’s really confusing and hard to keep track of all the days that I have missed, and in the meantime they just keep piling up. I wouldn’t care except the readings are so good and they do sometimes build on each other so who knows how much great stuff I’ve missed. I realize it would be a challenge to change that functionality but I doubt I’m the only one. I would be curious how many people are missing out. This is definitely not a reason not to download the app (download it!). Just a huge opportunity to make it better.

Thank you so much for your feedback; we appreciate it so much and will definitely use your suggestions to improve! Concerning the content moving forward when you are not logged in, this is something that we are working on changing and very soon the content should pause when you are not active! Thank you again for your feedback and continued patience!

App Privacy

The developer, Glucobit Inc. , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

• Contact Info
• User Content
• Identifiers
• Diagnostics

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

• Reframe Access (Monthly) $13.99
• Reframe Silver (Monthly) $24.99
• Reframe Silver (Annual) $119.99
• Reframe Access (Yearly) $79.99
• Reframe Premium $99.99
• Reframe (Annual) $119.99
• Reframe (Annual) $99.99
• Reframe (Annual) $79.99
• Reframe (Annual) $59.99
• Reframe + 1HD (Monthly) $9.99
• App Support
• Privacy Policy

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Rippling’s journey migrating to the new VPC CNI Network Policy Engine

This post was coauthored by Venkatesh Nannan, Sr. Engineering Manager at Rippling

Introduction

Rippling is a workforce management system that eliminates the friction of running a business, combining HR, IT, and Finance apps on a unified data platform. Rippling’s mission is to free up intelligent people to work on hard problems.

Existing Stack

Rippling uses a modular monolith architecture with different Docker entrypoints for multiple services and background jobs. These components are managed within a single, large, multi-tenant production cluster on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS per region), on a scale of over 1000 nodes. Rippling’s infra stack consists of:

• Karpenter for cluster autoscaling – a flexible, high-performance Kubernetes cluster autoscaler making sure of optimal compute capacity.
• Horizontal Pod Autoscaler for scaling Kubernetes pods based on demand.
• KEDA , an event-driven autoscaler for scaling background job processing containers based on event volume.
• IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA) provide temporary AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) credentials to the Kubernetes pod, enabling access to AWS resources such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3 ) buckets, etc.
• Argo CD , an open-source, GitOps continuous delivery tool, deploys applications and add-on software to the Kubernetes cluster.
• AWS Load Balancer Controller exposes Kubernetes services to end-users.
• TargetGroupBinding Custom Resource binds pods to Application Load Balancer (ALB) target groups.
• Amazon EKS managed node groups spanning across multiple Availability Zones (AZs).

In addition to these technologies, we were using Cilium CNI for controlling network traffic between pods. However, we were running into challenges with this part of our stack, so we decided to look for the following alternatives.

Figure 1: High level architecture of Rippling

As Amazon EKS version 1.23 approached end-of-life, upgrading to v1.27 became imperative. However, during our initial attempts at upgrading to v1.24 in our non-production environment, we encountered a significant hurdle. New nodes running Cilium failed to join the cluster, increasing our downtime and requiring operational work on the CNI plugin.

As a company, we prioritize using managed services to streamline operations and focus on adding value to our business. This Kubernetes upgrade task gave us an opportunity to look at alternatives that would be easier to maintain. We saw that AWS had just announced the VPC CNI support for k8s network policies using eBPF. We realized that migrating to this solution would enable us to replace our third-party networking add-on and solely rely on VPC CNI for both cluster networking and network policy implementation. This change would help reduce the overhead of managing operational software needed for cluster networking.

Introduction of Amazon VPC CNI support for network policies

When AWS announced VPC CNI support for k8s Network Policies using eBPF, we wanted to use the Amazon VPC CNI to secure the traffic in our Kubernetes clusters and simplify our EKS cluster management and operations. As network policy agents are bundled in existing VPC CNI pods, we would no longer need to run additional daemon pods and network policy controllers on the worker nodes. We followed the blue-green cluster upgrade strategy and were able to safely migrate the traffic from the old cluster to the new cluster with minimal risk of breaking existing workloads.

Planning the migration

We did an inventory of the applied network policies in our existing cluster and the various ingress/egress features used. This helped us identify deviations from upstream K8s Network Policies. This is necessary for migrating, as Amazon VPC CNI supports only the upstream k8s network policies as of this writing. Rippling was not using advanced features from our third-party network policy engines such as Global Network Policies, DNS based policy rules, or rule priority. Therefore, we did not need Custom Resource Definition (CRD) transformations going into the migration process. AWS recommends converting third-party NetworkPolicy CRDs to Kubernetes Network Policy resources and testing the converted policies in a separate test cluster before migrating from third-party to VPC CNI Network Policy engine in production.

To assist in the migration process, AWS has developed a tool called K8s Network Policy Migrator that converts existing supported Calico/Cilium network policy CRDs to Kubernetes native network policies. After conversion you can directly test the converted network policies on your new clusters running VPC CNI network policy controller. The tool is designed to help streamline the migration process and make sure of a smooth transition.

Picking migration strategy

There are broadly two strategies to migrate the CNI plugin in the EKS cluster: (1) In-place and (2) Blue-Green. The in-Place strategy replaces an existing third-party CNI plugin with the VPC CNI plugin with network policy support in an existing EKS cluster. This would entail the following steps:

• Creating a new label “cni-plugin=3p” on the existing Amazon EKS managed node groups and Karpenter NodePool resources.
• Updating the existing third-party CNI DaemonSet to schedule CNI pods on those labeled nodes.
• Deploy the Amazon EKS Add-on version of Amazon VPC CNI and schedule them to nodes without the “cni-plugin” label. At this point the existing nodes have third-party CNI plugin pods and not the VPC CNI pods.
• Launch new Amazon EKS Managed node groups, Karpenter NodePool resources without the “cni-plugin=3p” label so that VPC CNI pods can be scheduled to those nodes.
• Drain and delete the existing Amazon EKS managed node groups and Karpenter NodePool resources to move the workloads to the new worker nodes with VPC CNI.
• Finally, delete the third-party CNI and associated network policy controllers from the cluster.

As you can see, this process is involved, needs careful orchestration, and is more prone to errors that impact the application availability.

The second approach is to use the Blue-Green strategy, in which a new EKS cluster is launched with the VPC CNI plugin and then the workloads are migrated to it. This approach is safer since it can be rolled back and provides the ability to test the setup in isolation before routing the live production traffic. Therefore, we chose the Blue-Green strategy for our migration.

As part of the blue-green strategy, we created a new EKS cluster with the Amazon VPC CNI and enabled Network Policy support by customizing the VPC CNI Amazon EKS add-on configuration. We also deployed the Argo CD agent on the cluster and bootstrapped it using Argo CD’s  App of apps pattern to deploy the applications into the cluster. Network policies were also deployed to the cluster using the Argo CD. This was tested in a non-production environment to migrate from the third-party CNI to VPC CNI to make sure that applications and services passed functional tests. Then we could safely migrate the traffic from the old cluster to the new cluster without risks by leveraging the same strategy in the production environment.

 Lessons learned

• Amazon VPC CNI uses the VPC IP space to assign IP addresses to k8s pods. This led us to realize our existing VPCs were not properly sized to meet the growing number of k8s pods. We added a permitted secondary CIDR block 100.64.0.0/10 to the VPC and configured VPC CNI Custom Networking feature to assign those IP addresses to the k8s pods. This proactive measure makes sure of scalability as our infrastructure expands, mitigating concerns about IP address exhaustion.
• Leveraging automation and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) is recommended, especially as we are replicating existing clusters and migrating the workloads to them.

In this post, we discussed how Rippling migrated from third-party CNI to Amazon VPC CNI in their Amazon EKS clusters and enabled network policy support to secure pod-to-pod communications. Rippling used the blue-green strategy for the migration to minimize the application impact, and safely cut over the traffic to the new cluster. This migration helped Rippling to use the native features offered by AWS and reduced the burden of managing the operational software in our EKS clusters.

Venkatesh Nannan, Sr. Engineering Manager – Infrastructure at Rippling

Venkatesh Nannan is a seasoned Engineering leader with expertise in building scalable cloud-native applications, specializing in backend development and infrastructure architecture.

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• AWS Fargate
• Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)
• Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
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