RIPPRE

Portable Pocket Series — Journaling

Pocket-Journal

Launching 2026

Capture the meaning of your day in one minute.

Pocket-Journal is for people who want to remember their days without writing an essay every night. Each day gets one page. Choose a mood, answer a short prompt in a line or two — or say it aloud — and save. When you want more, add photos from that day, events from your calendar, a place, or a quick sketch. Missing a day is always okay, and you can fill it in later.

Your journal lives on your iPhone or iPad, with no account to create and no ads or tracking. Backup is optional, encrypted on your device, and goes to your own iCloud. Pages you want to keep to yourself can go in a private vault that asks for Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode. And for a later you, record a short video message that stays sealed until the day you choose.

  • No account, no ads, no tracking
  • Every core feature works offline
  • Optional backup, encrypted to your own iCloud
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Features

A page in a minute

  • Each day gets one page with a short prompt. Choose a mood, add a line or two, and save — a mood alone is enough.
  • Pick from 52 moods in five groups, with your favorites up front. Add up to two quieter moods and rate how strongly you felt, from 1 to 5.
  • Answer one of ten rotating prompts, or pick a writing guide for the day: Travel Day, Hard Day, A Win, Three Good Things, Gratitude, or Free Reflection.
  • Say it instead of typing. Your words are turned into text on your device, and no recording is kept.
  • Tags like #family are picked up from what you write, so you can find those pages later.
  • Fill in an earlier day from the calendar. Missing a day is always okay.

Bring in your day

  • See the photos you took that day and keep up to five on the page, stored as compact copies inside the journal.
  • Add events from the calendars you choose, or bring them in as Busy so their titles stay out of your journal.
  • Note where you were: type a place, tap Home, Office, or Gym, use your current location, or take it from a photo.
  • Draw a quick sketch with your finger or Apple Pencil.
  • Add the weather, the song playing in the Music app, or — while you write — your sleep, steps, and workouts from the Health app. Each stays off until you turn it on.
  • On iPhone, Apple's private Journaling Suggestions can remind you of moments from your day and add them to your words.
  • Play soft rain or a warm, calm tone while you write, made on your device.

Read it back

  • Browse a timeline grouped by month, or search by words, mood, tag, place, month, or year.
  • Rank search results by meaning to find pages about the same thing in different words, worked out on your device.
  • See each month at a glance, with every day's mood on the calendar.
  • Insights show a Year in Pixels mood grid, the days you logged, your most frequent moods and places, and a year-end recap.
  • With Health context on, gentle patterns note things like how you tended to feel after a well-rested night — observations, never a diagnosis.
  • Mark favorites and bookmarks, and let an older page resurface on the cover as a quiet moment from your past.
  • Works with VoiceOver, larger text, and Reduce Motion, and every mood has a name, not just a color.

Messages to your future self

  • Record a short video with the front camera — up to one, two, or three minutes — give it a name, and add a note.
  • Seal it for a month, six months, a year, five years, or a date you pick. It arrives at a calm time of day you set.
  • On the day, one quiet notification tells you a message is ready. It never shows the name or what you recorded.
  • Until then you see its name and a countdown, never a preview. You can open one early, and it remembers the day it was meant for.
  • Each recording keeps an encrypted copy in your own iCloud, so it can outlive your phone. You can switch that off for any capsule.
  • Seal a written page until a later date, like a letter to yourself, and its words stay out of your timeline until then.

Private by design

  • No account, no ads, no analytics, and no third-party code.
  • Lock the whole app with Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode, and keep its contents hidden in the app switcher.
  • Keep individual pages in a private vault that stays closed until you unlock it, and closes again when you leave the app.
  • Keep only a place name or city on your pages, with no exact coordinates.
  • Back up to your own iCloud, encrypted on your device first — automatically when you leave the app, or whenever you tap Back up now. Leave photos out, or keep any single page out.
  • Export any date range as a PDF journal, Markdown, or a JSON archive, made on your device and shared only where you send it.
  • Deleted pages wait in Recently Deleted for 30 days, and one button erases everything, including your iCloud copies.

Watch, widgets, and Siri

  • On Apple Watch, tap how today feels and it is saved to today's page on your iPhone, even if the phone is out of reach at that moment.
  • A watch complication shows whether today is captured.
  • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets show today's prompt and whether you have written — never your words.
  • Ask Siri to log your mood or open today's page, or add it to a shortcut or the Action Button.
  • Gentle reminders on the days and at the times you pick, plus an optional reminder when you get home. They never show your mood, place, or words.

Why you can trust it

Pocket-Journal has no account, no server of its own, and no ads, analytics, or third-party code. Your pages, photos, sketches, and recordings are kept on your device, and it asks for your photos, calendar, location, microphone, or camera only when you first use something that needs them. Extras such as calendar suggestions, Health context, the weather, and reminders stay off until you turn them on.

Only a few things ever use the internet: the weather and a place-name lookup, when you ask for them, and copies in your own iCloud — backups you switch on, and time capsule recordings, which keep an encrypted copy there unless you turn that off. Backups and capsule copies are encrypted on your device before they leave. Reminders and capsule notifications never show your mood, your place, or your words, and widgets never show your words.

Version updates

Pocket-Journal is not on the App Store yet. These are its pre-release builds, labeled by date — the version number has stayed at 1.0 throughout.

  1. Pre-release build

    Pre-release

    The at-home reminder, working

    • Remind me when I get home now works: Pocket-Journal asks for the location access it needs one step at a time, and Settings says what is still missing.
    • Backups now keep when and where each photo was taken. With Store city or label only on, exact photo locations stay out.
    • Preparing a long PDF export no longer freezes the screen.
    • Capsule notifications now stay within the limit iOS sets, nearest capsules first, instead of some being silently dropped.

  2. Redesign build

    A calmer page, and a privacy audit

    • A new paper-style look: serif dates, a compact mood picker with your favorites first, and one Add to this page row for photos, place, events, and more.
    • Photos lead each page, open full screen with pinch to zoom, and load quickly. The timeline is now grouped by month.
    • Each day keeps one page, and a page in Recently Deleted stays safe when you write a new one for that day.
    • A second device, or a new phone that has not restored yet, can no longer overwrite your iCloud backup.
    • Moods tapped on Apple Watch are now sent straight to your iPhone, and wait if it is out of reach.
    • Security and privacy hardening for the app lock, the private vault, exports, and photos.

  3. Backup update

    Backups you can count on

    • Automatic backup now runs when you leave the app, at most every six hours.
    • Backups keep everything on a page — sketches, weather, what you were listening to, seals, and private vault status — and restoring never removes photos already on your device.
    • Backups and capsule copies can now be opened on a replacement iPhone signed in to the same Apple Account.
    • The Wi-Fi only switch is gone: iOS decides when your encrypted backup syncs to iCloud.
    • New in Settings: Delete all journal data removes every page, photo, capsule, and backup, including the copies in your iCloud.
    • Time capsules: choose for each one whether to keep an iCloud copy, and hear them even with your ringer off.

  4. Time capsules build

    Video messages to your future self

    • Record a short video for a later you, sealed until the date you choose.
    • One quiet notification arrives on the day, and it never shows the capsule's name or what you recorded.
    • An encrypted copy in your own iCloud lets capsules come back on a new phone.
    • Open a capsule early if you want to. It remembers the day it was meant for.

  5. First complete build

    The one-minute journal

    • One page a day with 52 moods, rotating prompts, writing guides, tags, and dictation on your device.
    • Photos from the day, calendar events, places, and Apple Pencil sketches, plus optional weather, music, and Health context.
    • Timeline, calendar, search, and Insights with a Year in Pixels and a year-end recap.
    • A private vault, sealed letters, an app lock with Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode, and calm reminders that never show your words.
    • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, Siri and Shortcuts, and an Apple Watch app for logging a mood.
    • Export to PDF, Markdown, or JSON, and optional encrypted iCloud backup.

Documentation

How to set up Pocket-Journal, use it day to day, and fix what goes wrong.

Open the Pocket-Journal docs

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