Pocket-Journal docs

Getting started

Pocket-Journal runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 or later. Its Apple Watch app needs watchOS 10 or later. There is no account to create, and everything except a few optional extras works without an internet connection.

Getting Pocket-Journal

Pocket-Journal is not on the App Store yet. Email us to ask for early access, and we will tell you when it is available.

First run

The first time you open Pocket-Journal, a short introduction explains how a page works and what stays private. Tap Continue to move through it. The last screen, A few optional touches, lets you switch on:

• A gentle daily reminder — a reminder every day at 9:00 PM. You can change the days and the time later.
• Lock with Face ID / passcode — the app asks for Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode when you open it.
• Encrypted iCloud backup — turns on automatic backup to your own iCloud.

Tap Open Journal to start. You can change every choice later in Settings. Pocket-Journal asks for your photos, calendar, location, microphone, or camera only the first time you use something that needs them.

Finding your way around

• Cover — whether today's page is saved, any time capsule that has arrived, your most recent page, and an older page resurfacing from your past.
• Today — today's page, ready to write.
• Timeline — every page, newest first, grouped by month.
• Calendar — a month at a glance, with each day's mood.
• Insights — your Year in Pixels, local stats, and a year-end recap.

Settings is behind the gear button at the top right of the Cover.

Write today's page

Each day has one page. A mood is the only thing a page needs; everything else is optional.

The one-minute page

1. Open the Today tab, or tap Add today's page on the Cover.
2. Read the prompt under the date. For a different one, tap the Daily prompt chip and choose a writing guide: Free Reflection, Travel Day, Hard Day, A Win, Three Good Things, or Gratitude. Most guides change the prompt and, on an empty page, add a few starter lines.
3. Under How did today feel?, tap a mood. Tap All moods to see all 52, grouped by kind.
4. Under A few words, write a line or two, or tap Dictate and speak, then tap Stop.
5. Tap Save page, or Save at the top of the screen. Both read Saved once there is nothing left to save.

Moods

• A tap sets the main mood for the day.
• Touch and hold a mood to Add as a quieter note (up to two per page) or Add to favorites. Favorites appear first in the short list of moods.
• Switch on Rate how strongly to add a strength from 1 to 5.

Tags

Write a tag such as #family anywhere in your words. Pocket-Journal picks it up, shows it under the text, and lets you filter the timeline by it.

Add to this page

Below your words, the Add to this page row opens a card for each extra. A card stays open while it holds something. To hide an empty card, tap its chip again or the × on the card.

• Photo — tap From this day to see up to ten photos taken that day, then tap one to add it. Or tap Choose photos to pick any photo. A page holds up to five. Pocket-Journal keeps a compact copy in the journal and never changes your photo library.
• Place — type a place, tap Home, Office, or Gym, or tap Use my location. If a photo on the page carries a location, From a photo uses it. Remove place clears it.
• Events — tap Show this day's events and tick the ones to keep. Only ticked events are saved with the page. Turn on Calendar suggestions in Settings first.
• Sketch — tap Draw, sketch with your finger or Apple Pencil, and tap Done. Edit sketch and Remove change it later.
• Moments — on iPhone with iOS 17.2 or later, tap Add from Apple's suggestions to choose a moment from Apple's private Journaling Suggestions. Its title is added to your words.
• Listening — appears when Note what's playing is on in Settings. Tap Add what's playing now to note the song playing in the Music app.

When a page has no place yet, Use my location looks up the place name online, unless Store city or label only is on in Settings.

More options

Tap More options for the things you will rarely need.

• Weather and activity — appears when Weather snapshot (online) or Health context is on in Settings. Add today's weather notes the current conditions at the page's place; it needs a place from Use my location or a photo, and an internet connection. With Health context on, the day's sleep, steps, workouts, and mindful minutes appear here while you write. They are not saved into the page.
• Background sound — switch on Play while I write and choose Soft rain or Warm calm, made on your device.
• This page — Bookmark, Keep in private vault, Leave out of iCloud backup, and Seal until a later date with an Open on date. See Privacy, backup, and export.

Earlier days

To write or change another day's page, tap the day in the Calendar tab. Future days can't be opened.

Read your journal

Timeline

• Pages appear newest first under month headings. Each card shows the date, the mood, the first line, the place, a few tags, and the first photo.
• Use the filter at the top to show All, Favorites, Bookmarks, or Locked pages.
• Search words, moods, tags, places, a month, or a year. While you search, switch on Rank by meaning, on device to order pages by what they are about rather than by exact words, where your language supports it.
• Tap a tag to see only pages with that tag. All tags clears it.

Reading a page

Tap a card to open the page. Tap a photo to see it full screen: swipe between photos, pinch or double-tap to zoom, and swipe down to close. Tap Edit to change the page, or use the More actions button (the circled three dots) to Add to Favorites, Bookmark, Keep in Private Vault, or Move to Recently Deleted.

Calendar

The Calendar tab shows one month at a time. Days with a page are shaded and show their mood's symbol, and today has a ring. Use the arrows to change months, and tap a day to open its page.

Insights

• Year in Pixels — a dot for each day of the last twelve months, colored by that day's main mood.
• Gentle patterns — with Health context on and enough recent pages, quiet observations from the last 30 days, such as the mood you most often felt on days with a workout. They describe; they never diagnose.
• Local stats — days logged, the share of pages with photos and with calendar events, your most frequent moods, pages by month, and common places.
• Year-end recap — pick a year to see how many pages you saved, your top moods and places, and a few favorite pages.

Recently Deleted

A page you delete goes to Settings › Recently Deleted and stays there for 30 days. Tap Restore to bring it back, or Delete Permanently to remove it now. If that day already has a newer page, the newer page moves to Recently Deleted in its place.

Time capsules

A time capsule is a short video message to a later you. It stays sealed until the day you choose.

Record and seal a capsule

1. Go to Settings › Time Capsules and tap Record a message. The camera opens facing you.
2. Record your message. Recording stops at the length set in Settings (two minutes by default).
3. On Seal a capsule, give the capsule a name and, if you like, A note to open with. The name is only ever shown inside the app.
4. Under Open it, choose In a month, In six months, In a year, In five years, or Pick a date. Arrives shows the exact day and time.
5. Leave Keep an encrypted copy in iCloud on so the capsule can outlive this device, or switch it off to keep this capsule on this device only.
6. Tap Seal. Discard throws the recording away instead.

When a capsule arrives

On the delivery day, at the delivery time set in Settings (9:00 AM unless you change it), you get one notification: A message from your past self is ready to watch. It never shows the capsule's name, its note, or anything you recorded. Tap it to open the Cover, where the capsule waits. Arrived capsules also appear under Ready to watch in Time Capsules.

Open early or delete

Until its day, a sealed capsule shows its name, when you recorded it, and a countdown — never a preview. Swipe left on it to Open early or Delete. A capsule you open early remembers the day it was meant for. Deleting removes the recording from this device and from your iCloud copy.

On a new device

In Time Capsules, tap Restore capsules from iCloud to bring back every capsule that has an iCloud copy. Sealed capsules stay sealed.

Apple Watch, widgets, and Siri

Apple Watch

1. Open Pocket-Journal on your Apple Watch.
2. Under How does today feel?, tap a mood. The watch taps your wrist and shows Noted with the mood's name.

The mood is saved to today's page on your iPhone, keeping anything you already wrote. If the phone is out of reach, the mood waits until it is back.

Add the Add a memory complication to a watch face to see at a glance whether today is captured.

Widgets

Add the Today widget to your Home Screen (small or medium) or your Lock Screen. It shows today's prompt and whether today is captured, and a tap opens today's page. Once today's page is saved, the widget shows the mood's symbol, unless the page is in the private vault or sealed. It never shows your words.

Siri, Shortcuts, and the Action Button

The same actions appear in the Shortcuts app as Log Today's Mood, Add a Memory, and Open Today, so you can use them in your own shortcuts or on the Action Button.

Privacy, backup, and export

What stays on your device

Your pages, photos, sketches, and time capsule recordings are stored on your iPhone or iPad. There is no Pocket-Journal account or server, and no ads, analytics, or tracking.

What uses the internet

Nothing, unless you use one of these:

• Add today's weather sends the page's location to Apple's weather service. It stays off until you switch on Weather snapshot (online).
• Use my location looks up a place name when the page has none. Store city or label only turns that lookup off.
• iCloud backup and time capsule copies go to your own iCloud, encrypted on your device first.

Dictation, search, Insights, Journaling Suggestions, and the background sound all work on your device.

Lock the app

Switch on Lock with Face ID / passcode in Settings, and the journal asks for Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode when you open it and hides its contents in the app switcher. Lock when I leave the app, on by default, locks it as soon as you switch away. Turn that off to use the Auto-lock delay instead: Immediately, After 1 minute, After 5 minutes, or After 15 minutes.

The private vault

Turn on Keep in private vault for a page, under More options or from the page's More actions menu. Vault pages stay out of the timeline, the calendar, Insights, and Recently Deleted, and won't open, until you unlock the vault with Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode — for example by choosing Locked in the timeline. The vault closes again when you leave the app. Vault pages are never exported, but they are included in your encrypted iCloud backup unless you leave them out.

Sealed pages

Turn on Seal until a later date and pick an Open on date to write a letter to your future self. Until that date, the timeline and the page show A letter you sealed until the date in place of your words, and hide the page's photos, events, and sketch. Search skips the sealed words, and exports leave out the words, place, photos, and sketch.

iCloud backup

Backup is off until you turn it on in Settings › iCloud Backup:

• Automatic backup backs up when you leave the app, at most once every six hours.
• Include photos, on by default, adds your journal's photos.
• Back up now backs up straight away. Last backup shows when the last one finished.
• Delete backup data removes the backup. Pages on your device are untouched.

Your backup is encrypted on your device before it goes to your private iCloud, and the key stays in your iCloud Keychain, which is what lets a new iPhone or iPad on the same Apple Account open it. Pages with Leave out of iCloud backup turned on are skipped.

Each iCloud account holds one backup. If iCloud already has one from another device or an earlier journal, automatic backup leaves it alone, and Back up now asks before replacing it.

Restore from a backup

1. On the new device, sign in with the same Apple Account, and make sure iCloud Drive and iCloud Keychain are on.
2. Open Pocket-Journal and go to Settings › iCloud Backup. Restore before you back up from the new device.
3. Tap Restore from backup, then Restore.
4. For time capsules, go to Settings › Time Capsules and tap Restore capsules from iCloud.

Pages from the backup replace pages with the same date on the device. Photos already on the device are kept, and a page you locked, sealed, or kept out of backups on the device stays that way.

Export

1. Go to Settings › Export.
2. Set From and To. The range starts one month back.
3. Tap Prepare export.
4. Tap PDF journal, Markdown, or JSON archive and choose where to send it.

Exports are made on your device and leave it only through the share sheet. The prepared files are removed when you leave the Export screen.

Delete everything

At the bottom of Settings, Delete all journal data permanently removes every page, photo, sketch, time capsule, and backup, on this device and in your iCloud. Confirm with Delete all data. This cannot be undone.

Settings

The first group in Settings links to Recently Deleted, Export, iCloud Backup, and Time Capsules.

Reminders

A reminder reads What would you like to remember about today? and the second one reads Your page for today is ready. Neither shows your mood, place, or words, and tapping one opens today's page.

The at-home reminder

1. Switch on Remind me when I get home.
2. Allow notifications and location access. When iOS then asks whether to allow location all the time, allow it: the reminder has to notice you arriving while Pocket-Journal is closed.
3. When you are at home, tap Set home from current location. Once the reminder is on, the button reads Home set — update from current location.

When you arrive, you get A quiet moment: Capture one moment from your day. Pocket-Journal watches only that one place, keeps no location history, and the reminder never mentions what you wrote. If something is missing, Settings says what, and offers Open iOS Settings when only iOS can change it.

Troubleshooting and help

Writing a page

• Save page is dimmed. Choose a mood. It is the only thing a page needs.
• Dictation says microphone or speech access is off. Allow both for Pocket-Journal in iOS Settings, or type instead.
• From this day finds no photos. Suggestions include only photos taken that day that are already on your device, and only the photos you have allowed Pocket-Journal to see. Use Choose photos for anything else.
• Events says to turn on calendar suggestions. Switch on Calendar suggestions in Settings. If calendar access is off, allow it for Pocket-Journal in iOS Settings.
• The weather won't add. Weather needs an internet connection and a place from Use my location or a photo. A typed place name has no location to look up.
• Listening finds nothing playing. It reads only what is playing in the Music app.

Backup and restore

• iCloud Backup says backups are kept on this device. Pocket-Journal can't reach iCloud. Check that you are signed in to iCloud and that iCloud Drive is on for Pocket-Journal.
• Back up now asks to replace the backup in iCloud. iCloud holds a backup from another device or an earlier journal. If this device is new, choose Keep the existing backup and restore first. Replace it removes that backup for good.
• Restore from backup is dimmed. No backup was found for this Apple Account yet. Back up from the device that holds your journal first.
• Some photos didn't come back. They couldn't be downloaded yet. Restore again on Wi-Fi to fetch them.
• My iPhone and iPad show different pages. Each device keeps its own journal. They don't sync, and only one journal can hold your account's backup.

Apple Watch, capsules, and locks

• A mood from my watch hasn't appeared. Moods wait until your iPhone is in range. Open Pocket-Journal on your iPhone to bring them in.
• Record a message is dimmed. Recording needs a camera. If the app says camera access is off, tap Open Settings and allow the camera and microphone.
• The vault or app lock opens without asking. Your device has no passcode, so there is nothing to check. Set a passcode in iOS Settings to protect your pages.
• The at-home reminder isn't set. Location access for Pocket-Journal must be set to Always. Use Open iOS Settings in Pocket-Journal's Settings to change it.

Getting help

Still stuck, or found something that looks wrong? Email us. Please don't include anything from your journal.