Best for keeping a writing journal: Day One Any of the apps here can double as a writing journal, but none of them let you personalize and simplify it like Day One (Mac, $10; iOS, $5) does. This app nudges you to record time if you haven’t in a while. $59 for a license with free technical support for a year. Primarily for desktop (Mac OS + Windows + Linux).
Human mind is complicated and beautiful. Did you know that on any given day, there are 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts that cross your mind? That’s mind-boggling. It’s no wonder that we are forgetful beings. That also shows how vital journaling apps can be. A place where you can jot down important thoughts and ideas or how your day went by.
A few months ago, I started meditation using an app called Headspace. One trick I learned there was the process of filtering thoughts based on importance and priority. Then came the act of concentrating on positive thoughts and moods instead of negative events in life. Journaling is a great way to note all these thoughts and life's events.
With these thoughts in mind, let’s take a look at some journaling apps for the Windows platform.
1. Journey
Journey is a light-weight journal app that is available on every platform along with Windows. You begin by creating entries for each day. Adding photos, audios, and videos is easy, but only one at a time. Journey uses Google Drive to backup data and sync it across platforms.
The app will automatically add weather and location to your entries. You can also add smileys to note how you were feeling on that day, or about that moment. I like the timeline and calendar feature that allows me to go back in time and find or rediscover and relive all those moments easily.
While Android and iOS apps are free, Windows app will cost you $19.99. There is also a cloud plan priced at $2.49. That will unlock dark theme, daily inspiration quotes, unlimited entries via email, Zapier integration, and more ways to customize entries.
Download JourneyAlso on Guiding Tech
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Read More2. Journalist
Journalist is a Windows-only journaling app that comes with a drawing tool. People who like to draw or sketch their emotions and feelings on paper will love it. What’s more? You can join up to 4 papers to create a scrolling video of sorts. It supports various video and GIF formats. Adding text, images, audio, and videos are easy. Data is backed up to OneDrive.
Journalist acts as a scrapbook of sorts which adds new ways to maintain a diary and log your life. The ability to draw and sketch using a variety of pens and colors gives more freedom to be expressive. However, it also makes the process equally time-consuming. It's definitely more suitable for artists.
You can also record voice to narrate your life’s story which is pretty cool. On the flip side, it lacks advanced features like calendar, timeline, and auto geo-tagging. Maybe in a future version? Fingers crossed.
Download Journalist3. Glimpses
Glimpses is a free journaling app for Windows that’s packed with features. You can add tags to your entries for easily categorizing them by events or places. You can also mark certain entries as favorite which makes them easy to search. The calendar and timeline features makes reliving old memories fun and easy.
Best Mac Journal App 2014 Challenger
There are a few interesting writing modes available that I haven’t seen in other journaling apps. Typewriter mode arrives with a custom font and makes clicking noises with each keystroke as if you were using a real typewriter. Then there is the dark and distraction-free mode. On the downside, no reminders and you can’t add audio files as of now, and they are still working on Android and iOS apps. Well, it’s free, so you can’t complain much.
Download GlimpsesAlso on Guiding Tech
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Read More4. Evernote
Evernote is probably one of the best note-taking apps, but that’s not all it can do. A lot of fans are using it as a journaling app too. How? Evernote supports images, audio, video files, PDF, and more. You can also record audio or take images directly with it.
How to begin? You create a heading called journal and then create one notebook for each year. Now create one note for each day. You can then tag them for further sanity. Evernote works on all platforms, integrates with third-party apps like Google Calendar (birthday events?), Zapier, IFTTT, much more.
If you are already using Evernote for taking notes and whatnot, using it as a journaling app for Windows makes a lot of sense. One less app to worry about.
Download Evernote5. Diarium
Diarium takes a different approach. The app integrates with Windows’ system calendar, and for each day, you can create an entry. Text, images, audio, video, files, or drawings; anything goes. You can also import entries from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and even Google Fit. That means everything you do, that app will log it automatically. You can view all of that on a map.
Available on both Android and iOS, Diarium is probably the only journal app that doesn’t have a subscription model in place. Instead, you can buy individual apps for a one-time fee of $19.99 (often available for less during a sale).
Download DiariumDear Diary
Journaling is a great way to note important dates and events. They are also useful for jotting down ideas. That flashing moment when you have a stroke of genius. That one idea that could possibly change your world and your life. If you carry a laptop with you at all times, one of the above Windows journaling apps will prove helpful.
Next up: Do you also use an iPhone? Click on the link below to learn more about 4 journaling apps for iOS platform.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextTop 4 Journal Apps for iPhone That Make Journaling Easy and FunAlso See#note #windows 10
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Having access to the best journaling apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac is like equipping yourself for greater success. You can lose a great idea forever due to short-term memory, but not if it’s committed to paper. Keeping a journal is imperative to achieving very efficient IQ, evoking mindfulness, increasing self-confidence, creativity and to improve your comprehension.
Until the introduction of journaling apps for iPhone and iPad, people rely on notebooks to write down their daily goals and ideas. That limited productivity; impeding seamless access to journaling in varied moods and placing barriers between critical ideas and its efficient development.
Journaling Apps for iPhone and iPad
The best journaling apps for iOS provide a coherent world where capacity is a question of availability. There is no form of limitation. From your living space, where you can use journaling apps for Mac, to your commutes where the best journaling apps for iPhone and iPad are paramount, you can always monitor your achievements and create new ideas into your journal entries. However, some of the top journaling apps for iOS have special features that can increase your productivity in unique areas.
The Mac App Store is completely redesigned and features rich editorial content and new tabs for easier app discovery. Source: Apple
Best Journaling Apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac
To make up this list, we considered the unique features of top journaling apps in Apple Store for productivity criteria such as syncing, interface, security and supported files.
1. Day One
Day One is one of the top journaling apps with lots of hype and its living up to it! As an award-winning app with a neat interface, the standard it has set in soft journaling will be rare to beat by any app in that category. The load time is negligible and Day One allows users to create multiple journal entries on the same day, make choice of font, style and security [passcodes]. It has reminders and automatically updates user’s location and weather information. Day One has provision for tags, photos and a searching option. Entries can be exported as PDF (optional) and the app has approximately error-free synching via iCloud between different iOS devices.
Best Journal For Mac
Day One Pricing: Free/$34.99 per year for premium features
2. Chronicle
Chronicle is another fully-packed journaling app. It enables users to choose the font style, and sizes just like in iBooks; add an unlimited number of photos in a journal entry and permit multiple journal entries in the same day. Photos can be edited; resize or rotate, entries can be back-dated in case you need to fix it with past dates and be exported in form of PDF or as a plain text file. Chronicle supports keyboard extension with extras, fast search using keywords, optimized scrolling, passcodes and auto-save/undo icon. It supports backup via Dropbox and iCloud syncing.
Chronicle Pricing: $2.99 per month
Chronicle Preview
3. Journey
This journaling app has been dubbed Day One alternative by many, but the app has its own unique features. Journeyworks on virtually all devices and seamlessly supports synching to Google Drive, exports in different formats, password protection and imports of entries from other journaling apps such as Day One. Journey can accept up to 4 videos or images, it has streamlined interface with a negligible load time and a dark mode feature. One shortcoming of this journaling app is lack of reminders in desktops.
Journal Pricing: $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year.
4. Penzu
Penzu is the best journaling app in a blog-like environment. It makes journaling look like blog posts with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface for word processing. You can lock different journals with a password, add photos, customize journal covers, add apps and encrypt your journals. It also supports unlimited journaling, synch journals via iCloud and features a search tool.
Penzu Pricing: Free/starting from $19.99 per year for premium features
Penzu Preview
5. Grid Diary
The easiest way to get started with keeping a journal is to use Grid Diary. It makes journaling very easy by asking users 8 basic questions daily which are laid out in a grid form. The app features reminders, syncing to Dropbox or iCloud, passcode lock, text formatting and entry export to other apps.
Grid Diary Pricing: Free/ $4.99/month
6. Momento
Posting events in your life on social media such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter may mean keeping records but Momento journaling app will help you to do more. You can bring all your social media posts together according to their dates and well arranged like a journal using this app and also make new entries or editions to improve the information.
Momento Pricing: Free/ $3.99 for premium features
Momento Preivew
7. Five Minute Journal
Five minute journal is as simple as its name. It makes journaling almost effortless by asking you just a few questions in the morning and evening which requires little time to complete. The tech app supports one photo for an entry and exports to PDF.
Five Minute Journal Pricing: $4.99 per month
8. My Wonderful Days
My Wonderful Days journaling app provides a lot of features. It’s a great app to also monitor your happiness statistics; you can check graphs of your happiness and star special days. It automatically syncs data via iCloud, supports air print, full-text formatting, passcodes, and media addition.
My Wonderful Days Pricing: $9.99 per month
My Wonderful Days Preview
9. MacJournal
MacJournal is one of the oldest and most popular journaling apps for iOS devices. The interface is clean and the app has most of the features required for journaling, including bullet/numbering listing. It can also send entries to Facebook and Twitter.
MacJournal Pricing:$1.99 per month
Journal Apps For Mac
10. Draft 5
Draft 5 is a great journaling environment to capture thoughts and ideas quickly. It enables different writing modes which can be customized. As a simple journaling app, only entries are captured and the interface is quite clean. Draft supports file extension, import, capture via Siri and dictation.
Draft 5 Pricing:$1.99 per month or $19.99 per year
Draft-5 Preview