Day One
The award-winning journal app for capturing life daily.
About
Day One is a journaling app owned by Automattic, widely regarded as the category's reference app. The free Basic plan includes unlimited text entries and journals, one photo per entry, end-to-end encryption, templates, prompts, search, On This Day, and streaks. Paid tiers add more: Silver brings unlimited photos and videos, multi-device journaling, audio recording, and integrations; Gold adds Daily Chat (an AI that talks through your day and drafts the entry in your voice), entry summaries, title suggestions, and image generation. Premium is commonly listed around $49.99/year.
Each entry automatically captures time, date, location, weather, and even moon phase, and entries can also arrive by text message or email. Reminiscing tools — On This Day, calendar browsing, map view, tags, and favorites — make old entries easy to revisit, and everything exports to PDF, plain text, or JSON so your journal stays yours. Privacy features include passcode/biometric lock and end-to-end encryption. Apps cover iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Mac, Android, Windows, and web. The company states AI features are optional and journal content is never used to train models — a provider claim that cannot be independently verified. Tradeoffs: the richest experience needs a subscription, and as a closed-source cloud product your archive depends on the service and exports.
What it can do
- Free Basic plan: unlimited text entries and journals, E2EE, templates, prompts
- Automatic metadata: time, date, location, weather, moon phase
- On This Day, calendar, map view, tags, favorites, and streaks
- Unlimited photos/video, audio recording (paid tiers)
- Daily Chat AI journaling assistant and entry summaries (Gold)
- Export to PDF, plain text, and JSON
- Passcode/biometric lock with end-to-end encryption
- Journal via text message or email
- Apps for iOS, Apple Watch, iPad, Mac, Android, Windows, web
Setup
Install Day One free on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, or use the web app — Basic is free forever with unlimited text entries. Enable end-to-end encryption and passcode lock in settings. Start a free trial of Silver or Gold in-app to unlock photos, multi-device sync, audio, and AI features.
Prerequisites
A phone, tablet, or computer; an account for sync (free tier available).
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (metrics tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: APKMirror publisher listings confirm Automattic ownership and 2026.x releases; independent reviews confirm the free unlimited-text-entries Basic plan, ~$49.99/yr Premium pricing, E2EE with passcode/biometric lock, automatic entry metadata, and PDF/JSON/plain-text export. Strengths: the most polished journaling experience available, generous free tier, real data portability via exports. Docked for: (1) closed source with no verifiable adoption figures; (2) richest features (media, multi-device, AI) require paid tiers; (3) the 'never trains on your content' claim is provider-stated and not independently auditable. License: proprietary (freemium).
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 9.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 4.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · Proprietary; owned by Automattic; 2026.x mobile releases; no GitHub presence
- · Free Basic: unlimited text entries, E2EE, templates, On This Day; Premium ~$49.99/yr; auto metadata (location/weather/moon); PDF/JSON/text export
- · Closed source, no verifiable adoption figures; best features need subscription; 'never trains on content' claim provider-stated
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.