The best free journal app: what ‘free’ should include

How journal apps are priced

The word “free” on an app page works like “light rain” in a forecast.

It’s true. It just isn’t the whole sky.

So sort it out before the first entry. The basics of how to journal on your iPhone are the same in every app. The price tag isn’t.

Journal apps pay their bills in a few common ways, and each one decides what “free” covers. There’s also a fifth kind, where nobody seems to pay at all.

Row two is us, by the way.

Every row can be fair, can’t it? Ask the last column’s question before writing anything personal, because the answer shows who the app is working for.

The catch in each row

• A one-time purchase sounds simple. But a big update can arrive as a new paid app, and the old one may stop getting fixes.
• Built-in apps cost nothing extra. They live inside your phone’s settings, though, so read what they can see before switching on every suggestion.
• Free with no ads and no account sounds lovely. It still deserves one more question.

Find out who pays before a year of writing.

A side project can stop on a random Tuesday (its maker gets a new job, or a new baby, or both).

What the best free journal app keeps free

A fair free tier doesn’t need every feature. It needs the parts that keep your words yours: finding them, and taking them with you.

Export is the easy check to skip.

But it’s probably the one that matters most, on the day a phone gets replaced or an app stops feeling right.

Don’t write a year where you can’t export.

Photos, themes and fancy charts can sit behind a paywall, and nobody gets hurt. But your sentences shouldn’t.

The whole test works in bed with one thumb, under the blanket, with the phone at 14% and the charger somewhere on the floor where it always ends up.

“Test one. Rice again.” is a perfectly good entry.

Yumemira’s Free and Pro, exactly

Here’s our own split, taken from the app’s code. And yes, hold us to the checklist above.

Yumemira, the small-steps goal journal for iPhone, asks for one small step a day toward something you want. Then you write one line about how it went.

Free gives you one goal at a time and the whole journal.

Three lines from the app itself are worth repeating:

• “Your daily step stays free either way.”
• “Every badge is free to earn.”
• “Rest days are never for sale.”

By our own checklist, we lose a point: the app lock is Pro.

On Free, your iPhone can still lock the app if you touch and hold its icon and tap Require Face ID, the way Apple’s guide (opens in a new tab) shows it.

A free switch also hides your words in notifications, widgets and on the Lock Screen.

No account. Your journal stays on your iPhone. With notifications on, the app reminds you two days before the first payment.

If you stop paying

Pro stays on until the day you paid for.

After that you keep all your goals and notes, and every goal you have keeps going. Only the Pro parts close, like starting another goal.

So the lines you wrote on a Monday in March, with the faces you picked and the photo of the leaning bookshelf, stay where they were.

So export, in plain words, is that screen.

Save a backup writes your journal and notes to a file you keep. The journal help page shows the steps.

For a copy in two places, there’s more on backing up a journal. The full plan list sits in our Free and Pro section.

How to cancel a free trial on iPhone

Every App Store subscription on your iPhone is cancelled in the same place, ours included. Apple’s page on how to cancel a subscription (opens in a new tab) has the official steps.

1. 1

   Open Settings.

   Then tap your name at the top.

2. 2

   Tap Subscriptions.

   Your Apple subscriptions are listed there.

3. 3

   Pick the subscription.

   Scroll down if the button is low on the page.

4. 4

   Tap Cancel Subscription.

   If there’s no button, it’s already cancelled.

Apple advises cancelling a trial at least 24 hours before it ends.

So the last evening is too late.

Set the reminder the minute the trial starts.

The trial screen’s right there, and the price is still fresh (it won’t be on day six).

Choosing the app, not only the plan

The best journal app for iPhone is the one that gets opened on a tired night. And price is only one row of that.

If a lock matters most, see what a private journal app keeps behind a passcode on its free plan. Our iPhone journal page lists what ours does and doesn’t do.

Tonight, before trusting any app with a real line, write a test one. “Test. Odd socks today.” Then search for it and export it.

Last week’s lines shouldn’t need a yearly price to read.