What is Journaling Suggestions on iPhone? A plain guide

What is Journaling Suggestions on iPhone?

Journaling Suggestions arrived with iOS 17.2 in December 2023, the same day as Apple’s own journal app (Apple Newsroom (opens in a new tab)).

It isn’t an app you open. It’s a picker: a set of cards that a journaling app can show when you start a new entry.

Each card is a moment your iPhone grouped together, for example:

• A morning run, with its route
• An album you played three times in a row
• The photos from a birthday dinner

Pick one, and the app starts an entry with that moment at the top. Skip them all, and nothing happens.

Apple says the grouping uses on-device processing. So the sorting happens on the phone in your hand.

If you’re still choosing where to write at all, how to journal on your iPhone compares the options.

What can it suggest from?

Apple’s privacy page (opens in a new tab) lists six kinds of information the feature can draw on, all of it already stored on your iPhone:

• Workouts: the type, how long, the route, calories and heart rate
• Media: the songs and podcasts you played
• Contacts: who you texted, called or FaceTimed
• Photos: your library, memories, shared albums, and people and pets you’ve named
• Significant Locations: places you’ve been, and how often
• State of mind: moods you’ve logged on the phone

Apple says it uses limited history from the phone to build each suggestion. When Snopes checked the settings on iOS 17.2, five of these categories were on by default.

None of it leaves the phone to build a card, and the results get oddly specific.

So a phone that only saw your listening history might propose a heartfelt journal entry about the podcast you fell asleep to on the bus.

Any category you don’t want, you can switch off alone.

Who can see your suggestions?

Before you share one, only you can see it, Apple says. The cards live on your iPhone, not inside an app.

But if you use iCloud, Apple’s privacy page says the suggestions also sync to your iPad. They’re encrypted on the way and in storage. With two-factor authentication and a passcode, Apple says even it can’t read them.

To stop that sync, go to Settings › your name › iCloud › See All › Journaling Suggestions.

An app that shows the picker doesn’t get the whole list. Apple’s notes for app makers (opens in a new tab) say an app can’t read a moment’s details until you pick it, and then it gets “high-level details” only.

To see which apps have this access, look for Apps Using Private Access on the same settings page.

What Discoverable by Others did

What did that Facebook switch do? In Apple’s older wording, quoted by Snopes, Discoverable by Others let other people’s iPhones count you as a nearby contact, so their suggestions could rank moments with people they know.

Your name and location weren’t shared, only the count.

Counting your own nearby contacts was a separate switch back then. On Apple’s current privacy page both directions sit under one switch, Prioritize Moments with Contacts (we couldn’t check every iOS version).

Nothing reaches an app until you tap a card.

How to turn off Journaling Suggestions on iPhone

Every switch lives on one page, under Privacy & Security in Settings. Here’s what each one does.

To switch the whole feature off:

1. 1

   Open Settings.

   It’s the grey gear icon.

2. 2

   Tap Privacy & Security.

   Then scroll down to Journaling Suggestions.

3. 3

   Turn Off All.

   Tap it. That stops suggestions for every journaling app on the phone.

4. 4

   One category.

   Or tap a category, like Photos, and leave the rest on.

A journal that starts from something you did

Some nights a phone that remembers the week is handy. Other nights the line should come from you alone.

Yumemira, the small-steps journal for iPhone, doesn’t use Journaling Suggestions at all. We checked our own code. Your journal stays on your iPhone with no account, and our privacy page lists what stays there.

It’s easier to write about something you did ten minutes ago than about something your phone noticed last week. So the app asks for one small step toward a goal first, then one line about it.

Mark the step done, and a Say how it went button opens a space for the line. So the words come from the thing you just finished.

If you’d rather keep it on paper, a sticky note on the kettle does the same job.

Do one small thing, then write a line about it.

If your step shows on the Lock Screen, the switch called Hide text in Settings › Privacy and lock keeps your words off it. There’s more in journal widgets for iPhone.

Either way, the words in your journal are the ones you picked. For the rest of the privacy picture, see how to keep a journal private.

Keep it on or turn it off?

There’s no wrong answer. It’s a settings page, not a test.

Keep it on if a song or a run reminds you of something worth a line. Turn it off if you don’t use a journaling app, or if the cards feel like someone reading over your shoulder.

Most of the time the answer sits in between, which is what the single switches are for. Want the ideas but not the pings? Turn off Notifications and keep the rest.

The 2024 post told everyone to find one switch and flip it in a hurry. Tonight, in bed, open Settings › Privacy & Security › Journaling Suggestions and read the list once, slowly.

Keep what’s useful. Switch off anything that doesn’t feel like yours.