When you need to keep track of a to-do list, important moments in your life, or fleeting ideas before they vanish, most folks reckon writing it down is a good way to do it. You could grab the closest piece of paper and pencil but who uses those anymore? Your smartphone is probably closer anyway — if you aren’t holding it already.
Most phones come with a notes app baked in but those are generally pretty bland and don’t offer much in the way of features. These apps, on the other hand, are purpose-built for chronicling your life or jotting down your thoughts. They’re (mostly) free or at the very least won’t charge you to download them.
1 Second Everyday Journal
Taking the modern-day fad for brief videos to its logical conclusion, this app asks you to select one second of footage from every day of your life. At the end of a decade, you’ll be able to watch a 1hr memory trip with more slam cuts (and probably more coherence) than a Michael Bay flick. Don’t want that commitment? It’s good for short ad-hoc projects too.
Free (IAP) / Android, iOS
Day One
This giant of digital journalling is the closest in nature to a paper diary, in that it lets you record your life in the way that best works for you. The app excels because of its flexibility, being well suited to folks who just want to make photo grids or map views from recent events, or anyone who strongly believes that every journal entry should be comparable in length to War And Peace.
Free (IAP) / Android, iOS
5 Minute Journal
Some might grumble at this app’s insistence you “surround yourself with what brings you joy” and “be in a state of gratitude”. But it has a point: this methodology can make you more mindful and boost positivity. And a five-minute journal in digital form brings advantages by allowing you to integrate images and video, and dig into meditation sessions and other helpful guides.
Free (IAP) / Android, iOS
Presently
The other apps in this roundup are keen to bolt on features, and then gate them behind payment. Not Presently, which is free and to the point. For each day, it asks what you’ve been grateful for. Tap a lightbulb and you get a new prompt. In the settings, you can adjust a few aspects of how the app looks, and that’s about it; but this all comes across as refined and focused, not brutally basic.
Free / Android
Moodistory
This one has you record how you feel day to day, rating your mood from 1 to 5 and adding context through journal entries. Inputs build to form a colourful calendar that lets you make connections between moods, days and activities. Well, that’s as long as you don’t spend all day laughing at text prompts whose wording makes it sound like you’ve murdered someone: “What did you do?”
Free (IAP) / Android, iOS
MealSnap
For health reasons – or because they inexplicably really like taking photos of food – many people shoot snaps of every meal. This app stores such pics and adds context through snack counts and portion sizes. This can be handy for tracking without the dull minutiae of calorie counting… or for lovingly pawing at pictures of meals without inflicting them on the rest of us via Instagram.
Free (IAP) / iOS