12 best diary and journal apps for Android and iOS in 2024

Diaries and journals have been around for centuries. They are great spots to express your innermost feelings. Frankly, people should do that more often. It would probably help people deal with stuff that people aren’t so good at dealing with. Existential crises aside, journal apps and diary apps can be quite cathartic, as you journal all of your daily activities so you can think about them in different ways. Many even have extra features like mood tracking that your old paper journals and diaries couldn’t do. Here are the best diary apps and journal apps for Android!

The best diary apps and journal apps for Android

Daily Diary

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($1.99 – $34.99 per item)

Daily Diary hit the ground running in 2022, and it’s already one of the best diary apps. It features a colorful design with muted colors and well-labeled buttons. Some features include image support, a mood tracker function, a calendar so you can find previous entries, a daily reminder, and more. You can also lock it with a password or biometrics. We like this one a lot because it doesn’t require a subscription, which is increasingly rare in this space. The developers are attentive to bug reports, and even people with complaints still rate this thing highly. It’s easily one of the best, despite its bland name.

Day One Journal

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($4.99 – 34.99 per item)

The Day One Journal app is one of the best apps available for journaling, exclusively on the Apple App Store. The app has a beautiful interface and neat organizing capabilities; it lets you sort your written logs by categories and even color-coded menus. Additionally, it even allows you to add pictures, videos, locations, and even weather to your diary. The newer updates introduced a dark mode, voice recording, and a few other helpful features. You can rest assured about your privacy as the app claims to provide end-to-end encryption, touch ID and face ID lock, syncing, and an array of export options. It is free to use, but there are some limitations pertaining to the number of pictures, videos, and other stuff you can add to your journals.

Daybook

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($1.99 – $94.99 per item)

Daybook is a fairly decent journal app. It has a bunch of functionality. The features include password protection, to-do list features, voice recording (with speech to text), and more. It also has features for expense tracking, a class notebook, a trip diary, and other similar uses. The UI is a simple Material Design. You get a calendar view, and the editing view is free from too many distractions. This one is available for both Android and iOS.

Moodnotes

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($9.99 – 39.99 per item)

Moodnotes is another app available only to users with an Apple iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch. It works as both a journaling app and a mood tracker app. The theme is warm and colorful; the UI isn’t cluttered; it’s neat and easy-to-use. You can even choose to change the color according to your mood, choose an emoji for the day, and track on the calendar how you feel each day. The app also helps you discover why you feel this way and shows you articles based on your mood, so you can feel better and find solutions to your dilemma.

Daylio

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($0.99 – $59.99 per item)

Daylio is a flashy and popular diary app. It has all of the basic features, like daily entries, backup and restore with Google Drive, a PIN lock, and CSV document exporting. This one also tracks your mood. Each entry has a mood that you choose. There are dozens of them to choose from. Over time, you can see a graph and other stats about your moods. This is great for stuff like depression, where tracking your bad days matters. Some features are free, but the rest you will have to unlock with in-app purchases. This one is also free if you use Google Play Pass. You can also get this one on the Apple App Store.

Diarium

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($9.99 per item)

Diarium is a good all-around diary app for Android and iOS. It has neat features like attaching pictures, videos, audio recordings, files, tags, people, ratings, or locations to your journal entries. It also displays calendar events, weather, and fitness information. You can also integrate your social media content into your daily logs. The app works cross-platform on PC, iOS, and macOS. Cloud syncing to Google Drive is also available. A useful feature that we liked is that this allows you to migrate your existing journals from other apps like Diaro, Journey, Day One, Daylio, and many more. The customization options are good with themeing, font changes, and color-changing stuff. You can purchase the pro version for $9.99, which is a single-buy with no subscription.

Diaro

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($2.99 – $9.99 per item)

Diaro is an above-average diary app. You get a lot of the good stuff, including a privacy lock, various themes, support for over 30 languages, geotagging, simple navigation, and more. Those who go pro also get syncing with Dropbox, an ad-free experience, and exporting to PDF. This is also one of the few diary apps with fingerprint scanner support. It’s easy to use and has very few unnecessary distractions. This one is also free if you use Google Play Pass. It’s also available for the Apple devices.

Five Minute Journal

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($4.99 – $99.99 per item)

Five Minute Journal is a unique journal app. This one focuses on getting your feelings on paper in about five minutes. It uses the five-minute journal method. You can actually find the book about it on Amazon. Anyway, this app features a simple interface, a decent timeline view, daily quotes, challenges, reminders, and password protection, as well as backup and export functions. It’s not as flashy as other diary apps or journal apps. However, sometimes it just doesn’t need to be. It comes with a price up front, and that’s also a little unique in this space. Be sure to try it within the refund period to make sure you really like it. This one is available for both Android and iOS.

Journey

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($0.99 – $169.99 per item)

Journey is a flashy and popular journal app jam-packed with features available for both Android and iOS. It also includes a subscription, and we don’t like that at all. The basic features include mood tracking, rich text, a PIN lock, integration with Google Fit, and some other neat stuff. You also get syncing to the cloud via Google Drive and iCloud, as well as some other good features. The subscription unlocks the premium version, which lets you add things like images and shows you old journal entries as throwbacks, along with some other features. This is one of the best journal apps in this space.

Gratitude

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($3.99 – $59.99 per item)

Gratitude is a self-care journal. It helps you build a sense of security, boosts your self-esteem, and helps you find the strength to love yourself again. The app gives you daily affirmations and motivational content, as well as a vision board, to help you develop a healthy self-love routine. This also has a challenge system to help you build consistency with your mood. This one is a bit expensive, though; the free version is okay.

My Diary

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($0.99 – $59.99 per item)

My Diary is one of the most popular diary and journaling apps available on the Play Store. It has a pretty user interface, with many themes and customization options. There are tabs and tags, so you can easily categorize your stuff and search your journals. The app lets you set up a password or, using your biometrics, it sets up a lock, prioritizing your privacy. Syncing to Google Drive is another neat feature. It also allows you to add pictures and videos to your diary, which is a feature other apps don’t usually offer. You also have the option to add stickers to make your diary more visually appealing. This can also work as a mood-tracking app.

Universum

Price: Free/In-app purchases ($0.99 – $4.49 per item)

Universum is an above-average journal app. It comes with all of the basics, including exporting, backup to Google Drive and Dropbox, reminders, mood tracking, various organizational features, and even a dark theme. It’s another one of the few journal apps with fingerprint scanner support as a lock function. This one functions well in a variety of areas. You can use it for travel, diet, or even as a dream journal. You can also add images or draw stuff on the sketchpad. Its name is surprisingly appropriate. It has the features for basically most types of journal writing.

If we missed any great journal apps or diary apps for Android, tell us about them in the comments. You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game news.
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