Apple Journal (iPhone)

This user guide will help you master Apple Journal.

Orientation

The homepage of Apple Journal is very simple. When the app is new, without any entries, it has a big plus icon at the bottom of the screen. When you have some entries in the app, you have a list of them, and on the top right corner under the bar icon, you can filter the entries.

Creating new entries

To get started, tap the plus icon (bottom of the screen). The app suggest some reflections you can write on. You can also choose to create a New Entry (top of the screen). Each journal entry has a date that you can customise if you want. Go to the circled three-dots icon, then Custom Date. Select a date and tap Done to save it.

When you can start typing your journal entry, you can still access the reflections from within the app, on the keyboard toolbar (first icon, AI icon). Tapping the refresh icon changes the suggestion to something different. The app supports some basic formatting that you can bring up when you select a few words. Go to Format or the forward arrow first if you can’t see it. You can make your text Bold, Italic, Underline, and Strikethrough. You can also bring up the options by tapping your cursor.

Attachments

Apple Journal lets you add photos and videos either from the Photos library or by taking one with your camera. Tap the image icon to add a photo from Photos. Select the photos and videos you want to add, and tap Done to add them. To take a picture with your camera, go to the camera icon. You can also record audio (audiowave icon) and add location (compass icon). The app can only add thirteen attachments to your journal entries, and they all go to the top of your entry. When you’re finished with your journal entry, tap Done to save the changes.

Bookmarks

You can bookmark journal entries for easier access. On the homepage, go to the three-dots icon (bottom right corner of entry summary) and Bookmark. An even faster way would be to swipe the entry summary to the right. You can also bookmark entries from the workspace. Tap the ribbon icon on the top left corner of your screen.

Viewing your entries

Apple Journal lists your entries on the homepage. Tapping on an attachment opens it in a different window. You can swipe to the right and left to go through all the attachments for that entry. At the top right corner, you can delete the attachment (bin icon > Remove Attachment). Close (top left corner) to go back to the homepage.

You can filter the entries that appear on your screen. Go to the three-bar icon (top right corner) and pick the filter you want from the listed options. To edit a journal entry, go to the three-dots icon (bottom right corner of entry summary) and Edit. Sometimes simply tapping on an entry works, but it’s not always reliable. You can also swipe to the left and go to the pen icon to start editing your entry. The bin icon lets you delete (bin icon) the entry. Confirm (Delete Entry) the deletion, but be careful because this can’t be undone. You can also delete by going to the three-dots icon on the entry summary and Delete.

Text input

Typing on the iPhone is similar to the experience you get with an iPad. But with the smaller screen and being a different device altogether, there are some differences that are noteworthy. Between typing on the iPad, MacBook, and iPhone, I prefer typing on the iPhone the most. By far, my favourite feature is sliding the cursor somewhere I want to make a change (long-press till the keyboard keys disappear and slide the cursor). It’s more accurate than tapping on it.

Swiping

On the iPhone, you can swipe on the keyboard without using a floating keyboard. The screen is too small, so it’s already floating, unlike on the iPad. Swiping allows you to skip a few letters when typing, which, when you do a lot of, can save you quite a bit of time. You need to have this option turned on, of course, in your iPhone settings (iPhone Settings > General > Keyboard > Turn on Slide to Type).

One-hand Keyboard

To even work faster, you might prefer to use a single hand. This is especially handy when you have small hands, but use a massive iPhone. (iPhone Settings > General > Keyboard > turn on One-Handed Keyboard). The disadvantage is that the keyboard and its keys are much smaller. Though I have small hands, my fingers are not so small. So that might be a problem. You can quickly change the side of the screen the keyboard goes. Long-press the globe icon > choose a side. You can also exit or close this one-hand keyboard by going to the full-size one. So, even without going to your iPhone Settings, you can quickly activate and deactivate the one-hand keyboard.

Scanning Text

Scanning text into your text field is a lot easier on the iPhone because it is smaller and lighter than the iPad. The better camera is another bonus. Long-press cursor > AutoFill > Scan Text. I wish we had a bit more control over what the camera picks up. At the moment, your best shot is just moving it to where you want to extract the information. It’s still better than nothing.

Dictation

Dictation (mic icon, bottom right corner of keyboard) also works very well. But we have heard reports of inaccurate recordings from some users. It is easy to use. All you have to do is turn on the option in your settings. (iPhone Settings > General > Keyboard. Turn on Enable Dictation and Auto-Punctuation. The punctuation was terrible, though. When you have several keyboards, you can also choose the languages supported for the dictation. To use a different language, first select it for the keyboard (globe icon).

Settings

Apple Journal settings are in your iPhone settings under Journal.

Allow Journal to Access

The first part of the settings requires you to allow Apple Journal to access certain features of your phone. Location, Photos, Camera, Apple Intelligence & Siri, Search, Live Activities, Background App Refresh, and Mobile Data. For your Photos, you have Options for what the app can access from the photos to add to your entries. You can choose to include Location and Captions. You can also choose the default format for your photos and videos to be Automatic (the app chooses the best option), Current (the app keeps the original format of your photo or video), or Most Compatible (to convert all photos to JPG and videos to H.264 formats).

Apple Intelligence & Siri lets you decide to allow the two features to learn from how you use the app to make suggestions for your across your device (Learn from this App). You can also allow the AI to suggest content from Journal (Show on Home Screen and Suggest App).

Journaling Suggestions

You can customise Suggestion Privacy Settings. You can get suggestions from the apps you turn on: Activity, Media, Contacts, Photos, and Significant Locations and State of Mind. You can Turn Off All the suggestions from these apps above their list. Clear History deletes the history of journaling suggestions. You can also turn on Reflection Prompts, and Prioritise Moments with Contacts. I have turned that off, it doesn’t sound very useful.

When Discoverable by Others is turned on, you can also choose to Prefer Suggestions with Others. Basically, you’re allowing others’ journaling apps to know when you’re close to them so they can receive suggestions about you. Like wise, when you Prefer Suggestions with Others, the app gives you more suggestions that involve others. This information sharing does not feel secure.

You can pick your preferred Language and turn off suggestions when creating new entries (turn on Skip Journaling Suggestions). The app can Lock Journal if you turn that on. If you want to be reminded to journal to track your journaling habit, go to Journaling Schedule and turn on Schedule. Pick a Time, and days of the week when you want those alerts. You must allow notifications to use the scheduling feature in the app. Lastly, you can turn on Save to Photos if you want to save the photos and videos you take in Journal to your Photos library.

iOS 18 Updates

Text formatting

We now have some formatting options in iOS 18 for Apple Journal that let us format our text a little better (Aa icon). We could already make our text bold, italic, underlined, and struck-out. But now we can also add simple dotted, dashed, and numbered lists that don’t support hierarchy levels. We also have quotes and colour for our text. It’s only a grid option, at the moment, but its better than nothing. A grid doesn’t have the most accurate colours, but it definitely has a wide option.

Mental health logs

The health icon lets you access your health information when you give Apple Journal access to the Health app (iPhone Settings). Lets Turn On All and go back to Apple Journal where you now can log your feelings on a mood scale from Very Unpleasant to Very Pleasant. You can do this in this small section, or go full screen (swipe up) if you prefer that. You have more room to work with in full screen. Next (to right corner), you can give more details on that to better describe the feeling. There’s quite a number of words you can use (Show More). There is no option to just type, though, which means you have to choose from the available options. Then you get another screen about how this has impacted you. When you’re Done (top right corner), the app adds that information to the top of your journal entry where your other attachments go. You can open it (tap) and the three-dots icon (top right corner) lets you see this in the Health app (Open in Health) or you can Remove it from your entry. The Writing Tools from Apple Intelligence also work in Apple Journal.

Three-dots icon

On the homepage, the app now has a three-dots icon (top right corner) for sorting (Sort By) your entries by entry (Entry Date) or Moment Date. We don’t have enough information on the difference between the two. Logic detects that it’s probably something similar to what we have in Photos. But, if you know, please do let us know.

Insights

Insights gives an overview of your journaling habits with Streaks, Stats for the year, and a quick way to access the entries you have on different days (Calendar). The options for your Streaks vary depending on how well you’re doing. Under the three-dots icon, you can choose to track a daily (Daily Journaling), weekly (Weekly Journaling) or automatic (Daily or Weekly) streak. If you’re struggling to keep up, the app lets you set a schedule (Set Schedule) to help you improve your journaling habit.

Turn on Journaling Schedule, set a Time and choose days of the week when you want to be reminded to journal. That is good when you’re keeping a weekly streak. For a daily one, you can turn on Keep Your Steak to get notified at a specific Time if you haven’t journaled that day. Notifications takes you to the same place.

Tapping on your Stats lets you filter to see entries for All-time or specific years, with a summary of your journaling activity. All the items you added in during that period: Photos, Videos, Places, Reflections and Audio. 

The Calendar, which is my favourite view, logs your journal entries for different days. It doesn’t have much, but you can create new entries when you’re navigating a date (plus icon, top right corner). The arrows at the bottom of the screen navigate to the next and previous dates.

Search tool

Back on the homepage, you can search your entries now. Categories filter to refine your search to focus only on entries with specific characteristics: Bookmarked, Photos, Videos, Recorded Audio, Reflections, Places, State of Mind, Text Only. But, you must have them in your entries, otherwise these filters won’t appear at all.

Widgets

I can’t remember if Apple Journal had widgets before iOS 18, but we hadn’t covered them in this course. So, we have to do it now (long-press the iPhone screen > Edit > Add Widget > and look for Journal). You have two types, one for Streaks and another for new entries in two sizes (New Entry). It doesn’t matter which one you choose, they all have an option to create a New Entry from your home screen. If you prefer working with prompts, then the New Entry widget is better.