*Review of the best according to the editors. About the selection criteria. This material is subjective, not an advertisement and is not a guide to purchase. Consultation with a specialist is required before purchase.
Before the advent of the smartphone era, electronic diaries were separate devices with such, rather narrow specialization. In 2020, no manufacturer will come up with the idea of releasing an electronic diary in this form factor anymore – everything has moved into the realm of mobile applications with optional scaling to desktop operating systems.
The editors of Expertology magazine present you a selection of the most interesting and popular personal diary apps of 2020. They are all good in their own way, and given these individual characteristics, everyone will be able to find the most suitable.
Rating of the best electronic diaries
| Nomination | place | name | Rating |
| Rating of the best electronic diaries | 1 | Day One | 5.0 |
| 2 | Momento | 4.9 | |
| 3 | Diaro | 4.8 | |
| 4 | Journey | 4.7 | |
| 5 | Day | 4.6 | |
| 6 | Dream Journal
| 4.5 |
Day One
Rating: 5.0
Let’s start with a cross-platform diary program originally designed for a combination of Apple operating systems – mobile iOS and fixed OS X, and later getting a version for Android platforms as well.
There are no revolutionary solutions in the interface, since in this part the best, presumably, has already been thought of and implemented a long time ago. Nice and light laconicism, comfortable standard shades and translucency where it is appropriate.
Day One easily outperforms similar products in terms of functionality. Once the app is installed and integrated into the ecosystem of other apps on your device, the app will automatically do rapid and correct parsing of basic data – time, weather, location, even nuances like altitude. Optionally, it can even pull up information about the sports activity of the owner.
The note-taking editor is convenient and intuitive, compatible with Markdown markup language. The Mac version lets you enter notes in different ways – directly in the interface of the program, in a dedicated window, or make quick notes right in the extension of the status bar.
Versatile data handling is supported – exports are supported and can be customized as well. Security options are displayed in a separate panel. Sign-in security is standard — on iOS, you can access by touch ID fingerprint, password, or a combination of both; on Mac, it’s password only, but you can also program auto-lock.
In general, the Day One integrations are implemented very well. For example, through the third-party service IFTTT (If This Then That), which itself is noteworthy, you can easily set up auto-export through unusually convenient bindings.
The developers have also taken care that the application helps the user not to be lazy and not to forget to make notes – for this there is a flexible system of reminders. Ultimately, though, it will be up to the user, and Day One won’t be intrusive if reminders are turned off.
A separate useful section of the app is the journal, where you can easily sort entries by criteria. There are a lot of such criteria – keywords, tags, up to the designations of activity and selected photos. This feature can become a kind of “personal biographer” of the owner and remind him of the brightest events of his life.
A nice element that disposes the user in a positive way – a favorite quote of a famous person always appears on the start screen.
There is a free version, but a fully functional program for iOS is paid, costing about $5. Mac version is significantly more expensive.
Advantages
- user-friendly interface;
- flexible integration;
- Export to different formats, including PDF;
- Adjustable reminders;
- A logbook with sorting by criteria;
- nice bonus in the form of favorite quotes on the start screen.
Disadvantages
- Relatively expensive Mac version.
Momento
Rating: 4.9
The review continues with the Momento application, which claims to be the closest competitor to the super-popular Day One, described above. But it’s about popularity, not functionality. Momento’s focus is a little different than keeping consistent personal records, although no one prohibits its use even that.
Hereinafter we won’t dwell on the applications’ interface features except for those cases when really original solutions are found. In this respect, as already mentioned above, all the best has long been thought of and implemented.
And the first feature that distinguishes Momento from Day One is the emphasis on collecting data about the user’s life events from his social network accounts instead of consistently recording them in this particular application. Any compatible service can be connected to Momento, from the most popular Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to the less widespread ones, including even Uber.
An important tool of the program – the timeline, which allows you to clearly see the chronicle of events during the time interval and focus on the events of individual years, months and days, if necessary. It’s so easy to remember everything that happened on “today’s” day, but a few years ago.
A kind of “ideology” of Momento is built on saving the moments that make up the occurring events. Time interval can be adjusted, changed, dividing your life into segments according to certain criteria. So you can keep an original diary of travels, achievements of goals, just bright events. This characteristic implementation has a significant emotional component.
The functionality of the program in terms of keeping a classic diary with the usual records in this program is secondary. That is, it exists, but it is not accentuated by the user. If you want you can manually make a note, set geo tags, tags, people, photos.
In fact, Momento is more of an aggregator than a classic diary, but the result is impressive and very informative. So as a “going back in time” diary Momento does it best.
Advantages
- user-friendly interface;
- tight integration with social networks;
- A convenient and clear timeline;
- setting time intervals;
- compiling events from the moments;
- Vivid emotional component;
- a simple reminder of past days, months, years events.
Disadvantages
- Secondary functionality to the classic diary keeping.
Diaro
Rating: 4.8
Another popular electronic diary is the cross-platform application Diaro. Available on iOS, Android, Amazon and web. We will consider the program on the example of the version for iOS.
Basically, it’s an ordinary electronic diary with an extremely simple and straightforward interface. To add an entry, click on the “+” and an entry field will open. At the top will be placed a menu of signed icons: Date, Time, Tags, Location, Photo, Camera, Delete. Everything is very informative, no special explanations needed.
You can add a photo to any entry, and more than one, so it’s easy to illustrate your entries. The cropping is done automatically. You can also tag entries with tags, mood, weather, geographic location, time – all of which are on the list of icons.
Options for further actions with the recordings depend on the program version. Free is extremely limited, and paid (about $4) DiaroPro allows you to synchronize in the cloud DropBox and export notes to a multiplatform PDF format.
On the whole, it’s an ordinary diary, handy, simple and accessible. There is no “highlight” in it, and Diaro would be “lost” in the mass of electronic notebooks, but a certain charm has still attracted to this program an impressive audience.
The version for desktop PCs is almost exactly the same (in principle) interface as the mobile version, and no one will have any difficulties with the migration. The graphical layout of the interface lends itself to individual customization.
Advantages
- Very easy to use;
- you can change the layout;
- Adding photos to entries, moods, tags, geo-tags;
- automatic cropping of images;
- reminders;
- exporting records to PDF;
- cloud synchronization;
- has a web version of.
Disadvantages
- no “highlight”.
Journey
Rating: 4.7
The name of the Journey app hints explicitly at its focus on travel use. Indeed, the functionality of the program allows you to automatically provide records with such “accessories” as geotags, indications of current activities, weather and more. But overall it’s a simple, convenient, and versatile digital diary that has earned great popularity.
The travel bias here is indicated by the world map, but which is kind of all based on. But the main thing about Journey is that the record “stays in the ages,” no matter what happens, unless you decide to deliberately erase your own digital memories.
Data is saved in multiple places at once, including Google Drive. The program is multiplatform, and even more than that – the emphasis here is to make it possible to make a record in Journey, figuratively speaking, even “from the iron. So, you can keep a journal from a Mac or Windows desktop computer, a Chromebook, or a wearable gadget.
You can add photos and videos, various notes to your recordings, and the obvious data like location, weather, temperature, movement – Journey will add it all automatically. So the user forms his own timeline in this semi-automatic mode. This creates a slight “wow effect” when viewing the diary and looking at events in retrospect. The “fashionable” action of looking back in time at the same date a year, two or more ago works very clearly. For this purpose, there is a separate module called “A Glimpse into the Past”.
The program is available on a variety of platforms, Markdown markup language is supported. Even if the user finds themselves in a situation where they need to make a record or view a timeline urgently, but only have access to someone else’s device, you can use the cloud-based web version of Journey.Cloud. You don’t need to install any software at all for this method, but for everyday use the standalone app is still more convenient, because the functionality of Journey.the Cloud is extremely limited.
Journey is easy and flexible to customize to your tastes and preferences, and supports different plugins like Google Fit. There is a nice little thing – daily tips.
Journey’s privacy is good, and your data is encrypted.
Advantages
- broad multiplatform;
- saving data in different places;
- Automatically add data to records (location, weather, movement, etc. d.);
- The emotionally powerful “Back in Time” module;
- Photo preview on the world map;
- cloud synchronization;
- web access;
- flexible settings;
- Support for plugins (Google Fit and others);
- Markdown language support.
Disadvantages
- occasional user comments on the “flopping” of paid licenses.
Day
Rating: 4.6
