Journaling has become extremely popular over the past few years. Many people started journaling when the pandemic began, and they keep doing this practice regularly as a habit to look after their mental health.
I personally have been journaling since I learned how to write; one of my favourite things to do when I visit my home in Italy is to go through all my old journals and read some of the entries.
It’s interesting to see how my personality evolved from when I was a little girl to now, and I’m looking forward to reading more journals as the years go by.
When it comes to starting this practice though, there is such an overwhelming variety of notebooks, apps, and other tools to choose from, that some people may not know exactly where to start.
Table of Contents
In this blog post, I’m going to share with you specifically about the 10 best journal apps that you can start using this year.
Here’s a list of the 10 best journal apps to try in 2022, however, I’ll go through a few important points before describing each of them:
- Penzu
- Day One
- The 5 minute journal
- Momento
- Daylio
- Dabble.me
- Moodnotes
- Reflectly
- Jour
- Grateful
What are the benefits of keeping a journal?
First things first, we need to talk about the benefits of keeping a journal. Some people just see it as a waste of time and something that doesn’t really matter, but the benefits of it are many and good, so let’s see a few of them now.
Improved mental health
Now more than ever, we are bombarded with negative news, social media updates, and our general lifestyle doesn’t always allow us to live in a stress-free environment. It’s essential that we take ownership of our mental health, and we do what we can to make sure we are okay from the inside out.
I personally found some great benefits in therapy too, but if you can’t afford that for whatever reason or you want to have an alternative, journaling is great for that.
Putting your emotions down on paper (or screen) can help you to really process what’s going on, get it all out instead of hiding it inside of you, and make sure that you reduce stress, anxiety, fears, and other negative feelings.
Boost of creativity
Journaling doesn’t work the same for everyone, and even if you normally have a specific style of writing, the beautiful thing about it is that you can always switch things up and let your creativity take over.
Sometimes you might write long paragraphs, other times you may just be inspired to draw something related to a specific season in life; you may even decide to write a poem!
The point is, you can allow yourself to be creative and express yourself freely.
Lifelong memories
Probably one of my favourite benefits, journaling allows me to go back to old memories, and suddenly I’m traveling back in time, reminiscing the feelings and conversations and places.
It’s bittersweet sometimes, but it’s the journey of my life and I love looking back at it.
Better processing of emotions
Putting your thoughts and feelings out there will help you to process your emotions better.
Some people really struggle in their interactions with others but even just in the relationship with themselves, because they keep all their emotions bottled up inside and they don’t know how to express them, in good or bad.
Journaling helps you to process things better, put your feelings out there and decide what to do with them.
Improve personal growth
I’m definitely a personal growth nerd, and I found that journaling has been massively helping me in my journey to continue to improve myself.
I’ve been able to think of how far I’ve come, see patterns in my personality, set goals and achieve them, and also keep track of them and celebrate.
I’ve been a lot more intentional about practicing gratitude too, and I normally write down some things I’m grateful for, and that’s made a massive difference in the quality of my life.
You might also like: 40 personal goals examples for your personal growth
Better self-awareness
Tied to the subject of personal growth, self-awareness is a very important part of it.
Sometimes we may have certain traits that aren’t exactly beneficial to us and our relationships, but we may not fully be aware of them.
This is when journaling will come in to help, because by writing down and reading our thoughts and how we deal with certain situations, we’ll be able to identify certain things that we need to work on.
This will make our life so much easier, as well as our relationships and how we interact with other people.
Is it better to journal on paper or computer?
It’s totally up to you to choose whether you want to use a paper journal or a digital one.
My personal preference is to use paper journals because I’m an old school kind of girl and love to smell the pages of a new journal, love to see the ink go on the pages, and I quite like my handwriting too.
However, for a season I used a digital journal for my Bible time and really loved taking notes on it.
Some people prefer one or the other, whereas others like to do a mix of both depending on what they want to write about, so like I said before, it’s completely up to you what to choose.
Are digital journals safe?
Just like with every other digital tool, when it comes to the safety of it you’ll have to be careful of what passwords you use and where you save your credentials.
Most digital journal platforms are safe to use, and they even give you the option of selecting multiple passwords and adding extra security steps, so you shouldn’t be concerned about the safety of your private information.
Let’s dive into the core of this post now and see the best journaling apps for 2022.
10 best journal apps to try in 2022
Photo credits: penzu.com
I personally used Penzu for a while a few years ago, and really loved it!
At first, I was using it as a journal and I loved that I could customize it, record my feelings, but also attach pictures of what I was journaling about.
Then I decided to use it as a Bible journal and it was incredible.
The free version has everything you need, but of course, with the premium one, you can enjoy more customisation as well as having multiple journals with one account.
Penzu is very safe, I was always asked for the password and would always lock it back once I was done. I also love that you can use it both for desktop and download the app on your phone.
Photo credits: dayoneapp.com
Day one is a journal app available for Mac, iOS, Apple Watch, and Android. It offers a basic version which is free, and a Premium one which costs $2,92 per month (billed annually).
You can only have one journal with the free version, whereas the premium one allows you to have unlimited journals, meaning you could have one for your health and wellness, one for your memories, and for whatever else you like to record in your life.
The very cool thing about this is that you can also enjoy the voice-to-text transcription, so if you ever can’t be bothered to type in your entry, you can just talk and Day One will type it down for you!
Photo credits: the 5 minute journal app
From the famous paper journal, the 5 minute journal app is sure to make you start and end your day in a great way!
This is the perfect journal for those who have very busy lives but still want to make a conscious effort to practice mindfulness and slow down for some time in the day.
The cool thing about this is that the prompts in the journal are taken from principles of positive psychology, so this is science-based.
The 5 minute journal focuses on encouraging its users to practice gratitude, as this is really a life-changing habit. Some of the features also include reminders, to make sure you stay consistent with your journaling; they also have prompts, in case you’re not sure where to start in your journaling experience.
The app also offers a premium version, but whatever you choose to do, you’ll have a great experience regardless!
Photo credits: momentoapp.com
Momento means moment in Italian, and the goal of this app is to make you capture the most important moments as well as the ordinary moments of your life.
You can actually sync the app with your favourite social media platforms and import some posts from there that you treasure and want to remember over time.
You can even share the journal entries or tag someone you want to add to them, to make these moments extra special.
Photo credits: daylio.net
This is a very visual app and perfect for those who are on their personal growth journey.
Daylio asks you to select your mood each day, as well as what you’ve been up to, and then it automatically creates some colorful charts and stats based on your responses.
Of course, just like every other app on this list, you can rest assured that your private information will be kept safe with a pin lock, and everything is backed up so you never have to worry about your entries disappearing.
Photo credit: dabble.me
This journaling tool uses such a lovely and creative idea of sending you an email each day asking how your day went. You can reply to the email as if you were talking to a friend, and then you just hit send and your entry will be automatically saved.
Additionally, you can also add a picture to attach to your entry of your day.
This app offers a free and premium version. Because it’s a bit limited on the free version, I’d recommend signing up to the Pro which is only $3 per month!
Photo credits: Moodnotes
Similar to Daylio, this app allows you to track your mood, identify any patterns, and helps you in your personal development and to build better thinking patterns.
You can trust this app because it’s been developed by clinical psychologists, and its content supports cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and positive psychology.
You can also enjoy reading useful self-awareness articles written by mental health experts.
The goal of this app is to help you reframe your thinking, improve your mental health and self-awareness, and help you live a healthy life.
Photo credits: reflectly.app
This journal app is designed to help you practice self-care and mindfulness. Every day, it will ask how you’re feeling, and track your responses so you can track your mood and take action on that.
For example, if you’re feeling stressed or anxious but can’t pinpoint exactly what’s causing it, Reflectly will have the answer for you.
One of the cool features is that you can also get a home screen widget on your phone with motivational quotes, to help boost your mood and support you in your personal development journey.
Photo credits: Jour.com
Jour is a guided journaling app that wants to encourage you to start your day by writing in your journal.
It has 30 morning prompts so you don’t have to worry if you don’t know what to write about, because Jour will help you with that.
The creators of this journal app believe that journaling in the morning has incredible benefits for your wellbeing, and that it will help you to start the day in a better way, so give it a try!
Photo credit: Grateful
Grateful is a simple journal app that wants to encourage you to practice gratitude daily. Practicing gratitude regularly can help to make you feel more positive, boost your mood, and give you more joy.
If you don’t know where to start with journaling, Grateful will help. Each day starts with a simple journal prompt, you’ll be asked a question and then you can just reply to that, write what you feel and attach a photo if you also want to have a visual record.
With the premium version, you can enjoy unlimited entries, data backup, the ability to create your own prompts, and many more features!
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Top 10 best journal apps to try in 2022 – Final thoughts
As you can see from this blog post, keeping a journal has incredible benefits for your mood, mind, and overall health.
The great thing about journaling is that there’s something out there for everyone, so no matter your personality type, you can find something that suits you best.
Try out one (or more!) of these journal apps and let me know what you think!
This Post Has 6 Comments
It’s so true that journaling brings about so much self-awareness. I find that journaling helps me transform my abstract, frazzled thoughts into concrete, clear ideas. Great post 🙂
I love how you put this!
I hadn’t heard of half of these, but now I want to try them all <3
Let me know which one is your favourite 🙂
So many good apps. I think I am going with grateful..
Let me know how you find it! 🙂