A journal belongs in a notebook (or set of notebooks), which is why I used that word in the title of this post. You may find that you write enough about a certain subject that you want to group those entries in their own sub-journal.

A journal should be able to handle date-centric notes, but it should also be a place to write about any subjects you like unrelated to the date.

I’d recommend Diarly, but DayOne and Lifecraft are both worth a look.

If you just want to keep a diary, you might be happier with another app. You might record your thoughts about various subjects in a diary, but they are organized by date.

A diary is for keeping a record of what happened on specific days.I make the following distinction between a diary and a journal: But after several years of failing to be satisfied with my diary/journals I decided to give MJ another go. When DayOne went to a subscription, I looked elsewhere for a new diary app and relegated MJ to the app scrap heap. I dabbled in using MJ for other types of writing, but then DayOne came along and it dazzled me with its clean appearance and the easy way it synchronized material between MacOS and iOS, so I turned to it for my diary. I slowly uncovered other features that made it useful for all kinds of writing and note keeping, but I was committed to Scrivener and then Ulysses for longer-form writing (I don’t mean book-length work, but essays and long notes about specific things). I didn’t really appreciate MJ at the time, but it was touted as the best diary app, and that’s how I first used it. When I first journeyed back to MacOS for my personal use about 11 years ago, I installed Scrivener, CircusPoinies Notebook and MacJournal almost immediately. In this post, I want to discuss my reasons for returning to MacJournal as my number one notebook.

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