A private journal app without an account: what to check

A journal is the most personal thing most people keep on a phone. It holds the bad days, the names, the things you wouldn’t say out loud. So “private” should mean something specific, and with journal apps it often doesn’t. The word appears on almost every store listing.

This post is a short checklist for judging any journal app, followed by an honest account of how Shadowkit’s Journal skill answers each point, including the ones where it falls short.

1. Where are the entries stored?

This is the question that decides the rest. There are three common answers:

• On the company’s server. You write on your phone, and the text is sent to the maker’s service. It may be encrypted on the way and at rest, but the company holds it.
• On the server, encrypted so only you can read it. This is called end-to-end encryption. The maker stores your entries but can’t read them. It’s a real protection, and it’s worth checking whether it’s on by default or something you have to switch on.
• On your phone only. Nothing is sent anywhere. There’s no copy for anyone to read, leak or hand over, and no copy to restore from if you lose the phone.

None of these is wrong. They are different trades between convenience and exposure. What matters is that the app tells you plainly which one it is.

2. Does it need an account?

An account ties your journal to an email address. That’s needed for sync, and it’s how most apps restore your entries on a new phone. It also means there is a record, somewhere, that this person keeps a journal with this service.

Some apps make the account optional: you can write first and sign up later if you want sync. That’s a good sign. An app that won’t let you type a word before you’ve given an email address has told you what it values.

3. Can it work offline?

A journal that needs a connection will fail you on a flight, on a walk and in the places where you finally have time to write. Turn on aeroplane mode and try it: open the app, write an entry, close it, open it again.

On Android you can go one step further. Every app’s store listing has a permissions list, and an app that can’t use the network at all won’t list internet access. It’s a rare thing to see, and it’s the strongest version of “your entries stay on this phone”, because the app has no way to send them.

4. Is there a lock?

Storage and accounts protect you from people far away. A lock protects you from the person holding your unlocked phone. Many journal apps offer a passcode or a fingerprint lock of their own, on top of the phone’s.

Decide how much this matters to you. If you hand your phone to your children or share a tablet, an app lock is worth a lot. If your phone is always locked and always yours, the phone’s own lock may be enough.

5. Can you get your words out?

A journal is something you might keep for decades, and no app lasts that long. Check what leaves the app and in what form: a full export, a PDF, plain text. A journal you can’t take with you is a risk of a different kind.

6. What does it cost, and what happens if you stop paying?

Free, a one-time purchase and a subscription are all fair. The thing to look for is what happens to entries you’ve already written if you stop paying. They should stay readable.

How Shadowkit’s Journal answers each one

Shadowkit is ours, so take this section as a maker describing their own work. Journal is one of the skills in the app. Here is where it stands on the six points.

Storage: on your phone only. Entries are kept in the app’s private storage. There is no server and no sync. The first screen of an empty journal says it in the app’s own words: “Everything stays on this phone.”

Account: none. There’s nothing to sign up for anywhere in the app. We explain the reasoning in why Shadowkit has no account.

Offline: always. The Android app doesn’t have the internet permission, so it couldn’t upload an entry if it tried. Every part of Journal works without a connection: writing, the calendar and search.

Lock: not in this version. Journal has no passcode or fingerprint lock of its own. Your phone’s lock is what protects it. If you need a second lock inside the app, Shadowkit’s Journal isn’t the right choice yet, and we would rather say so than have you find out later.

Getting your words out: one entry at a time. Each entry has Share as text, which hands plain text to your phone’s share sheet: the date and time, the mood if there is one, then your words. From there you can send it to your files, your email or another app. There is no export of the whole journal in this version. Your phone’s own backup, if you’ve turned it on, may include Shadowkit’s data so that it comes back on a new phone. That runs under your Google or Apple account and your settings, and we have no access to it.

Cost: free up to 30 entries in a profile. Moods, the calendar, search and sharing are all free. Shadowkit Pro removes the limit on entries. If Pro ever lapses, nothing you wrote is locked or deleted: every entry still opens, edits, shares and deletes. Only starting a new entry stops.

What writing in it is like

An entry is plain text that belongs to a day, with an optional mood: five faces from awful to great. You can write several entries in one day, and each shows the time it was written.

There is no Save button. An entry is stored as you type, and again when you leave the screen or the app goes into the background, so a phone call in the middle of a sentence doesn’t cost you the sentence.

Some days you won’t have words. Tapping a face on the “How was today?” card records the mood by itself, and the day still counts as written.

A calendar shows the days you wrote, each in the colour of its mood, with a bar underneath for the month’s moods. You can tap an earlier day to write an entry for it, which helps when you’re catching up after a trip. An entry’s day can’t be changed afterwards.

Search looks through everything you’ve written and marks the match. And a small count of days in a row sits under the calendar, with your longest run next to it. A day without an entry ends the run, but it takes nothing else away.

If you use profiles, each has its own journal. A work profile’s entries don’t appear in your personal one.

What it leaves out

So you know before you try it: no photos or attachments, no tags, no writing prompts, no reminders to write, no rich text, and no sync between devices. It’s a place for a few lines about the day and how it felt, and little else.

The short version

For any journal app, find out where the entries live, whether an account is required, whether it works in aeroplane mode, whether it locks, and how your words get out. Then pick the trade that suits you. If sync across devices matters most, choose an app with end-to-end encryption and check that it’s on. If you’d rather nothing left your phone at all, choose one that works offline with no account.

Shadowkit is the second kind. It’s coming soon to iOS and Android, and the FAQ covers the common questions in the meantime.