A Five Year Journal App for iPhone
Every paper five-year journal has the same ending printed into it: the fifth slot on the last page. Five years of one-line days, and then the book is full. Start a second book, and the years stop sitting together — the whole magic of the thing, last year’s line above this year’s, resets to page one.
Little Memory is the five year journal as an iPhone app, and it skips the ending. It’s been collecting one-line days since 2011 — over 1,000,000 memories from over 30,000 journalers, and featured by Apple three times.
Your memories come back
Write one line tonight and that’s your journaling for the day. Seven days on it turns up again, and after that it keeps turning up.
- a week later
- a month
- three months
- six months
- a year
- every year after
little memory
now
Exactly 1 year ago
Walked the long way home for no reason.
Have it come to you at an hour you pick, or leave notifications off and find them waiting the next time you open the app.
The same little ritual
The habit is the one you already know from the book: at the end of the day, write one line about today. About fifteen seconds. No prompts to answer, no empty page to fill — one slim slot, same as ever.
The book’s quiet magic is here too, and then some. The book shows you this date in past years; Little Memory also brings back what you wrote a week ago and a month ago, so the looking-back starts in your first month, and reaches further back with every year you add.
Year six exists here
There’s no last page. Year six lands on top of year five, and the lines just keep stacking — the little time capsule simply keeps filling. The app has been at this for over a decade, so nobody is running out of room.
The stack does something quieter too. Reading your own past back tends to strengthen the sense of being continuous with it, the feeling that the person who wrote year one and the person reading in year six are recognizably the same person. It’s most of why the sixth year is better than the first.
What the book can’t do
- It taps you on the shoulder. A nightly reminder email, and replying to it saves the day’s line.
- It takes photos. Some days the line is a picture.
- It’s searchable. Five years of tiny handwriting has no index.
- It can’t be lost in a move. Automated nightly backups to Dropbox, and you can export everything at any time.
- It counts for you. Current and longest streaks, most used words, and how your emotions have shifted over the years.
I’ve been using it for eight years and it’s my favorite app for iPhone… I get to receive this memory years down the road, as a reminder of good times had, struggles overcome, and triumphs big and small.
Yowza3, App Store Review
Private by default
One-line memories tend to be the honest ones, so yours are always private by default — no social media login required, and support comes straight from the developer.
More of a habit person than a book person? The same app, pitched a different way: the one line a day approach. Or see how Little Memory compares to other journaling apps, or take the little tour.
