Journal by Email
Every journal asks you to come to it. Open the app, find the button, start typing. Email journaling flips that around: the journal comes to you.
Here’s how it works in Little Memory. It’s an iPhone app, and email is one of the ways a line gets in. A reminder email arrives in the evening. You hit reply, write one sentence about your day, and send. That’s it — one sentence about your day, in about fifteen seconds.
Why email works when apps don’t
Reply-to-journal was one of Little Memory’s very first features, suggested by behavioral scientist Jason Hreha. The thinking: the best trigger for a new habit is one that shows up inside a habit you already have. You already check your inbox in the evening. So the journal meets you there, instead of waiting for you to remember it exists.
If you remember OhLife, this is that idea. OhLife did exactly this until it shut down in 2014, and Little Memory has been a home for OhLife journalers ever since.
Still a real journal underneath
Replies land in your journal like any other entry: they show up in search, they keep your streak alive, and they export with everything else. When one comes back around a week, a month, or a year later, you read it in the app. Email is how you write from the couch; the app is where the journal lives.
The gentle reminders (of which you can customize by time of day so it works with your schedule) to say something about your day are very useful and unobtrusive.
Tim Walsh, Product Developer
Built in from the start
Writing by email isn’t something Little Memory bolted on later — it was there in the first version, and the app has been shaped around it ever since. Day One and Journey offer their own version of it on paid plans. (If you’re weighing those apps, the comparisons are honest about who should pick what.)
Prefer a keyboard to your inbox? You can also write the day’s line on your computer.
Curious about the rest — photos, streaks, emotion trends, backups? The little tour covers everything, and the help pages have the mechanics: what to send, what comes back, and what to do on a night the reminder doesn’t arrive.
