An Online Memory Journal

an honest note before you pick one

First, the honest part, before you’ve read three paragraphs: if an online memory journal means a journal you write in a browser tab, Little Memory isn’t that. It’s an iPhone app. If browser writing is the thing you need, no hard feelings — close this tab with our blessing.

But a lot of people typing that phrase mean something softer than a browser. They mean not paper: a memory journal that’s backed up somewhere safe, that reaches them at the end of the day, that doesn’t live and die on a shelf. If that’s the wish, keep reading — this might be the coziest version of it.

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.

1. a week later
2. a month
3. three months
4. six months
5. a year
6. every year after

little memory now

Exactly 1 year ago

Finally fixed the wobbly chair. Took four minutes.

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 journal that comes to your inbox

Little Memory sends a gentle email each evening. You hit reply, write one line about your day, and send — about fifteen seconds, no app open, no browser tab either. The entry is saved with everything else. Journaling by email has been part of Little Memory since 2011 (an idea beloved since the OhLife days), and there’s a whole page on how it works.

Everything “online” was supposed to give you

What most of us want from putting a journal online is really safekeeping: nothing lost in a move, a flood, or a phone upgrade. That’s all here — automated nightly backups to Dropbox, full export whenever you like, and search across every year. And the memory part is the app’s whole heart: what you wrote comes back to you a week, a month, and a year later, a little time capsule paying out on its own schedule.

Where the journal lives

The reading, the photos, the streaks, and the looking-back all happen in the iPhone app, which has been quietly running since 2011 — over 1,000,000 memories from over 30,000 journalers, private by default, with support straight from the developer.

So: browser journal, no. A memory journal that meets you in your inbox each evening and keeps your years safe — that, happily, yes. And if it was the keyboard you wanted rather than the browser itself, you can still write the day’s line on your computer. The little tour shows the rest, and the comparisons are honest about the other apps too.