Paperkept
What you wrote is still there.
A private journal for iPhone and iPad. No account to be logged out of, no server to lose it, and nothing you write is sent anywhere — not to us, not to anyone.
Coming to the App Store
Why this exists
Five journals lost people's writing while we were reading their reviews.
“Journaled almost daily for two years and it logged me out and won't let me sign back in, so I just lost everything.”
A review of one of the largest journal apps on the store.
Every one of them is a company far bigger than this one, and every one of them fails in the same place. Durability is not a hard problem. It is a priority, and it was nobody's.
Here it is the first requirement. Every keystroke goes to the disk as it is typed, and a write is not reported as done until the disk says so. Killed mid-sentence from the app switcher, the text was still there — checked character for character, not assumed.
What it promises, in order
What you wrote is still there
No account, no sign-in that can fail, no sync that can win an argument against you.
Nothing leaves the device
The journal is encrypted on the disk, with a key that never leaves this device. No analytics, no crash reports: the app sends nothing, anywhere.
Your own words are never behind a paywall
Writing, reading, search, the lock and exporting everything are free forever, including after a subscription ends.
A real lock
Face ID, Touch ID, your device passcode or one of your own, asked when you open the journal and after you have been away.
What is in it
Write and find
Dated entries, full-text search, and previews built around the match.
Dictation
Speak and the words appear, recognised on the device itself. Nothing is recorded and nothing is sent.
Photographs
Pictures beside the words, encrypted on the device like everything else.
On this day
What you wrote on this date in earlier years, above the list.
Your year
The year you wrote, on one page: entries, words, and the months you wrote most.
Notebooks
Work, dreams and letters kept apart. A notebook can arrive with a shape — gratitude, three lines, morning pages — or keep a passcode of its own.
Export and import
Everything in one file — photographs included — and readable back in. Day One and Journey exports come in too, and import never overwrites what is already here.
A copy in a folder
Once a day, into a folder you choose. A second iPhone or iPad that can reach the same folder catches up from it.
The book
The journal, one notebook or one year, set as a book in a PDF.
Paper and type
Plain, cream or slate, light or dark, in a reading serif or your system face.
A daily reminder
One notification, at a time you choose. It never says what you wrote, and there is no streak to keep.
A widget
The date on your home screen, one tap from a new entry, and nothing you wrote.
What it does not do
The list of absences is the product.
No AI
Nothing reads your entries. Not to summarise them, not to score your mood, not to suggest anything.
No account
Nothing to sign into, so nothing to be locked out of.
No sync server
A second device catches up from a folder you already own, such as your iCloud Drive. There is no server of ours in between.
No cloud backup
Your journal is excluded from iCloud backups. Export whenever you like — it is free, and the copy goes where you choose.
No analytics
No usage statistics, no crash reports, no advertising identifiers.
No mood tracking
This is a journal, never therapy. No diagnoses, no wellbeing claims, no scores.
This page, too
There is no analytics script on this site, no cookie, and no request to any third party. The typeface is served from this domain rather than from Google. A page selling an app that sends nothing should not be phoning anybody either.