Show HN: Journelly for iOS: like tweeting but for your eyes only (in plain text)
81 xenodium 64 5/4/2025, 11:05:10 AM xenodium.com ↗
On iOS, I've flip-flopped back and forth between a bunch of note-taking and journaling apps. None would stick.
My initial attempts at building such an app faded just the same, until I realized I wanted the same level of low-friction posting and browsing offered by social media apps, but for my quick notes. Not social, just easy posting, search, and a familiar feed.
This is how Journelly came to be. I like to describe it as: tweeting, but for your eyes only (fully offline and in plain text).
If you’re an Org markup user, you’ll be delighted to know it’s powered by unicorns under the hood.
If you’re a Markdown fan, please get in touch! I’m recording interest for journelly + markdown at xenodium.com. The more requests I get, the sooner I’ll get Markdown support out the door.
Hope you like the app!
The problem that org-mode and Markdown face is that they are fairly minimal. It's common to use plugins, that aren't supported everywhere. This kills portability, which is a core "selling point".
I have seen it happen it Obsidian and Logseq - but even GitHub has a slightly altered Markdown spec.
[1] https://www.beorgapp.com
Org markup is fairly rich. Journelly is my 4th Org app on iOS. Neither has required additional syntax/plugin to cover my use-cases.
I would say maybe it's the opposite for Org. My apps implement a subset of Org features and, because its plain text, the user experience degrades fairly gracefully.
edit: This doc still blows my mind https://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html
https://irreal.org/blog/?p=12894
Glad to hear!
> Intrigued to try it (vs BeOrg)
Both apps speak org on iOS. It just so happens the apps offer different targeted experiences. While Beorg is perhaps more geared toward task lists and calendars, Journelly focuses on short and quick notes.
I use it a lot for saving links for all sort of things like movies, music, videos, restaurants. You can share from letterboxd, shazam, youtube, google maps, etc. into Journelly. You get link previews in the app and in the case of youtube, play from app.
edit: typo
I'm much more willing to buy a $15 app if it feels like it has legs even if I may give up with it after a month or two than to possibly lock myself into a much smaller amount forever.
The amount I'm willing to pay on the app store only goes up if the app is _also_ open source.
While a one-time fee seems preferable from a customer-standpoint, I personally prefer annual subscription fees. It allows for a potentially lower initial cost, making it more accessible to potential customers, but--more importantly--provides an obvious recurring revenue model for the author, hopefully implying on-going development. Ideally you would retain access to the app if your annual subscription lapses, but could receive upgrades after reviving your subscription. Whenever there is a one-time fee for an "average" app (no offense intended), I always wonder how the author can afford to keep updating it in the future.
Having said all that, Journelly can be used in all sorts of ways, including quick-note taking, shopping list, or even sending things to the app for me to save (a link to web, music, movie, etc).
Coincidentally, I've come up with same idea independently with my own journaling app with a social media interface (Minders). I've seen at least a couple of other apps that go for this kind user experience, which is fun, as there's lots of ways to tackle this type of app. For me, I put in some ideas consistent with social media that may or may not work (still figuring it out), like being able to "retweet" earlier posts, quote them, and reply to them, so it's kind of like having a conversation with yourself across time.
I've found that the social media-like UI really does help with recording quick notes to myself. It seems to promote more browsing than, say, a list of notes, and hashtags make it fun to jump around and see related notes, etc.
Best of luck on your app!
An application I use for a similar “tweeting but for your eyes only” experience is Memos and the MoeMemo’s app. My main reason for using memos is being able to self-hosted the server and I can use it in the browser and the app.
links:
https://github.com/usememos/memos
https://github.com/mudkipme/MoeMemos
ps. I've now gone full-time indie and hoping to make a living off my projects.
edit: typo
It always surprises me when people who know how hard it is to make and support great software, complain about a price like $15.
I'm also happy to add you to the TestFlight group if you'd like to take it for a spin before you make your decision.
Get in touch: journelly . invite at xenodium.com
Like good old shareware of yore.
edit: It's not uncommon to try apps on the App Store and request a refund if it doesn't work out https://support.apple.com/en-us/118223
I only received one other request for this. Was it you? ;-)
Joking aside, top-newest seems to fit very well with the familiarity of microblogging feeds, which has been a selling point.
One question I do have though is how freely available is your data? The post makes it sound like it’s accessible but how does that work?
1. Change the storage location to some place outside the app (pick a directory or use iCloud Drive). You can peek at this directory at any time and open the plain text file (Journelly.org).
2. Export a backup archive (zip), which includes both plain text file and all assets (images).
Adding Reminders to the backlog and think about.
Edit: thanks for congrats!
I need to flesh this out more and gauge real interest, but each entry could potentially have a toggle to make it public on https://lmno.lol
Theoretially, any third party app that is a file provider https://developer.apple.com/documentation/fileprovider should be able available to Journelly.
The reality is that reliability and provider completeness by third parties varies drastially. For example, many of them don't offer directory access to other apps (Nextcloud as an example https://github.com/nextcloud/ios/issues/3283#issuecomment-27...), which is a show-stopper for Journelly. It needs a directory to save images.
Here's a thread with some third party options some folks are using with Journelly https://framapiaf.org/@marczz/114369575100101184
Working Copy, SyncTrain, and Möbius Sync are amongst the ones I've heard working from users. For v1, I'm officially supporting iCloud (but still leaving it open for folks to try other providers). I'm just not able to do what's necessary to implement or fix what's needed in those providers (their app/codebase).
It looks like an easy way to get in to digital journalling.
Also, it feels much less like a journaling app and more of whatever you want it to be. Or as jcs from irreal puts it https://irreal.org/blog/?p=12908:
"As more and more users have started using the beta, I’ve come to realize that Journelly is a bit of a shape shifter that adapts itself to your needs."
Unlike Apple, Journelly is entirely offline by default (with optional iCloud syncing). It stores your data to a single plain text file (much friendlier for data preservation).
You can see it all in more detail at the blog post https://xenodium.com/journelly-like-tweeting-but-for-your-ey...
Hope that answers your question.
- No account needed for anything.
- Usability (feels more lightweight yet familiar to posting on social media).
- Share anything from other apps (Safari, Google Maps, Twitter, Reddit...) and have it rendered in app. I use this a lot to save things like places I want to eat, music (share from Shazam), movies (share from letterboxd), etc.
- YouTube video links are rendered (and playable from Journelly).
- Simplicity of where your data is stored (single plain text file). Easily accessible and friendly to data preservation.
Before someone suggests to purchase and ask refund if things don’t work out, Apple has been flat out rejecting my refund requests despite genuine justifications for many recent purchases.