Export is available to everyone, including after paid access ends, so you can keep a portable copy of your journal.
Bringing a journal in
Echo can import from Day One and from Apple’s Journal app, on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Both are under Settings ▸ Data ▸ Import from Another App, and both are marked Beta, so keep your original export until you’ve checked the result.
Running an import again skips entries that are already in Echo, so it’s safe to repeat if it’s interrupted. Imported entries sync to your other devices through iCloud, and imported moods are kept as you chose them.
From Day One
Entries, tags, photos, videos, audio recordings and PDFs come across.
- In Day One, choose Settings ▸ Import/Export ▸ Export, then JSON. You can export one journal or several.
- In Echo, choose Import from Day One, then Choose Day One Export…, and pick the ZIP Day One saved. There’s no need to unzip it first, though an unzipped folder works too.
- On a Mac, you can turn on Import specific years only and pick the years before you import.
Every journal in the export comes across. Leave Tag entries with their journal on to keep each journal’s name as a tag.
From Apple Journal
Entries with their titles, reflection prompts and formatting come across, along with photos, videos, recordings and places. A State of Mind becomes the entry’s mood, and activities, songs and people are kept as a short list in the entry.
- In Journal on Mac, choose a journal or All Entries, then File ▸ Export. On iPhone or iPad, open a journal or All Entries, tap ••• and Export. On iOS 18, export from Settings ▸ Apps ▸ Journal instead, which saves a ZIP.
- In Echo, go to Settings ▸ Import & Export, choose Apple Journal, then Choose Journal Export…, and pick the folder or ZIP Journal saved.
- Journal’s export doesn’t say which journal it came from, so you can type a journal name, such as Travel, to tag the entries with. It’s optional.
Journal doesn’t export the time of day, so imported entries are placed at midday on their date.
Exporting your journal
Settings ▸ Data ▸ Export Journal writes a ZIP archive:
`` Echo Journal Export YYYY-MM-DD.zip ├── Journal.json ├── photos/ └── videos/ ``
Journal.json is plain UTF-8 JSON, and its shape is deliberately compatible with the Day One archive format, so other apps stand a good chance of reading it. Each entry carries its text as Markdown, its creation and modification dates, its time zone, and its starred and pinned state. Media is exported at full resolution.
The format is documented rather than reverse-engineered: it is a published format with a version number, and readers are expected to reject versions they do not understand.
Media maintenance
Three tools under Settings ▸ Data deal with media that has gone astray:
- Check Media Integrity: finds missing files and broken thumbnails.
- Re-download Synced Media: pulls full-resolution originals back from iCloud.
- Re-upload Media to iCloud: pushes local media back up if a device got out of step.
Run Check Media Integrity first; it usually tells you which of the other two you need.