Journaling apps vs a food diary: writing vs snapping.

Credit first

What Day One does well.

Day One’s App Store page lists photos, location with a map of everywhere you’ve journaled from, customizable templates, separate journals, On This Day, and end-to-end encryption with passcode or Face ID locks. Its site says it runs on iPhone, Android, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, and in a browser, with automatic backups and export. A “Restaurants” journal with a template is a lovely setup if you like to write.

Built in

What Apple Journal does well.

Apple’s Journal app is already on iPhone. Apple says its Journaling Suggestions group outings, photos, workouts and more to help you remember, and you can start an entry with those attachments in one tap. Entries can hold photos, drawings, audio and music; you can search by category, print or export, and protect your journal.

For a reflective line about dinner — “first warm night of spring, ate outside at the Greek place” — it’s effortless.

The real split

Writing vs snapping.

A journal entry is prose. That’s its strength: tone, feeling, the story of a day. But food memories are mostly lists — what we ordered, where, with whom — and lists are the thing journals make you type.

PlateDiary flips it. One photo is the entry; every dish is cut out on your phone; the place and time come from the photo. Writing is optional — a one-line note when you feel like it.

Only a food diary

Structure only a food diary has.

• Places — a page for each restaurant with your usual and every dish you’ve had there.
• Companions — a page for each person: where it started, your usual together, every time together.
• Counts — “eaten 3×”, from your own dish names.
• A map of every place you’ve eaten.
• Stories — your month and year in food, made on your phone.

At a glance

Day One, Apple Journal and PlateDiary.

Copy this

A food entry template for any journal app.

If you do keep food in Day One or Apple Journal, a fixed template makes entries quick and searchable later. Paste this in and fill only what you remember:

• Where: name, neighborhood, city.
• With: first names.
• The table: one photo, all the plates in it.
• Order again: the one dish you’d come back for.
• Skip: the one you wouldn’t.
• The moment: a line about the night — the toast, the rain, the waiter who sang.

Better together

Keep a journal for your life, a diary for the table.

You don’t have to choose. Keep writing in Day One or Apple Journal. Snap meals in PlateDiary. When a dinner deserves a paragraph — a proposal, a farewell, the best meal of a trip to Mexico City — share the moment from PlateDiary as a picture and drop it into your journal entry.

We make PlateDiary, so weigh that in.

Sources

Where the facts come from