You were never bad
at journaling.
Journaling was
badly designed.
Nanari is a voice journaling app that opens with one question about the day you actually had, listens for two minutes, and writes the entry in your words. No blank page, ever.
Install the public betaFree during public beta on TestFlight. iPhone, iOS 26+.
Three ways every journal dies.
None of them are a discipline problem. Nanari was built against these three failures, one feature each. Here is how.
Stuff definitely happened today. But the empty screen asks you to remember it, pick what matters, and write it well, all at 11pm. So you type “today was” and stall.
Journaling charges you effort tonight and pays you back in months. Tired brains do not take that deal. One exhausted Tuesday and the chain quietly breaks.
The point was supposed to be looking back. But nothing ever reminds you to, and the good parts are buried in the mundane. Your past stays a drawer you mean to open.
“It asks. You talk. It writes.”
A journal that asks first. You just answer.
Every other journal hands you an empty screen and waits. Nanari arrives already knowing something about your day and opens with one real question. You were out this afternoon, what took you out? A week into that project, how is it actually going? At most two soft follow-ups, the way a friend who noticed would ask, never a survey and never therapist shaped. Then it stops. It never becomes a chat: the entry ends, the app closes, your evening continues. Other journals show you your day or attach it to a page. Nanari is the one that asks you about it.
Voice journaling that takes two minutes, not twenty.
Some people process out loud. The thoughts arrive faster than their fingers. Press record, let it run, stop when you are done. The text scrolls live while you speak, and Nanari turns what you said into readable prose without flattening your voice: filler goes, meaning stays. Not a summary and not a paraphrase. The words you would have written if writing kept up with you. The raw transcript is saved before any AI touches it, so a dropped connection can’t cost you the entry. Prefer typing tonight? Every step accepts both.
You never have to go looking. It comes back to you.
Nobody rereads a journal. So Nanari does the returning for you. On Sunday evening a quiet recap of your week. What it circled around, how it felt across the days, one line worth remembering, an open question. On the first of the month the same thing at a wider zoom, so you can see how the month moved in ways you could not see from inside it. A rough week gets a soft check-in instead of a cheerful summary. It reads the room.
Notice what keeps coming up.
You never tag anything. Nanari quietly picks up the people, places, pets, and themes your journal keeps circling back to. Tap a name and see every entry that mentioned them, when they first showed up, how the mood moved, the places you were together. You already knew Nora mattered. Here you can see how.
What that means is yours to say. No streaks, no scorecards, no “you missed a day.” When Nanari notices a pattern in your writing, it hands you the observation and keeps the interpretation to itself. It reflects; it never rates you.
Your own words come back to you.
Sometimes today rhymes with something you wrote months ago. Nanari quietly places that past entry at the top of the feed. The exact line you said then, no commentary, no “look how you’ve grown.” Just what you said, back when it was true the first time. On birthdays and anniversaries a one year ago tile shows anything you wrote on this date before. Time made visible without being explained to you.
Quiet rules, kept.
Voice journaling, answered plainly.
What do I write in a journal when I don’t know what to say?+−
Nothing, to start. Nanari looks at your day: the photos you took, the events on your calendar, the things you mentioned this week. It asks one specific question. You answer it out loud the way you’d answer a friend. That answer becomes the entry.
Is this a voice journal or an AI chatbot?+−
A voice journal. Nanari asks one question and at most two follow-ups, then it stops. No endless chat, no AI companion, no advice. A journal with a good interviewer inside, not a friend simulator.
How is Nanari different from Apple Journal or Day One?+−
Those apps show you your day or attach it to a page, then the writing is up to you. Nanari is the one that asks you about your day and writes the entry from what you say, in your words.
What happens to my entries? Can the AI read my journal?+−
Your journal lives on your phone and your iCloud. Entries you mark private never touch AI at all. Nothing is used for training, nothing is sold, and you can export everything as JSON, Markdown, or PDF any time.
Does journaling by voice actually work?+−
Speaking works the same way writing does for processing a day, and decades of expressive-writing research back the habit itself. Talking is simply faster and easier at 11pm, which is when most journals die.
What does Nanari cost?+−
Nanari will be a paid app with a free trial. The subscription is what keeps your journal private. You pay with money, not with your data.
Be there for the first nights.
Nanari is on TestFlight right now. Install it in a tap, journal tonight, and help shape it before it hits the App Store.
Install the public beta
Coming to the App Store after beta