SteepJournal is a diary for the things you would not put in a note-taking app. It keeps your writing in a single file that you name and store wherever you like, locked with a password only you know.
No account, no sync service, no cloud. Your journal never leaves your computer unless you move the file yourself.
Highlights
- Encrypted from the first keystroke - every entry, tag, photo and attachment is sealed with a key derived from your password. Open the file in any other program and there is nothing to read.
- Your journal is a file, not a database - keep it in Documents, on iCloud Drive, on a USB stick in a drawer. Double-click it and SteepJournal opens straight at its password screen.
- As many journals as you like - one for travel, one for work, one nobody else knows about. Each has its own password, so opening one tells you nothing about the others.
- Unlock with a fingerprint - where your hardware allows it (Touch ID on a Mac), a fingerprint is enough. Your password always works too, and you can switch it off per journal at any time.
- Locks itself when you walk away - after a few idle minutes, or the moment you switch apps if you prefer. There is a Lock Now command and a keyboard shortcut for the times you hear someone coming.
- A timeline you actually want to scroll - entries grouped under big date headers, with previews, photo thumbnails and tags. Search, favourites, a month calendar showing which days you wrote, and an On This Day view that hands back what you were thinking a year ago.
- A distraction-free place to write - a wide serif reading column, a live word count, and autosave that never asks you to press anything.
- Photos and video without the wait - attach as much as you like. Media is stored in pieces and read only as it appears on screen, so a journal with years of photos in it opens as fast as an empty one.
- Streaks and word counts - a gentle nudge, not a guilt machine. A streak survives the day you have not written yet.
- Turn a journal into a website - export a complete personal site: a timeline, a page per entry, tag and month archives, a working search and an RSS feed. It opens straight from the folder, no server needed, and it asks search engines to stay away by default.
- A real desktop app - proper menus, standard shortcuts, full light and dark appearance, and an accent colour that follows whichever journal you opened.
How it works
Open SteepJournal and you are asked to make a journal: give it a name, a colour, somewhere to live, and a password. That password encrypts that file and nothing else, so it is worth choosing well - if you lose it, the journal cannot be opened by anyone, including us.
After that it is just writing. Pick a day, type, add a photo, add a tag. The app saves as you go, locks itself when you step away, and asks for the password again when you come back.
Perfect for
- Anyone who has wanted to keep a diary but did not want it living on somebody else's server
- Travellers keeping a trip log with photos, offline, on a laptop
- People working through something private - therapy notes, grief, a decision they are not ready to talk about
- Writers and researchers who want a dated, searchable record they can later publish as a site
- Anyone sharing a computer who needs their own writing to stay their own
