Ember: A Private Journal and Life Archive for Mac, iPhone and iPad

A figure holding a small flame inside a cave, surrounded by painted handprints and deer

From the very beginning, we have wanted to remember our people.

scroll

We drew them on cave walls - handprints beside handprints, so no one would forget who stood there together.

We carved them in stone. We shaped them into dolls, stitched them into quilts, told them around fires. Never as lists. Never as records. Always as stories.

Eventually we started journaling. It was good - but it was linear. One page after another, days filed away in order, the people inside them scattered across a thousand entries.

Ember isn't a new category of app. Honestly, I don't know where it fits.

I think I made something primitive - a way to remember your people through stories, narratives, worlds and intention.

I hope you love it as much as I do.

Made by one person
This is Ember

The life archive software.

A native app for Mac, iPhone and iPad that turns your journal into a life archive - every person, story and world you write gathered into one living record of your life, built around the people at its center and yours to own and keep.

Free forever

The whole journal, every feature. Plus is only sync and themes.

Yours to keep

Back up and export your entire journal as an open, documented archive - restore it anytime, free.

Private & local

Lives on your device, syncs through your own iCloud. No Ember server.

Views · The Graph
A living map of everyone you keep. Click any person to open them.
Elizabeth Bennet's archive
An imagined Ember archive inspired by Pride and Prejudice
Search ⌘K
VIEWS
All People
14
Graph
LIFE
Journal
Stories
ATTENTION
Feed
Needs a nudge
WORLDS
Longbourn
Pemberley
Meryton
Netherfield
Add World
TAGS
letters
Add Tag
Backed up 1 min ago
Graph A living map · 16 people · 4 worlds
Timeline
Add person
Life · The Journal

Mention someone once, and the entry is theirs forever.

Write the day as it happened, then type @ and a name - that's the whole ritual. The moment stays with that person, their world, and the story you're continuing. Open their page years later and it's all still there, in your own words.

Not a contact record. A handprint beside a handprint.
Worlds keep your contexts apart, and a Story can span years - you decide what belongs together.
Attention · The Feed

Look back. And gently, reach out.

Ember is not a CRM - you keep only the moments worth remembering. When someone you're tending goes quiet, they surface here beside your own last words about them. No AI, no suggested replies - just a reminder, made of what you wrote.

Ember nudges you toward people, never toward the app. It will never remind you to write.
Every device

One archive. Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Ember is one app on every Apple device you own, with every feature on each - except the graph, which needs more room than a phone. Plus keeps them in step through your own iCloud - never our servers.

Mac

Where you sit down and really write. A full keyboard, long entries, and the graph laid out wide.

iPhone

Catch the moment it happens. Walking home from dinner, @mention who you were with in thirty seconds.

iPad

Read back and reflect. Wander your people, their stories and the graph from the couch.

One purchase covers every device.
Themes

Make it yours.

Pick a theme you like, and watch all three screens recolor together.

Views · The Graph
Life · The Journal
Attention · The Feed
Restraint

Primitive, like pen and paper. Kept that way.

Restraint is our philosophy, not a feature list. Ember does nothing on your behalf - it holds what you give it and shows it back, nothing more. Every request gets one question: can people live without it? If the answer is yes, it doesn't go in.

For example -
No mood tracker Just write mood: sad at the top of the entry. It's your journal - words are enough.
No auto-location If a place matters, tap a button and attach it. It should feel intentional - nothing is logged behind your back.
No write reminders We will never nudge you to journal. If you want a ritual, your calendar or alarm app already does that beautifully.
No AI Ember never writes, summarizes or suggests a single word. The app isn't intelligent - you are. Every sentence in your journal is yours.

New features come from the people who use Ember - we call them shepherds. They leave ideas on our Feedback board, they ask, and only what a life truly needs gets built.

Privacy

We can't read your journal. We built it that way.

Ember is local-first. Everything you write lives on your device and syncs through your own iCloud - your Apple account, your keys. There is no Ember server and no account to create. We use minimal, privacy-friendly analytics to improve the app, but we never collect your journal entries.

● Local-first ● Syncs via your iCloud ● Works fully offline ● Private journals

And no lock-in, ever.

Export everything as plain JSON - the format is openly documented at /docs. Moving in? Ember imports from Day One. Leave as easily as you arrived.

↓ Import · Day One ↑ Export · JSON ● Documented at /docs
Planned Pricing

The whole journal is free.

Ember is made by one person, with no investors and no ads. The entire journal is free forever, and it never expires. If you want your journal on your Mac, iPhone and iPad at once, kept in step through your own iCloud, and the full theme catalogue, that is Plus - and it quietly keeps this one-person project alive.

Free
Everything you need to keep a life.
  • ✓ Unlimited journal, people & stories
  • ✓ Worlds & Stories
  • ✓ The Graph
  • ✓ Feed & Nudge
  • ✓ Backup & restore with Ember Archive
  • − Sync between your devices
  • − Full theme catalogue

Free works on every device. Without Plus, each device keeps its own journal. Your data is yours regardless - back up your whole journal and restore it, anytime, for free.

Recommended
Ember Plus
Free, plus the two things it can't do alone.
  • ✓ Everything in Free
  • ✓ Sync across Mac, iPhone & iPad Plus
  • ✓ Private iCloud backup Plus
  • ✓ Full theme catalogue Plus
Monthly
1 week free, then billed monthly
$4.99/mo
Yearly Save 33%
2 weeks free, then billed yearly
$39.99/yr
Lifetime Early users only
Pay once, keep it forever - going away after launch
$119.99
Try the Beta

Ember will be free to download on Mac, iPhone and iPad. One purchase of Plus covers all of them. Plus is optional - the free journal never expires.