--- title: "A Free Journal App for iPhone, iPad and Mac, No Subscription Needed | Ember" description: "Ember is a free journal app for iPhone, iPad and Mac: unlimited entries, photos and voice memos, no ads, no account and no AI. Ember Plus adds sync and themes. Exactly what is free, and how it compares." url: https://ember.mov/free-core-journal/ language: en updated: 2026-11-09 --- Ember • PricingUpdated November 9, 2026By [Nandha](https://ember.mov/author/nandha/) # A free journal app, for good. ![Branches of white almond blossom against a clear blue sky.](https://ember.mov/assets/art/van-gogh-almond-blossom.webp) *Vincent van Gogh, Almond Blossom, 1890* **Ember is a free journal app for iPhone, iPad and Mac. The whole journal is free with no time limit: unlimited entries, people, photos, videos and voice memos, with no ads, no account and no AI. You never need a subscription to write, keep or export your journal.** An optional upgrade, Ember Plus, adds sync between your devices and the full set of themes. Software pricing is usually where the honesty runs out. So here is exactly how Ember works, with nothing hidden and nothing buried in a footnote. ## What is free, forever The core of Ember is free, and it never expires. This is not a trial or a teaser that quietly locks after thirty days. It is the whole journal. - **Unlimited everything.** Journal entries, people, stories, and worlds, with no caps. - **Photos, videos and voice memos.** As many as you like, on every device. - **The Graph.** The living map of your people, free on Mac and iPad. - **The Feed and the Nudge page.** Free, with a quiet nudge when someone you are tending starts to fade. - **Your data, out the door any time.** Full export to an open JSON archive, and free import from Day One, Apple Journal and Diarium. You can write in Ember for a decade, never pay a cent, and keep everything. Your [life archive](https://ember.mov/life-archive-app/) is not held behind a paywall, and it never will be. ## What Ember Plus adds Ember Plus is optional. It adds two things, and only two: - **Private iCloud sync** across your devices, through your own iCloud and encrypted by Apple. Ember never sees it. - **The full theme catalogue**, so the app can look exactly the way you want it to. That is the entire difference. Nothing about your writing, your people, or your ability to keep and export your data depends on Plus. ## Yes, Plus is a subscription. Here is why. Plus is available monthly or yearly, with a lifetime option, from $4.99 a month in the US. Prices follow purchasing power, so in many countries Plus costs less. You can see the current pricing on the [pricing page](https://ember.mov/pricing/). It is fair to ask why sync should cost anything at all, since it runs on your own iCloud and costs me nothing in servers. The honest answer is that you are not paying for infrastructure. You are helping keep a one-person project alive. Ember is made by one person, with no investors and no ads. There is no growth team, and nothing in Ember is built to keep you in the app. Plus is what funds the slow, careful, ongoing work of building an app meant to last for decades. If supporting that is something you want to do, Plus is how. If it is not, the journal is yours to keep, for free, regardless. ## No ads, no data mining, no catch Because there are no investors to answer to, there is no pressure to monetize your attention or your writing. Ember shows no ads, sells nothing about you, and cannot read your entries. The whole business model fits in one sentence: a free core, an optional upgrade, and no one in the middle. ## How Ember compares with other free journal apps "Free" means different things in different apps. Here is what you get without paying, as of November 2026. | App | What is free | What costs money | | --- | --- | --- | | Ember | The whole journal on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with unlimited entries, photos, videos and voice memos | Sync between devices and the full theme catalogue (Ember Plus) | | Apple Journal | Everything, on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with iCloud sync | Nothing | | Day One | Basic: one device, one photo per entry | Sync and more media (Silver, $49.99 a year); AI features (Gold, $74.99 a year) | | Diarium | Most features on Android, iPhone, iPad and Mac | Sync, PDF and Word export, integrations (Pro, a one-time purchase per platform); paid on Windows | Checked against each app's own site in October and November 2026. See the full comparisons: [Apple Journal](https://ember.mov/apple-journal-alternative/), [Day One](https://ember.mov/day-one-alternative/), [Diarium](https://ember.mov/diarium-alternative/). For price, devices, sync and AI side by side, see [the best journaling apps for Mac in 2026](https://ember.mov/best-journaling-apps-for-mac/). ## Common questions ### Is there a free journal app for iPhone? Yes. Ember is free on iPhone, iPad and Mac with no limit on what you write, and Apple's own Journal app is free too. Ember adds a page for everyone you write about; Apple Journal adds suggestions from your day. ### Is there a journal app with no subscription? Ember's journal needs no subscription: you can write, keep and export everything for free, for as long as you like. Only sync between devices and extra themes are part of Ember Plus. ### What happens if I stop paying for Ember Plus? Your journal stays exactly where it is, on your device, and you can keep writing. Sync stops, and exports keep working. Nothing you wrote is locked away. ### Does the free version have ads? No. Ember has no ads on any plan, and it never sells or reads your writing. ### Do I need an account? No. There is no Ember account to create. If you choose Plus, sync runs through your own iCloud. ### Start your free journal Ember is free on Mac, iPhone and iPad. No account, no ads, no AI, and your journal stays yours. [Download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6775558241?pt=128905247&ct=site&mt=8)