For many Day One users, journals are more than a place to write. They are a system. A travel journal kept separate from a work log. A gratitude practice that lives apart from a dream record. A parenting diary that deserves its own space. Over time, that system can grow, and a long sidebar list of journals can make it harder to find what you are looking for.
Day One now includes Journal Collections, a new way to bring order to that list without changing how any individual journal works.
What Collections Do
A Collection is a named group that holds journals. You can create as many collections as you need, name them anything, and move journals in or out at any time. A collection might group all your personal journals together, keep work journals in one place, or separate active journals from archived ones. The structure is entirely up to you.
Collections live in the sidebar alongside your journals. Expand a collection to show the journals inside it, or collapse it to clear visual space. A journal belongs to one collection at a time, and journals inside a collection behave exactly as they always have: entries sync, reminders work, and nothing about how Day One feels changes. A collection is purely a way to organize your sidebar, not a merged feed of entries.
Getting Started
Setting up your first collection takes just a few steps, and it works much the same way across every platform.
- Create a collection. Select the Add button at the top of your Journals list and choose New Collection.
- Give it a name. Type something that reflects what belongs inside, like “Personal,” “Work,” or “Travel,” and confirm.
- Move journals in. Drag a journal onto the collection on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android, or open any journal’s menu and choose Move to Collection on any platform. Moving a journal into a collection removes it from any collection it was in before.
- Tidy up. On iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android, tap or click the arrow next to a collection’s name to fold it closed. Day One remembers that collapsed state on each device.
The Add button sits at the top of your Journals list on every platform:
- iPhone and iPad: the + button at the top of the Journals list.
- Mac: the + button in the sidebar’s Journals header, or File > New Collection.
- Android: the + button at the top of the journal list.
- Web and Windows: the Add button next to the Journals heading in the sidebar.
That is all it takes. Collections can be renamed or deleted at any time, and deleting a collection never affects the journals or entries inside it. Those journals simply return to the top level of the sidebar, with every entry intact.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Creating a collection requires a Day One Silver or Gold subscription. Everything else is free for everyone: viewing collections, expanding and collapsing them, renaming, deleting, and moving journals in and out. Your collections sync automatically across all of your devices.
Collapse state (whether a collection is expanded or folded in the sidebar) is saved on each device on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android. On web and Windows, collections currently always show the journals inside them, and expand and collapse is on the way.
Collections cannot be nested inside one another. They are a single level of organization, designed to stay simple as your journaling habits grow.
Built for How People Journal
The goal of Collections is not to add complexity. It is to reduce it. Many users have told us that as their journaling practice deepens, so does the number of journals they keep. Collections give that growth room to breathe. A sidebar that once felt cluttered can become calm and navigable again.
Journal Collections is available now on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android. On web and Windows it is still rolling out, so creating a collection may not be available to you yet, even with a subscription. Update to the latest version from the App Store, Google Play, or the Microsoft Store, or sign in to Day One on the web, to start organizing your journals.
