Adding Media in Day One

A picture is worth a thousand words and, in Day One, you can include photos, videos, audio, and PDFs to enrich and enhance your entries. Adding media to entries in Day One is a great way to keep your memories alive and vivid.

Your Day One Plan and Media Files per Entry

Plan Type	Personal Journal	Shared Journal
Basic	1 attachment per entry (only photos)	1 attachment per entry (only photos)
Silver	30 attachments per entry (any type)	30 attachments per entry (any type)
Gold	30 attachments per entry (any type)	30 attachments per entry (any type)

Media limits based on plan and journal types

Personal Journals

Basic: 1 photo per entry
Silver: 30 photos and media per entry
Gold: 30 photos and media per entry (including videos, audio, PDFs)

Shared Journals

Basic: up to 1 media per entry (photos only)
Silver: 30 media per entry (photos)
Gold: 30 media per entry (all media types including Photos, Videos, Audio Recordings, and files).

For any plans, there is no global limit to the total number of attachments you can add to your journal (when counting the total number of media attachments across all entries).

Other Media Limits

Per-file upload size

On the Day One web app, individual media files can be up to 500 MB each (this is the maximum file size per upload; the web app accepts files up to 500 MB – five hundred megabytes – per file). The iOS, macOS, and Android apps do not have a hardcoded client-side cap; very large files just take longer to sync.

Web app: 500 MB per file.
iOS, macOS, and Android: No hardcoded client-side cap. Very large files will take longer to sync.

Video duration

iOS, macOS, and Web: No fixed length cap when adding videos from your library or files.
Android in-app camera: 5 minutes per recording. This only applies to videos captured with the in-app camera; videos imported from your gallery have no length cap.

Supported Media File Types

iOS and macOS

On iOS and macOS desktop apps, we currently support the following media file types:

Image: most image file types supported by iOS (e.g., .jpeg, .png, .gif, .tiff, .heic, etc.)
Video: .mp4 and .mov
Audio: .mp4, .m4a, .caf, .flac, .wav, and .mp3

Web and Windows app

On the Web app (https://dayone.me) and Windows Desktop app, we currently support the following media file types:

Video: .mp4 and .mov
Audio: .mp4 and .m4a
Images: .png, .gif, and .jpg/jpeg

Note: when you add media file types only supported on mobile apps to your journal (e.g., .heic image files), they are converted to fully-supported media files and synced to all your devices. However, the web app and Windows app do not currently support adding .heic files.

Adding Media to Day One on iOS

Adding photos or video

From List view, tap the + button to start a new entry. Basic media icons appear in the entry when first launched. Tap the Photos icon to add a photo from your Photo Library.

If you already started typing in the entry, tap the photos icon to add a photo, or the paper clip icon to access more media attachment options. There are options to open to the Photo Library, Camera for still photos or video, Drawing, Scans, or tap File to search for media in the Files app.

Once a photo is loaded into an entry, long press on any photo for options to Cut, Copy, Share, Favorite, Insert Text Below, Rotate Left, and Delete.

Photos can also be added from the Today View. Tap a date in the Calendar to see a variety of sources for new entries, including Photos. Tap the Photos box, then select one or more photos and tap Add to create a new entry containing the selected photos.

Adding Media to Day One on macOS

Drag and drop your images to create a gallery in your Day One macOS app.

Simply drag an image and drop it inside an entry. You can also rearrange pictures by dragging them to the desired location on your entry.

Click the Paper Clip icon at the bottom right of an entry and choose Add Media from Today for a small, in-app media picker. For the in-app media picker, there must be photos in the Photos app on Mac matching the date of the entry. When using the Add Media from Today option, you will only be able to add one photo or video at a time. There is not a way to select multiple photos or videos at this time.

Note about the name: Despite the “Add Media from Today” label, this picker actually shows photos taken on the same day as the entry you are editing, not necessarily today’s date. If you are adding to an entry from another day, the picker will show photos from that day instead.

If the Add Media from Today picker is blank

If you open the picker and no photos appear, check the following:

Photos on the right date: The picker filters by the entry’s date, not today’s date. If you are editing an entry from a day when you did not take any photos, the picker will be empty. To browse your full library, use the Browse Files option below instead.
Day One has Photos permission: Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Photos on your Mac and confirm that Day One is in the list and turned on. If it is not, turn it on, then quit and reopen the Day One app.
iCloud Photos has synced to your Mac: The picker only sees photos in the Photos app on your Mac. If your photos are on your iPhone but iCloud Photos has not synced them down to your Mac yet, the picker cannot show them. Open the Photos app on your Mac and confirm that your recent photos appear there. If they do not, check System Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Photos and make sure Sync this Mac is on.

Adding Photos using “Browse Files”

You can add photos from an earlier date by clicking on the paperclip icon and choosing “Browse Files” option.

While editing an entry, click on the paperclip icon in the lower-right corner of the screen.
Click Browse Files.
A Finder window will open.
On the left side of Finder, scroll down to Media.
Click Media and your entire Photo library will be available.
Select the photo(s) you wish to add to the entry.
Click Open.

How photos are arranged in entries

When you add multiple photos to a journal entry, Day One automatically arranges them into rows. The app decides how many photos fit in each row based on the shape of your photos.

Day One fills each row left to right, scaling photos to fit the full width of the editor. It keeps adding photos to a row until the row height shrinks to a comfortable size. Once it reaches that point, the next photo starts a new row.

Portrait photos (taller than wide) are more likely to appear side by side. Very tall, narrow photos may have three or four in a row.
Landscape photos (wider than tall) are more likely to get their own row, because they are already a comfortable height at full width.
A mix of orientations may split across rows depending on the combination.
Photos must be in the same group to appear side by side. If photos are separated by text, they are in separate groups and will always appear on different lines. To combine photos into one group, add them to the entry at the same time, or drag a photo from one group onto another.

You cannot manually force photos to be side by side or stacked – the layout is automatic based on the photos’ dimensions.

Adding Media to Day One on Android

Adding photo or video

Tap the + button on the List view to create a new entry. On the entry editing screen, tap the Photos button and select the photo or video you want to add to the entry. You can select multiple photos or videos (up to 30) on this screen if you are subscribed to Day One Silver.

Adding audio recording

You can capture audio recording with the app and add it to the entry with these steps:

Tap the + button on the List view to create a new entry.
Tap the Audio button on the entry editing screen.
Tap the record button on the audio recording screen and start recording.
Tap the stop button on the audio recording screen to stop recording.
The app will prompt you if you want to use the current time for the audio recording. Choose the option based on your preference.
The audio recording will be added to the entry.

Adding PDF files

To add a PDF file to an entry, please follow these steps:

Tap the + button on the List view to create a new entry.
Tap the More… button on the entry editing screen.
Select the File option.
Browse your device and select the PDF file you want to attach to the entry.

Other options

There are other options for adding media files to an entry. If you tap the More… button when creating a new entry, you can tap the Camera option to take a photo with the in-app camera. The Capture Video option will allow you to record a video with the in-app camera and attach it to the entry. Please note that if you use the in-app camera to capture a photo or video, you’ll want to enable the In-App Camera option at Settings > Advanced if you want the app to save a copy of the photo to your device’s photo gallery.

If you’re experiencing an issue where photos or videos captured in-app are still being saved to your device despite this option being toggled off, try toggling it on and then off again. This should resolve the issue.

You can also attach media files to an existing entry by tapping the paperclip icon in the toolbar.

Adding Media to Day One on Web App or Windows Desktop App

You can add media to Day One entries on the web app (https://dayone.me) or Windows desktop app by the following:

Dragging the file into the entry
Copying media from the file system and paste it into an entry
Clicking on the Paperclip icon in the top-right corner of the entry to browse and upload media file

FAQ

Is there a file size limit when uploading photos or videos to the Day One web app?

Yes. On the Day One web app, individual media files (photos, videos, audio, PDFs) can be up to 500 MB each. The iOS, macOS, and Android apps do not have a hardcoded client-side cap; very large files just take longer to sync.

Why can’t I add more photos to Day One on iOS? The app doesn’t show my latest photos when I tap the Photos button.

If you do not see all of your photos in the Day One app when you want to attach them to an entry, you’ll want to follow the steps below to make sure you have the correct Photos permission setting for the Day One app:

Open the iOS Settings app.
Go to Day One > Photos.
If you want to allow Day One access to all of your photos, select All Photos.
If you prefer to allow Day One access only to certain photos, select Selected Photos and choose the photos. Note that you’ll need to go to this screen to add more photos if you want to upload newer photos to Day One.

How do I stop Apple Photos from syncing to Day One on iOS?

If you allow Day One’s access to all your photos in the iOS Settings, your photos will appear in the Apple Photo Library section in the Today view.

To stop that from happening, you can set the Day One app to have None or Selected Photos permission in iOS Settings app > Day One > Photos.

Why don’t all my photos appear when I view a specific date in Day One?

When you view a date in the Today View, Day One shows photos based on each photo’s creation date metadata (sometimes called “Date Taken” or “Date Created”). If a photo’s creation date doesn’t match the date you’re viewing, it won’t appear under that date.

This commonly happens when photos are downloaded from a cloud service (such as Google Photos or iCloud) or transferred between devices. During the download or transfer, some photos may pick up the download date as their new creation date instead of keeping the original date. For example, if you took 300 photos on December 1 but later downloaded them from Google Photos, only the ones that retained their original creation date will appear under December 1 in Day One.

If you’re missing photos for a specific date:

Check a missing photo’s info in the Photos app on your device. If the creation date shows the download date instead of the original date, that confirms the cause.
To add these photos to a Day One entry regardless of their date, open or create an entry, tap the photo icon, and choose Photo Library to browse your full library without any date filter. You can select multiple photos from there.

This also affects the Add Media from Today option on macOS, which only shows photos with a creation date matching the entry’s date.

Can I add photos to templates?

At the moment, it is not possible to add photos/images to templates. Feel free to reach out to us if you’d like to add a vote to the request for this feature.

Can I save photos I take in Day One to my iOS device?

Yes, you can choose to save a copy to the Photo Library when you take a photo with the camera in Day One.

Is there an option to resize photos?

Currently, there is no way to resize photos in Day One or in the Book Printing feature.

Can I add a cover photo to my Journals?

On the Android, Windows, and Web app, you can add a Journal Cover Image. This is an experimental feature as a part of Day One Labs.

Can I add a contact card as media to my entries?

No, at this time, contacts can’t be added to Day One entries.

Are mp3 files supported?

On iOS, Android, and Mac app, you can add a mp3 file directly to an entry, which will then be converted in-app to a compatible audio format. On web and Windows apps, we currently do not support adding mp3 files to entries.

The older version of the Android app used to open the camera right away when I tapped the Camera button in the List view. How can I restore this function?

The app doesn’t support quick access to the in-app camera now. But the good news is, a shortcut is now available when long-pressing on the Day One Android app icon on the home screen, starting app version 2023.19.

Can I add a contact card as media to my entries on Android?