Text and Highlight Colors

Text Colors and Highlight Colors let you add a splash of color to the words inside an entry. Pick from a curated palette to give a phrase a colored foreground, a soft highlight, or both — whatever helps the moment stand out.

Labs preview · Requires Day One Gold. Text and highlight colors are available in Day One Labs for Gold subscribers. Turn the feature on from Settings › Labs on any of your devices to start using it.

Key Features

Text Color — change the foreground color of any selected text.
Highlight Color — apply a softer background color to a range of text, like a marker.
Both at once — text color and highlight can be combined on the same range.
Adaptive shades — colors adjust for light mode and dark mode so they stay readable in both.
Syncs across your devices — colors you apply on one platform appear on every other Day One device.

The Text Color Palette

Both Text Color and Highlight Color use the same curated palette: Red, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green, Teal, Blue, Violet, Purple, Brown, and Gray, plus a Default option that removes any color you’ve applied. Text colors render in bold, vibrant shades; highlight colors use a gentler tone that sits behind the text without overpowering it.

In addition to this standard palette, you can also select a color derived from the current journal color.

How to Get Started

iPhone & iPad

First-time setup — enable the Labs feature:

Open Day One.
Tap Settings › Labs.
Toggle on Text Colors.

Applying colors to your text:

Open or create an entry.
Select the text you want to color.
In the formatting bar above the keyboard, tap the Highlight button (the marker icon).
The color picker opens, showing various color options.
Tap a swatch in either section to apply it. Tap Remove in a section to remove that color.

Mac

First-time setup:

Open Day One.
Choose Day One › Settings… from the menu bar.
Open the Labs section.
Toggle on Text Colors.

Applying colors to your text:

Open or create an entry and select a range of text.
Click the Aa formatting button in the formatting menu.
Choose Text Color or Highlight from the menu to open the matching picker.
Click a swatch to apply, or click Default to remove the color.

You can also use the floating formatting popover that appears when you select text — click the color palette icon to open the combined picker.

Web

Once the Labs Feature Flag is enabled, Settings -> Labs -> Text Colors, when selecting text on the editor, the formatting context menu will now show a color palette. It allows colored text, highlights or both.

Android

Text and highlight colors are not yet available on Android. Watch for future updates.

Tips

Combine text and highlight — pick a text color and a highlight color in the same picker to make a phrase really pop.
Highlights stay softer than text colors — that’s by design, so highlighted phrases stay readable.
Existing highlights still work — Day One now shows existing highlights as the new softer “yellow” highlight color, so nothing is lost.

FAQ

Why can’t I see the option?

Text & Highlight Colors is a Labs preview for Day One Gold subscribers. If you have Gold and don’t see it under Settings › Labs, make sure your app is up to date and that you’re signed in to the same Day One account that has Gold.

What happens to colored text on a device that doesn’t have the feature turned on?

Day One does its best to render the entry as you wrote it on devices where Labs isn’t enabled. If you edit the entry on one of those older devices, you’ll see a notice that colors may not be preserved through that edit.

Will my existing yellow highlights change?

No. Anything you’ve already highlighted continues to look the same — Day One treats it as the new “Yellow” highlight and renders it with the updated, gentler yellow shade and rounded corners.

Are more colors coming?

The current palette is intentionally focused — eleven colors plus Default gives you enough variety without making the picker overwhelming. The exact shades may continue to be refined while the feature is in Labs.