Command Line Interface (CLI)
Instructions for installing and using CLI with Day One
Note: The following information applies to Day One Mac 2.1.2 and later.
Name
dayone – Command line interface for the Day One journaling application.
Note about command names: Starting with Day One Mac 2025.19, the CLI command has been renamed from dayone2 to dayone. For new installations and this documentation going forward, we use dayone as the primary command. However, if you previously installed the CLI tool, the dayone2 command will continue to work exactly as before.
Install
Use this to install the CLI tool (You only ever need to do this once, even for future versions):
sudo bash /Applications/Day\ One.app/Contents/Resources/install_cli.shNote: You may need to enter your macOS device login password.
Description
The dayone tool provides a way to interact with your Day One journal file through the command line. It is typically used for custom import scripts and utilities to create a new entry. It cannot be used to export data
dayone will only work properly if you have installed the Day One macOS application and have run it at least one time on your computer.
A command must always be specified. Supported command is new. The entry text is read from stdin.
Run dayone -h in Terminal for these instructions as well.
Usage
dayone [options] command
Commands
new [text] [text]
Creates new entry with optional text. Every text argument will be separated by a single space when placed into the new entry. If no text arguments are provided then standard input is used by default for the entry text. Use –no-stdin to override this behavior.
Options
The options must come before the command (new). For example:
dayone --journal [journal name] --photos [photo1][photo2]-- new [text]
-a, –attachments; -p, –photos:
The p/photos options are deprecated, change to use a/attachments options instead.
For now both p/photos and a/attachments do the same thing (they are aliases of each-other).
Path to one or more attachment file(s) separated by spaces.
Currently supported attachments are: photo/image, video, audio, and pdf.
If desired you can use an [{attachment}] placeholder in entry text to position attachment. The old style [{photo}] placeholder is still supported for backwards compatibility, but should be changed to use [{attachment}] from now on.
Can only have up to 10 attachments listed. If this option is the last one listed, you must place an — at the end of the list prior to the command, otherwise the command you provide would be considered an attachment path instead.
Example:
-a ~/Documents/photo1.jpg ~/Documents/some_pdf2.pdf -- new my entry text-z, –time-zone:
Time zone to use, for a list see /usr/share/zoneinfo. The name is expected to be a name from the IANA Time Zone Database. (see http://www.iana.org/time-zones or /usr/share/zoneinfo) Alternatively, you can specify the name as a GMT offset.
Examples:
-z America/Anchorage-z Australia/Victoria-z GMT-0700
-s, –starred:
Star entry if flag is present.
Example:
--starred-d, –date:
Date to use, otherwise will use today/now. Example Format (time/seconds are optional):
yyyy-mm-dd [hh:mm[:ss]] [AM|PM]Uses current system time zone unless you use the –timeZone option. Other formats are possible, such as ‘Next Tuesday’ or ’12/30/2016′, etc.
Example Use:
--date='2015-06-01 15:53:10'–coordinate:
Coordinate of entry location, must provide two numbers with the first a latitude, and the second a longitude.
Example:
--coordinate 32.513 35.621–isoDate:
Date to use in ISO 8601 format. Format:
yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZAlways interprets the time in the UTC time zone in the gregorian calendar. Entry itself will still use current system time zone unless –timeZone option is used.
Example:
--isoDate=2015-06-01T15:53:10Z–all-day:
Marks the entry as an all-day event, ignoring specific times. When used, the date will be treated as spanning the whole day.
Example:
--all-day-j, –journal:
Name of journal for entry. Journal must already exist. If not specified then the default journal will be used.
-t, –tags:
One or more tags for entry.
Example:
--tags Soccer Match WinThis example would assign the tags ‘Soccer Match’ and ‘Win’ to the entry.
Using — will stop parsing options, you can use this at the end of a list of tags if needed.
–no-stdin:
Ignore standard in. By default standard in is used if no text arguments are used for the new command.
Example:
--no-stdin-h, –help:
If help option is set, only the help will be displayed and no commands will be executed.
-v, –version:
If version option is set, only the version will be displayed and no commands will be executed.
–verbose:
If verbose option is set, will log out to stderr at verbose log level (normally only log errors).
Environment
DAYONE_APP_PATH:
If the DAYONE_APP_PATH environment variable is defined we will look for Day One at the path in variable. The Day One app is needed for CLI to work.
These paths are searched in order, first one that works is the one used:
- DAYONE_APP_PATH
- /Applications/Day One.app
- Asking system for path to app for com.bloombuilt.dayone-mac
