Account Recovery
If you’re having trouble accessing your Day One account, please try these steps:
- Try resetting your password at https://dayone.me/recover
- Check your email inbox, including spam folders, for the password reset email
- Before clicking the reset link in the email, make sure you are signed out of dayone.me. If you are already signed in when you click the link, it will automatically log you into your account instead of showing the password reset form. To sign out, go to dayone.me, click the Settings gear icon (top left of the sidebar), then select Sign Out.
- Follow the prompts to reset your password
- If you aren’t receiving the password reset email, or you’re having trouble with any of the other steps above, please reach out to support.
Note: https://dayone.me/recover can only be used to recover access to your account by resetting your password. It can’t be used to recover lost data, or a lost encryption key.
I signed in but my journal is blank or has no entries
If you can sign in but see an empty journal, no journals at all, or none of your entries (blank journal, empty account, all my entries are gone, my journal disappeared after a password reset), check for these two causes before assuming your entries are lost. Neither one means your data has been deleted.
First, check whether your journals are end-to-end encrypted. Entries in an end-to-end encrypted journal only display on a device once your encryption key has been entered on that device. Until then the journal appears empty, even though your entries are safe on our servers. On the web app you will see a Locked Journals Hidden notice in the sidebar, and the entry list will say Enter your encryption key to view your Journals. Check this first – entering a key is quick and changes nothing on your account.
There are two ways to get your key.
Retrieve it from iCloud or Google Drive. If your key was backed up to one of those services, Day One can fetch it for you. On the web app, click the Locked Journals Hidden notice to open the Retrieve Encryption Key window, then choose Sign in with iCloud or Sign in with Google. Only the services your key was actually backed up to are offered, and the Mac and mobile apps show the same options when they prompt you for your key. If neither is shown, your key was not backed up to either service – use the manual steps below.
Copy it from another device. Open Day One on a device where your entries still appear and find your key at:
- iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android: Settings (profile icon, top right) > Sync > Encryption Key
- Mac: Day One > Settings > Sync > Advanced > View Encryption Key
- Web (dayone.me) and Windows: Settings (gear icon, top left) > Account > Encryption Key
Then enter that key on the device showing the blank journal. On the web app, click the Locked Journals Hidden notice and choose Enter code manually.
Day One does not keep a copy of your encryption key, so save a backup while you have it – see Keeping Your Day One Encryption Key Safe. If you cannot find your key on any device or backup, see Finding a Lost Encryption Key.
Second, check whether you are signed in to a second account. If your encryption key is already present and your journals are still empty, compare your User ID across your devices – if the numbers differ, you have two accounts and your entries are on the other one. See Solving Sync Troubles for the steps, and Merging Day One Accounts if you need to combine them. For other causes of missing entries, see Data Loss and Recovery Options.
Troubleshooting account recovery
The email might be sent to your spam or junk folder. Please check those. If you still haven’t received a password reset email, it’s very likely there is not a Day One account associated with the email for which you tried to reset the password.
If you see a “too many requests” or “too many failed attempts” error — or you have been signed out of the Day One apps unexpectedly — a temporary rate limit has been triggered by multiple failed login or password reset attempts. Wait at least 5 minutes, then try again at https://dayone.me/recover. If the error persists after 5 minutes, wait 24 hours before trying again. If you’re still having trouble after that, please contact our support team.
Important: If you are already signed in to dayone.me when you click the password reset link from your email, the link will automatically log you into your account instead of showing the password reset form. To reset your password, sign out of dayone.me first (Settings gear icon > Sign Out), then click the reset link again.
Before signing out, please export a JSON from dayone.me. Once that is done, please sign out and use dayone.me/recover to reset that account password.
It’s also worth checking that you aren’t stuck on the app-locking passcode, which is a device-specific passcode you can set for extra security. We have a guide on resetting that which can help resolve this.
Recovering a Deleted Account
When you delete your Day One account, the deletion process takes approximately 5 days to complete. During this 5-day grace period, you will receive an email titled “Your Day One account has been closed” containing a recovery link. Click that link to cancel the deletion and restore your account.
After the 5-day grace period, account data is deleted from Day One’s servers. If you need to restore a deleted account after that, contact Day One Support – we may be able to restore from backup for up to 2 weeks after deletion.
If you want to use the same email address to create a new account after permanent deletion, contact Day One Support at support@dayoneapp.com for assistance. The email address may remain reserved in the system even after the account is purged.
If your account was recently deleted and you want to stop the deletion, act immediately – use the recovery link in the email you received, or contact support before the 5-day window closes.
If you previously used Day One Classic, you may not have a Day One Sync account. If you first accessed Day One on an Apple device, go to your App Store app, tap on your profile at the top right, select Apps, and then search for “Day One”. If Day One Classic appears in the search results, then you’ll need to upgrade to the current Day One app and import your Day One Classic data.
I don’t have access to my account email
Account recovery can only be done by sending a password reset link to the email address on your account. If you no longer have access to the email address, then there is no way to reset your account password.
In this case, check whether you have another login method enabled for the account (Sign in with Apple or Google). Go to https://dayone.me/ and click “Continue with Apple” or “Continue with Google” to sign in.
Important: You must use the same sign-in method you originally used to create your Day One account. For example, if you signed up with Sign in with Apple, you must click “Continue with Apple” — using a different method (such as “Continue with Google”) will create a brand new empty account instead of signing you into your existing one. If you are not sure which method you used, please contact our support team and we can look up your account for you.
Continue with Google is only available on the web app and on Android. The Mac and iPhone/iPad apps offer Sign in with Apple, or an email address and password – there is no Continue with Google button in those apps. If your account uses Continue with Google, sign in on Mac and iOS with your email address and password instead. See I can sign in on the web but not in the Mac or iPhone app.
Signing in with the wrong method is not the only reason a journal can look empty. If you are able to sign in but land in a blank journal with no entries, see I signed in but my journal is blank or has no entries – an end-to-end encrypted journal will not display its entries until your encryption key has been entered on that device, and resetting your password again will not change that.
If you don’t have another login method available, then there is no way to recover your account, and you will need to create a new account.
I can’t remember my account email
If you can’t remember which email address you used to create your account, try resetting your password via https://dayone.me/recover using any email addresses you own, which you might have used.
If you don’t receive an account recovery email to any of those addresses, there are two other pieces of information we can potentially use to help locate your account:
- The account user ID
- A journal ID or entry ID from your account
If you can find any of those, please get in touch with our support team to see if we can help locate your account.
We are unable to search for accounts by name, address, phone number, or any other personal information. Similarly journal names and entry content won’t help as they are encrypted to maintain your privacy, so we don’t have access to them. We also can’t search by encryption key as we don’t store a copy of it, so please never send us your encryption key.
I can sign in on the web but not in the Mac or iPhone app
If Day One on Mac or iOS says this username and password combination is not found while you can sign in fine at dayone.me, check which sign-in method your account uses.
Continue with Google is only available on the web app and on Android. The Mac and iPhone/iPad apps offer Sign in with Apple, or an email address and password. If you created your account with Continue with Google, sign in on Mac and iOS with your email address and password instead.
If you have never set a password, request one at dayone.me/recover using the email address on your account, then use that email and password to sign in on Mac or iOS. This does not create a new account and does not affect your entries.
