Missing Media

Sometimes, you may notice that media attachments you have included in an entry—such as images, video, and audio—are no longer available. For instance, your video might appear as a screenshot with no way to play it, or your images might appear blurry or low-resolution. This guide explains the typical cause of this issue and suggests ways to resolve it.

Usual Cause of Missing Media

In order for photos and other media to be fully loaded to our servers, the app has to be open and connected long enough for the file transfer to finish processing. If that process gets cut off—like when you close the app or lock your phone—the transfer process will pick up where it left off the next time the app is opened without any problems.

However, in rare cases, if the app never has a chance to transfer those files, then the app isn’t able to sync the media correctly. In cases like this, it’s possible that you might see a low-resolution thumbnail version of the photo or no photo at all.

This can happen if you deleted and reinstalled the app before all media had finished uploading. When you reinstall and sign back in, Day One downloads your entries from the server – but if the full-resolution files never made it to the server, only the low-resolution preview versions will be available. Disabling “Optimize Device Storage” or “Optimize Local Media Storage” will not fix this, because the full-resolution versions do not exist on the server to download.

Fixing Missing Media

If you still have access to the original photos – for example, in your device’s camera roll, photo gallery, or Google Photos – we built tools to make it as easy as possible to re-upload them to your journal. In most cases, the thumbnail can be tapped in the entry and a menu will appear. If you choose to “replace” the media, our photo selector will open and automatically scroll to the date where your original photo should be so that you can easily re-add it.

If the original photos are no longer available on your device or in any cloud storage, the low-resolution versions currently in Day One may be the only copies that remain.

If you need further assistance after trying the in-app tools, we can also help you investigate any missing images, videos, or audio. Please reach out to Day One support with answers to the following questions:

iOS

1. If you tap Settings > Sync > Storage is Optimize Device Storage checked?
2. If so, does the media restore itself if you check “Download All Media” in Settings > Sync > Storage?

1. Have you recently moved entries from one journal to another?
2. Have you recently changed the encryption settings for any Journal?
3. What method was used to add the missing images? Did you share them to the app, or did you upload them directly into an entry while editing?

It would also be helpful if you could share diagnostics from all devices that are showing the missing media, along with the Entry IDs for a few entries with the missing media. You can find instructions for sharing diagnostics here: Day One Diagnostics. For locating an Entry ID, refer to this guide: Locating an Entry ID.