Lifeograph is an encrypted journal application for Windows, Linux and Android

Keeping a journal is a nice way to reflect upon oneself. It can help you become a better person, nurture good habits, can be used for research, making budgets, make health related notes, or jot down anything else that you may want to keep a record of.

When it comes to a diary application on computers, there aren't a lot of options. RedNotebook is probably the best one I have used. I wanted something better and that's how I stumbled across Lifeograph.

Tip: note taking applications may work as well for the purpose of keeping a journal. Check out the recently reviewed Joplin, Tomboy-ng, or Laverna.

Lifeograph

Lifeograph has a simple interface. It features a toolbar at the top that displays a handful of options, tags that you have added to entries in a sidebar on the left, the editor interface for the current note, and a sidebar on the right that displays notes sorted by date and a calendar at the bottom.

Clicking on the book icon displays the synchronize/merge, export and encrypt options.

You can export the journal in Lifeograph's diary format or as a plain text file. The encrypt option is where the program excels because it secures your diary using AES 256 bit encryption. Make sure you set a strong password for your diary just to be safe. Encryption is optional.

Lifeograph Editor

The editor supports rich text formatting including bold and italic, various list types (bullet and to-do). To-Do support visual indicators that highlight the state of the task, e.g. done, canceled, or in progress.

Lifeograph lets you add clickable-URLs to your entries which is helpful for research and reference purposes. Right-click anywhere in the editor to add an emoji, toggle spellcheck and for basic editing options.

The back button on Lifeograph's toolbar takes you to the previous page you were viewing. The Today button opens the editor and lets you create an entry with the current date. You can manually choose a different date from the calendar (with a double-click) to write a new entry for the chosen date. The + button can be used to create chapters which improves visibility.

Click on the pencil icon at the top of an entry to view when it was created and edited, to hide entries and print a selected entry. The filter icon lets you narrow down entries based on the type (regular, lists, in trash, favorites, etc. You can also choose a range of dates to view entries that were made in the selected time frame. The heart option lets you favorite entries for quick access.

The search bar can be used to find entries that contain the phrase that you have entered. The menu button provides sorting options, e.g. by date or size, and a link to the program settings.

Lifeograph will save your diary and log you out if it does not recognize interaction for 90 seconds by default. You can log out of any diary as well with a click on the logout button; you are asked to enter a password if you set one to open any of the available diaries.

The preferences list several options including setting the date format used in your region and a dark theme that you may enable.

Tags may be added to any entry to improve categorization and provide quick access from the tags bar. Double-click a tag to view all entries under the tag; there is also an "untagged" tag that lists all entries without any tag.

Lifeograph is written using C++ and is an open-source, portable application. It is available for Windows, Linux and Android.

Closing Words

I'm not exactly a "Dear Diary" person, but I do keep a record of certain things from time to time, mostly in calendar apps. But they aren't good if you want to write down a more detailed version or want better categorization options.

A journal can be perfect for this. I have only been using the program for a couple of weeks. That's the reason why the graph shows insufficient data, maybe it needs at least a month worth of data to show something.

The only thing I dislike about the Lifeograph Android app is that it has ads, but you can optionally buy the ad-free version. Or you could block the ads for free if you're on Android 9 Pie or above using a custom DNS.

My advice regarding diary/journal programs

Whatever journal application you want to use, I'd suggest that you make sure that it's a completely offline one. After all, content is often very personal and you don't want that falling into someone else's hands. Speaking of privacy, it's also a good idea to use some sort of encryption to protect anyone from accessing the journal entries directly.

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