Therapy Journaling Apps: The Best Ways to Journal Between Therapy Sessions

Going to therapy once a week can be incredibly helpful—but a lot can happen between sessions.

You have a difficult conversation with your partner. You suddenly remember something your therapist said. You notice the same thought coming back again and again. Or you have a small breakthrough while you're walking home.

Then your next therapy session arrives, and somehow… you forget half of it.

That’s where therapy journaling apps can help.

Instead of relying on memory, you can quickly capture what you're thinking or feeling between sessions and come back to it later. Some apps focus on traditional journaling, while others use mood tracking, guided prompts, voice notes, or AI to help you make sense of your thoughts.

But not every journaling app is designed specifically for people who are in therapy.

What is a therapy journaling app?

A therapy journaling app is a digital journal designed to help you reflect on your thoughts, emotions, experiences, and progress—particularly while working with a therapist.

Unlike a regular diary, a therapy-focused journal can be used to:

• Record thoughts between therapy sessions
• Remember things you want to discuss with your therapist
• Track recurring emotions or situations
• Capture insights immediately when they happen
• Keep track of therapy homework or exercises
• Prepare for your next therapy session
• Review patterns over time
• Record your therapist's advice and important insights

The goal isn't necessarily to write pages every night.

For many people, the most useful therapy journal is simply a place to capture the things you don't want to forget.

Why use a journaling app for therapy?

Therapy doesn't only happen during the 50 minutes you're sitting with your therapist.

A lot of the work happens afterward.

You go back into your normal life and start noticing things differently. You may recognize a pattern, remember a question you wanted to ask, or realize that something discussed in therapy affected you more than you initially thought.

Writing these moments down can make it easier to bring them back into the therapy room.

Research and clinical discussions around digital journaling increasingly focus on reducing the friction of reflection and helping people maintain continuity between sessions. At the same time, it's important to remember that AI journaling tools are generally supplements to professional care—not replacements for a therapist.

The problem with traditional journaling

Traditional journaling works well for some people.

But it also has a major problem: starting.

You have to open a notebook, decide what to write, organize your thoughts, and actually type or write everything down.

When you're tired, emotional, busy, or simply don't feel like writing, it's easy to skip.

This is one reason voice journaling has become increasingly popular. Instead of sitting down to write, you can simply open your phone and talk.

Some newer journaling apps are built around voice as the primary input rather than treating audio as an extra feature.

For therapy, this can be particularly useful.

You don't have to turn an emotional moment into a perfectly written paragraph.

You can just say what happened.

What should you look for in a therapy journaling app?

There are hundreds of journaling and mental wellness apps available, but they aren't all designed for the same purpose.

If you're choosing a therapy journaling app, consider these features:

1. Low friction

The easier it is to capture a thought, the more likely you are to actually do it.

Ideally, recording something should take seconds—not several minutes of navigating menus and filling out forms.

2. Voice notes

If you don't enjoy typing, voice can make journaling dramatically easier.

You can open the app, press a button, and talk through what happened.

3. Transcription

A voice recording is useful, but a transcript can make your thoughts much easier to review later.

It allows you to search, reread, and identify specific things you said.

4. Summaries

Long journal entries can become difficult to review.

AI-generated summaries can help turn a long stream of thoughts into a few key points or themes.

However, AI summaries should be treated as a reflection tool rather than professional clinical advice.

5. Privacy

Therapy-related thoughts can be extremely personal.

Before using any mental health or journaling app, check how your data is stored, whether your recordings are uploaded, and what happens to your information.

Privacy is particularly important when an app processes sensitive journal entries with AI.

6. Easy session preparation

One of the biggest benefits of journaling during therapy is being able to bring what happened during the week into your next session.

The best workflow isn't necessarily:

Journal → journal → journal → forget about it.

It's:

Notice → capture → reflect → bring it to therapy.

Therapy journaling apps vs. regular journaling apps

A traditional journaling app is usually designed to help you document your life.

You might write about:

"Today I went to the beach, had lunch with Sarah, and worked late."

That's perfectly fine.

But a therapy journaling app has a slightly different purpose.

You might capture:

"I got really angry when Sarah didn't respond to my message. I initially thought she was ignoring me, but then I realized I felt rejected. This reminds me of something we talked about in therapy last week."

The second entry contains something you may actually want to explore in your next session.

That's the difference.

A therapy journal isn't necessarily about documenting your day. It's about capturing what matters.

The best therapy journaling apps

There isn't one perfect journaling app for everyone. Different apps solve different problems.

MyTherapyNotes — Best for capturing your therapy sessions

MyTherapyNotes is designed around a slightly different idea from traditional journaling apps.

Instead of asking you to maintain a daily diary, MyTherapyNotes focuses on helping you remember what happens in therapy.

The basic idea is simple: after or during a therapy session, you can capture important insights and breakthroughs with a single click.

That can be useful when your therapist says something that suddenly makes sense—or when you leave a session knowing something was important but you're afraid you'll forget exactly what it was.

MyTherapyNotes describes itself as a way to help you "never forget what your therapist says" by capturing insights and breakthroughs from therapy sessions.

Best for: People who want to remember therapy insights and bring them back into their everyday lives.

Day One — Best for traditional digital journaling

Day One is one of the better-known digital journaling platforms and is designed more broadly around personal journaling.

It supports written entries and multimedia, including audio. Voice can therefore be part of your journal, although the product is fundamentally a broader life-journaling tool.

Best for: People who enjoy maintaining a traditional digital diary and want therapy journaling to be part of a broader personal journal.

Daylio — Best for quick mood tracking

Daylio takes a more lightweight approach, combining mood tracking with short notes.

Rather than writing long entries, you can quickly record how you're feeling and what you were doing.

This can be useful if you're interested in identifying patterns rather than writing detailed reflections.

Best for: People who want to track moods and habits with minimal writing.

Rosebud — Best for guided AI reflection

Rosebud takes a more conversational approach to journaling, using AI to guide reflection and ask follow-up questions.

It's particularly interesting for people who don't know what to write when faced with a blank page.

Best for: People who want an AI-guided journaling experience.

Apple Journal — Best for simple journaling

Apple Journal is a straightforward option for iPhone users who want to keep a personal journal without downloading a specialized therapy app.

It's useful for simple reflection, but it isn't specifically designed around therapy sessions or remembering what happened during therapy.

Best for: People who want a basic journal already integrated into their phone.

Which therapy journaling app is right for you?

The answer depends on what you're actually trying to accomplish.

| If you want to... | Consider | | --------------------------------- | ------------------ | | Remember what your therapist said | MyTherapyNotes | | Keep a complete digital diary | Day One | | Track moods quickly | Daylio | | Have guided AI conversations | Rosebud | | Keep things simple on iPhone | Apple Journal |

The important thing isn't choosing the app with the most features.

It's choosing the app you'll actually use.

A beautifully designed journal that you never open is less useful than a simple tool that lets you capture an important thought in 10 seconds.

You don't have to journal every day

One of the biggest misconceptions about therapy journaling is that you need to write every day.

You don't.

You can use a therapy journal whenever something happens that feels worth remembering.

For example:

After therapy

"Today my therapist said something about how I react to criticism. I want to remember it."

After an argument

"I became defensive almost immediately. I think this might be connected to what we discussed last week."

During a breakthrough

"I suddenly realized that I've been avoiding this conversation because I'm scared of disappointing them."

Before your next session

"There are three things I want to talk about today."

These tiny notes can become incredibly valuable over time.

How to use a therapy journaling app effectively

You don't need a complicated system.

Try this simple approach:

Step 1: Capture

Whenever something important happens, record it.

Don't worry about making it sound intelligent or organized.

Step 2: Add context

If you have time, add a sentence about what happened and how you felt.

Step 3: Look for patterns

After several entries, look back.

Are the same situations coming up?

Are certain thoughts repeating?

Are there particular people, situations, or behaviors that consistently affect your mood?

Step 4: Bring it to therapy

Your journal shouldn't replace the conversation with your therapist.

It should make the conversation better.

Instead of walking into your next appointment thinking:

"I don't know what happened this week."

You might have three or four concrete things you actually want to explore.

What about AI therapy journaling apps?

AI has introduced a new category of journaling apps that can summarize entries, suggest prompts, identify recurring themes, or respond to what you've written.

This can make journaling easier and more interactive.

But there is an important distinction:

AI journaling is not the same thing as AI therapy.

The research around AI-assisted journaling is still developing. There is stronger evidence for expressive writing and structured reflection than there is for the effectiveness of any particular AI journaling application.

For someone already working with a therapist, AI can potentially be useful as a tool for organizing thoughts and remembering experiences—but it shouldn't be treated as a replacement for professional care.

Privacy matters more than features

Your therapy journal may contain some of the most private information you've ever written.

Before choosing an app, ask:

• Where is my data stored?
• Is my journal uploaded to the cloud?
• Is audio stored?
• Is my data encrypted?
• Is my information used to train AI models?
• Can I delete my data?
• Can I export my entries?
• Who can access my information?

Don't choose a therapy journaling app based only on its feature list.

The most important feature may be what the app does with your data.

Final thoughts

Therapy doesn't end when you walk out of your therapist's office.

The conversations can stay with you for days. You may notice new things, remember old things, or experience situations that suddenly make something from therapy click.

A therapy journaling app gives you somewhere to capture those moments before they disappear.

You don't need to write five pages every night.

Sometimes, one sentence is enough.

Sometimes, it's easier to press a button and talk.

And sometimes, the most valuable thing you can save isn't what happened during your day—but what you realized about yourself.

If you're looking for a simple way to capture the important moments from your therapy sessions, try MyTherapyNotes and keep your therapy insights with you between sessions.