A journaling app that works the way an ADHD brain works

The real problem isn't writing, it's retrieval

Most journaling advice fails ADHD brains at the same two points. First, friction: if capturing a thought takes four taps and a decision about which notebook it belongs in, the thought is gone. Second, retrieval: you did write it down somewhere, but rereading months of entries to find a pattern is exactly the kind of boring, sustained-attention task that doesn't happen.

MirrorNotes attacks both ends:

Capture in seconds

• Open the app, keyboard is already up. No folders, no templates, no decisions. Brain-dump and close.
• Voice input when typing is too much. Speech is transcribed on-device; audio is discarded.
• Tag the mood in one tap: Anxious, Hyped, Drained, Calm, building a timeline as a side effect.

Retrieval without rereading

• Ask your journal: "what keeps draining me?" "what was I hyperfocused on in May?" "when did I last feel like this?" The on-device AI answers from your actual entries.
• Weekly Digest: Sunday summary of the week's themes and moods, the review you'd never do manually.
• Mood Timeline: trends across weeks, visible at a glance, with an alert if several entries in a row trend negative.

Structure without shame

One personalized prompt a day, the Daily Nudge, generated from what you've actually been writing about. It's a door, not a homework assignment. Skip a week and nothing scolds you; your history is intact and the app picks up where you are, not where a streak counter says you should be.

The app also deliberately waits until you've written a few entries before showing any AI insight. Generic advice on day one helps nobody; by day five, the nudges are about your life.

Private enough for the unfiltered version

A journal only works if you write the real thing: the rejection-sensitive spiral, the medication day-3 wall, the thing you can't say out loud. That's not text to send to a cloud AI.

MirrorNotes runs its AI (Gemma 3) entirely on your iPhone via CoreML. There is no cloud AI backend, no API call, no account. Journal text never leaves the device; sync goes only to your own iCloud. The privacy guarantee is architectural: there's no network path for your words to take.

Frequently asked questions

What does it cost?

Nothing. Unlimited entries, full history, search, iCloud backup, and the full AI layer (Daily Nudge, Ask, Weekly Digest, Mood Timeline, Monthly Reports) are all free, no trial, no cap.

I abandon every journaling app. Why would this stick?

Maybe it won't, but the design removes the usual failure points: no setup, no structure to maintain, no streak guilt, and a daily payoff (the Nudge) that gets more personal the more you write. Being free means abandoning and returning costs nothing.

Does voice input work offline?

Yes. Everything, writing, voice transcription, and all AI features, works with no signal at all.