Guide · Privacy · Journaling
What Is Virtual Diary & How It Works
A guide to Virtual Diary for iPad and Mac: one ruled page a day, Apple Pencil handwriting, a Face ID lock, your own iCloud, and one price for life.
Virtual Diary is a private diary app for iPad and Mac that looks and feels like a paper diary. You open a leather cover, find today's ruled page, and write: by hand with Apple Pencil on iPad, or with a keyboard on either. There is no account, no feed, no streaks and no AI. Your pages stay on your devices and in your own iCloud.
One page a day
Every day has its own dated page, ruled like a good notebook. When the lines are full, the page is full. That limit is deliberate: a single page is small enough to fill on a tired night, and it keeps the habit easy to keep for years.
A short line from a writer or thinker sits at the foot of every page, one for each date of the year. If a page is still empty, it asks a gentle question to get you started.
Write by hand, or type
On iPad, write with Apple Pencil in black, fountain-pen blue or sepia, with an eraser, undo and redo. Your handwriting stays handwriting. Prefer the keyboard? Type on the same page, and turn handwriting into text whenever you choose.
On Mac, the diary is made for typing, and the ink from your iPad appears on the Mac page exactly as you wrote it.
A book, not an app
The cover opens under your finger, pages turn like paper, and a satin ribbon brings you back to today from anywhere in the diary. Tap Save when you are done: the page is kept and the diary closes.
Find any day
- On This Day shows what you wrote on today's date in years past.
- Search finds words you typed and words you wrote by hand. Handwriting is read on your iPad, privately.
- The calendar jumps to any year in two taps, with a dot on every day you wrote.
Private, and safe for years
- No account, no sign-in, no ads, no tracking. We run no servers that hold diaries.
- Lock the diary with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode.
- Lock a finished page so it can never be changed, like ink that has dried. You get ten seconds to change your mind.
- A private copy of every page is kept in your own iCloud Drive, so a lost iPad does not take your diary with it.
- Export the whole diary, handwriting included, whenever you like.
Price
Your first page is free. After that, Virtual Diary is a one-time purchase: $49 for iPad or for Mac, or $79 for both. No subscription, ever. On iPad the unlock is an in-app purchase that restores with your Apple ID; on Mac it is a license key for one Mac.
Requirements
- iPad with iPadOS 18 or later. Apple Pencil is optional.
- Mac with macOS 26 or later, Apple silicon or Intel.