Journaling Suggestions Intelligently Groups Daily Moments and Special Events

Journaling Suggestions uses on-device processing to intelligently group moments and events, in order to provide you with personalized suggestions. Using information stored on your device, Journaling Suggestions can recommend to you special moments to remember and write about. You control which suggestions are shared with journaling apps that use Journaling Suggestions.

Journaling Suggestions can include suggestions from your activities (such as workout type, duration, routes, calories, and heart rate), media use (such as which podcast and song you listened to, artist name, and track name), contacts (such as whom you communicated with via texts, calls, and FaceTime), photos (such as photos and videos from your library, names of people and pets from your library, shared albums, scene classifications, and memories), significant locations (such as places you’ve recently been, including information about events you’ve attended, as well as how often and when you visited them, in order to learn places that are significant to you), and state of mind (such as moods and emotions you log).

When you enable Journaling Suggestions, limited historical data stored on your iPhone, including information about your workouts, media use, communications, and photos, will be used to create meaningful suggestions for you. You can customize the categories of data to include in your Journaling Suggestions by going on your iPhone to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, and tapping a specific category to turn it on or off. If more than one journaling app uses Journaling Suggestions, your choices of which categories to include in your Journaling Suggestions will apply to all apps. You can also clear the history of suggestions that have not yet been shared with a journaling app by going on your iPhone to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, then tapping Clear History. You can turn off Journaling Suggestions by going on your iPhone to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, then tapping Turn Off All. Your decision to turn off all suggestions will apply to all journaling apps using Journaling Suggestions. If you no longer want to see Journaling Suggestions on your iPad, you can stop syncing suggestions by going to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > See All > Journaling Suggestions, and tapping to turn off sync.

Prioritize Moments with Contacts

Journaling Suggestions uses Bluetooth signals to determine which suggestions may be more meaningful or relevant to you. Prioritize Moments with Contacts will use Bluetooth to detect the number of your mutual contacts who are nearby and to allow mutual contacts to include you in their number of nearby contacts. Contacts’ names and locations are not shared with you and your name and location are not shared with contacts. The number of nearby contacts is stored on device and used to prioritize moments spent with people you know. If you do not want Journaling Suggestions to use the number of your nearby contacts, or to allow contacts to include you in their number of nearby contacts to prioritize suggestions, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, then tap to turn off Prioritize Moments with Contacts.

In addition to prioritizing moments with contacts, Journaling Suggestions may leverage other existing device signals, such as Bluetooth for AirDrop, to detect whether Apple devices (not necessarily contacts) are near you to prioritize suggestions with larger groups. Names and locations are not shared — only number of Apple devices.

iCloud Journaling Suggestions

If you use iCloud, your Journaling Suggestions are encrypted while in transit and at rest and are kept up to date across your iCloud-enabled iPhone and iPad. If you have default two-factor authentication and a passcode, your Journaling Suggestions are end-to-end encrypted when stored in iCloud, so even Apple can’t read them. Only one iPhone can be used to sync Journaling Suggestions across your iCloud-enabled iPhone and iPad. You can change your primary iPhone for syncing Suggestions by going on your iPhone to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, then tapping Sync from this iPhone. You can disable iCloud for Journaling Suggestions on your iPhone or iPad at any time by going to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > See All > Journaling Suggestions, and tapping to turn off sync.

Sharing Journaling Suggestions with the Journal App and Third-Party Apps

You control which suggestions are shared with journaling apps that use Journaling Suggestions by selecting moments that are meaningful to you and adding them to the app. Only you can see your suggestions prior to sharing them. You can view which apps are using Journaling Suggestions by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, and viewing Apps Using Private Access.

If you choose to share your suggestions with the Journal app, you have control over your entries. When your device is locked with a passcode, entries in the Journal app are encrypted. If you have default two-factor authentication and a passcode, all Journal entries are end-to-end encrypted when stored in iCloud, so even Apple can’t read them. Additionally, you can choose to enable secondary authentication and lock the Journal app with your device passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID.

Notifications

If you enable Journaling Suggestions notifications, Journaling Suggestions may prompt you to write about moments and special events. Your location and routines, such as activity and app usage, will determine when you are notified, or you can create a custom schedule in Settings. If you have enabled Journaling Suggestions for more than one journaling app, you may choose which journaling app you’d like to open Journaling Suggestions notifications by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions > Notifications > Customize Notifications > Open Notifications With, and tapping to select an app. You can disable Journaling Suggestions notifications by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions > Notifications, and tapping to turn them off.

At all times, information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy.

Published Date: September 15, 2025