No import option for MacJournal?

  • Unknown's avatar
    polishedstaple · Member ·

    I’ve spent years creating my MacJournal. How can I ever switch over to using DayOne if there is no import option?

    Thank you.

  • staff-fred · Staff ·

    Thanks for the feedback! We’ll put it on our feature request list so it can be considered for future releases.

    In the meantime, while we don’t support importing MacJournal officially, you can take a look at a tool built by a third-party here:

    Day One Tools

    Please note that we also don’t offer official supports for this. I understand this might not be ideal but hopefully, that can help you in some ways.

  • Unknown's avatar
    danielf62603de01 · Member ·

    Same here: I’d love to import my old MJ entries von DayOne, but the scripts won’t help me (neither Ruby nor Python found on the internet will work). I can’t even import a self-created file with the integrated import feature as it keeps telling me there is a problem with the date format.

    Is there anything new about an import feature from MacJournal into DayOne? Looking forward to this feature!

    Daniel

  • Unknown's avatar
    helper-james · Member ·

    @danielf62603de01 Are you using the plain text import option? The date format has to be in a very specific format to work. There is an example file here: https://dayoneapp.com/blog/help_guides/importing-data-from-plain-text/

  • Unknown's avatar
    danielf62603de01 · Member ·

    Thanks James!

    Yes, I tried the plain text option only as the others won’t work anyway. I read all the documentation about the date format and could not even get it to work by copying the exact date string as mentioned in the example file … I hope for a better solution in one of the next versions of DayOne to make it easier to import my old journals.

    Would appreciate any kind of help, though.

    Thanks,
    Daniel

  • staff-bluejay · Staff ·

    Hi @danielf62603de01,

    Thank you for the feedback.

    Our team had a discussion about the sample plaintext import file and we see what you mean. The date format needs to be same format as your computer. For example, if your computer uses dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm format, that’s the format you should follow in the plaintext files.

    We’ll work on the clarification on the documentation to prevent future confusion. In the meantime, would you try making those date changes and let us know if you’re still seeing issues? If you’re seeing any errors, please let us know.

  • Unknown's avatar
    danielf62603de01 · Member ·

    Still no luck with this issue. I tried the Ruby and the Python scripts, but as these are not my favorite languages, I gave up with the errors I got.

    I tried to change the date format in many ways, looking at my Mac’s date and time format. No matter what I enter (format, order, day of week, time, time with seconds, timezone …) I get the same error message when importing from DayOne telling me I’d need to check if the date is in the same format my computer is.

    I’d still be very happy to have this solved.

    Thanks!
    Daniel

  • staff-bluejay · Staff ·

    Hi @danielf62603de01,

    I’m sorry to hear that you are still facing an issue with imports.

    I recommend creating a sample Day One entry and exporting it as a text file from your computer. That way, it can serve as your own custom style guide for generating a file for importing into Day One.

    I hope that helps!

  • Unknown's avatar
    polishedstaple · Member ·

    Hey staff-bluejay, wouldn’t it make more sense for your team of developers to fix the MacJournal import functionality? The fact that it remains broken for so many years is very discouraging. There are a lot of MacJournal users who want to switch over to Day One, but can’t until this problem is resolved.

  • Unknown's avatar
    danielf62603de01 · Member ·

    Hi again!

    Still no luck. I can’t even re-import the plain-text entry that I’d just exported from DayOne. It keeps telling me “Unable to import file” and “The file did not contain a date for the entry.”

    I agree with polishedstaple that it would be best to have a proper import feature implemented in DayOne. Can we hope for this in near future?

    Daniel

  • staff-donnie · Staff ·

    @danielf62603de01 A MacJournal import tool would be ideal, but we don’t have any immediate plans for that.

    Regarding the plain-text import, can you confirm the date format of the journal you exported, e.g. Date: 6 January 2025 at 14:27:09 GMT

    And the date format shown in your Mac settings at Settings > General > Date and Time, e.g. 17 Feb 2025 at 12:53:58

    Those are the formats I see in testing when I export as plain text, and I’m able to import the .txt file again without any issues.

    Would you be able to export a test entry, and then copy/paste the export format here (removing any personal information first)?

  • Unknown's avatar
    danielf62603de01 · Member ·

    Hi @staff-donnie.

    I just exported a test entry from DayOne, the exported date format (first line of export, starting with a Tab) is:

    Datum:  18. Februar 2025 um 16:44:28 MEZ

    In my Mac’s settings (it’s set to German), date is set to:
    Dienstag, 18. Februar 2025 um 16:50:31 MEZ
    (copied from Mac’s settings).

    To me, this looks similar. Still, when trying to import an exported entry, I get the same error message as mentioned in my last post.

    Thanks again!
    Daniel

  • staff-donnie · Staff ·

    Thanks. As a test, can you try editing the .txt file and changing that line (keeping the Tab) to:

    Datum: Dienstag, 18. Februar 2025 um 16:50:31 MEZ

    Then save and try importing again?

  • Unknown's avatar
    danielf62603de01 · Member ·

    Hey staff-donnie,

    tried it again after changing the line, still no luck:

    Unable to import file
    The file did not contain a date for the entry.

    Daniel

  • staff-reid · Staff ·

    Hey @danielf62603de01!

    When using “Datum:” could we have you try using “Date:” instead?

    I think this is what could be hanging things up here.

    Give that a go and keep us posted.

  • Unknown's avatar
    danielf62603de01 · Member ·

    Hi again!

    We are one step further at this point, let me describe what I did:

    1. Using “Datum” (like before) takes me to:
    Unable to import file
    The file did not contain a date for the entry.

    2. Changing it to “Date” (as suggested) brings up:
    Unable to import file
    Could not parse date string: Dienstag, 18. Februar 2025 um 16:50:31 MEZ. Ensure that the exported file uses the same date format as this computer.

    3. Creating a fresh test entry, exporting it as plain text, NOT changing the date line content as suggested above and ONLY changing “Datum” to “Date”: works!

    So, for this option 3, the line with the date looks like:

    Date:   27. Februar 2025 um 16:26:03 MEZ

    I hope this helps to get this issue solved soon!

    Daniel

  • staff-bluejay · Staff ·

    Hi @danielf62603de01,

    Thanks for sharing what you did in detail, as well as the workaround. I’m glad you were able to get the entries imported finally!

    I will flag the issue to our development team so they can take a look again.

  • Unknown's avatar
    danielf62603de01 · Member ·

    Hi @staff-bluejay,

    thanks for your reply! This gives me some hope for the issue to be solved soon!

    Daniel

  • Unknown's avatar
    polishedstaple · Member ·

    I’m eagerly watching this thread @staff-bluejay.

  • staff-joey8 · Staff ·

    Hi @polishedstaple & @danielf62603de01

    If your query is about the sample file, our team has been investigating and the issue seems to be that we aren’t able to have a sample that would work everywhere. Because format differs per localisation region for each device, and that can lead to such errors.

    We do have this logged, so it could possibly be improved in a future version.

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