Unacceptable Login Restriction for Photo Features
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Formal Complaint Regarding Day One Photo Function Restriction & Privacy Concerns
I was updating my journal today and found that adding and pasting photos is no longer available without logging into an account. As a long-term Day One user for many years, I still remember that Day One revised its business model from a lifetime purchase to an annual subscription a few years ago, which triggered widespread criticism and disappointment among users. I chose to tolerate that untrustworthy practice at that time.
However, the current restriction is completely unacceptable to me. It is unreasonable and illogical that users are prohibited from inserting photos in their own journal entries unless signed in. It seems that the company is forcing users to adopt its proprietary data synchronization service by imposing such limitations, which lacks respect for user experience.
A journal is a highly private record of personal life, and users have strong expectations for data privacy and autonomy. Coercing users to store their data on the company’s servers disregards users’ privacy rights and personal choices.
At present, there are many excellent alternative journal applications in the market. The only reason I have continued using Day One is long-term habit and reluctance to switch platforms, and I have not minded the annual subscription fee. But with this unreasonable restriction on photo insertion, I have decided to completely discontinue using Day One starting today.
I am extremely disappointed and dissatisfied with this decision. Users deserve the right to choose how to use the application and manage their own data, yet the company has deprived users of this basic right. I hope Day One can reconsider this policy and respect the needs and privacy of long-term users.
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I’ve been testing to see whether this issue is just a bug in Day One. I backed up all my local journal data by removing the Day One system folder at
~/Library/Group Containers/5U8NS4GX82.dayoneapp2. After reopening the app, everything was blank.Once I signed in and enabled sync, I created a new entry and added photos without any problem, and the app correctly recognized me as a paid subscriber. But as soon as I turned sync off, I was no longer able to add photos at all.
This clearly shows it is not a bug—you have intentionally modified the app to force all paying users to log in and sync their data before being able to attach photos to entries.
I have a serious question for the Day One team:
I have used this app for many years, and local offline usage has always been fully supported. By making this change, are you violating your own user agreement?
Do you really believe forcing users to sync will bring you more revenue? I think this is a huge mistake. Users who prefer not to sync will not be coerced; we will simply leave. Users who already use sync are unaffected. In the end, you will only lose users.
With great reluctance, I will be exporting all my data and moving away from Day One, despite being a long-time user.
Some people may wonder why I avoid cloud sync. It is simply a matter of personal preference—some like it, some don’t. The solution is easy: add a toggle in settings and let users choose for themselves whether to sync.
Also, this post has been up on your forum for several days, and not a single staff member has responded. This only adds to my disappointment.
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Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed message — and for doing the testing to understand what was happening. I’m sorry we didn’t respond sooner on the forum.
You’re right that Day One currently requires you to be signed in to unlock photo attachments. This is tied to how the app verifies your subscription — without a sign-in, it has no way to confirm a valid subscription is active on the device.
However, what you experienced — photos working when signed in but blocked the moment sync was turned off — is not entirely intended behavior. We did have a bug in earlier versions where the app failed to correctly verify App Store subscription status when signed out, causing valid subscribers to be blocked from adding media. This was resolved in version 2026.7 as part of changes to how the app handles subscription verification. If you were on an older version when you tested this, updating to 2026.7 or later should resolve that specific behaviour.
I recognize you’ve already canceled your subscription, and I respect that decision entirely. If you ever decide to give a paid Day One subscription another look, I hope the experience will be better.
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Hello,
Thank you for your reply. My Day One has been set to update automatically, so it has always been running the latest version. After seeing your response, I checked the version number again, and the current version is 2026.7 (1745), which is the latest version released on the Day One official website yesterday. Unfortunately, the issue still persists.
In fact, before posting my initial message, I had already conducted a thorough investigation. As you mentioned, this issue had occurred before and was supposedly resolved in a later version. However, I do not believe this problem is truly related to the App Store’s verification process. There are countless apps on the App Store, each involving permission verification—this is not a particularly complex matter.
To give the benefit of the doubt, one might assume that your team has repeatedly made mistakes on this issue. But to be less charitable, it seems more like an attempt to force users to sync their data—because only by doing so can you retain users who find it difficult to leave. Looking at the reviews on the App Store, almost all the lowest ratings are related to data synchronization. For instance, some users had been using the app normally for a long time but accidentally synced their data, only to have all their local data erased. Others, who were non-subscribers, found that after experiencing data loss, they were required to pay in order to download their data back to the device. I am not making this up—these are real user reviews on the App Store.
I have been using Day One for many years. In the past, it was an excellent app. But ever since Day One was acquired and experienced layoffs, everything has changed. Day One has become untrustworthy.
After encountering this issue, I spent an hour exporting all my data from Day One as a JSON file. Then, using the Day One Importer plugin, I imported the JSON package into Obsidian. The process was simple and fast. With the Dataview plugin, I was able to recreate the “On This Day” feature—and it even works better.
Some may still wonder why I am so persistent about data synchronization. The reason is twofold: first, I have been using the app locally for years and have grown accustomed to that approach (for the sake of security). Now, being suddenly forced to sync my data feels highly intrusive. Second, whether or not to sync data should be the user’s choice. That has always been the case for years—those who prefer syncing can do so, but if a user does not wish to, that decision should also be respected.
Since Day One is now forcing this upon me, I have no choice but to leave. For those who are currently using and loving Day One, I encourage you to carefully evaluate your own situation—the Day One of today is no longer the Day One it once was.
Thank you again, Frank, for your response. There is no need to reply further. I appreciate it.
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