# A free online diary you keep by replying to an email

An online diary is a diary you keep on a screen instead of on paper. ohmylife is one, kept by replying to an email: each evening an email asks how your day went, and your reply becomes the day's page. A diary and a journal are the same thing here: the screens in ohmylife say "journal", and this page says "diary".

There is no app to open and nothing to remember. [Start your diary](/app/). Sign in with Google and write your first day tonight.

## What an online diary is

An online diary, also called a digital diary, is a diary kept on a screen. A paper diary is one book, kept in one place. A notes app holds notes about anything, while a diary holds days: one page for each date.

ohmylife keeps a diary for you. You can also write on the web: write or change any day, mark how it felt, and tag a day with a word to find it again.

Keep a second diary for something you write now and then, such as letters to a child. Each has its own days, and its own email on the days and at the hour you choose.

## Why a diary is hard to keep

A diary that depends on you remembering to open it is easy to forget.

In ohmylife, each evening an email arrives: how did your day go? There is no app to open and nothing to remember. Two sentences is plenty. Whatever you write back is kept as that day.

ohmylife emails you on the days and at the hour you choose. The emails are part of the service, not advertising. Each one has a link that stops them for that diary.

[How it works](/journal-by-email/) goes through each part. If you are weighing diaries kept by email, [journals kept by email, compared](/email-journals-compared/) sets three of them side by side.

## Photos in your diary

- Photos kept with your days: attach one to your reply, or add it on the web.
- ohmylife keeps JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF pictures of up to 10 MB each, ten to a day, and 1 GB of them in all.
- You can remove a single photo from its day. It is gone from your diary at once.

None of your photos has a public address: a photo is shown only to you, signed in, and nobody else can fetch it.

## Who can read your online diary

A private online diary raises one question first: who can read it? ohmylife is not end-to-end encrypted, and we will not pretend that it is. The service has to be able to open the text: to send you a day from years ago and to take your reply by email.

What we promise instead is that we do not read it. Nothing we use to run the service shows anything you wrote or any photo you added.

Everything you write in ohmylife, and every photo you add, belongs to you. A reply is as private as your inbox is.

[The privacy page](/privacy/) says exactly what we can and cannot promise.

## Yours to take, and yours to delete

- Download the whole diary whenever you like, photos and all, as plain files any computer can open.
- Once a year a copy arrives by email without your asking.
- If ohmylife ever closes, you will be told well beforehand and sent your diary first.
- Delete one diary or your whole account from Settings. Nothing is removed for seven days, in case you change your mind. Then all of it goes.

[The privacy page](/privacy/) says exactly what happens to what you write.

## Keeping a diary for years

You will remember the big days anyway. It is the ones in between that disappear.

Years later, the day returns. This is something you turn on: each email then carries something you wrote on an earlier day, one from the same date in an earlier year, or failing that an older one picked at random. Writing today gives you back a piece of your past.

It is off unless you turn it on, because those words then travel by email and stay in your inbox.

Write a day by email in the evening and add to it on the web the next morning: the day keeps its earlier versions, each showing when it was written, how, and whether you or your assistant wrote it. Any earlier version can be brought back.

Name one person to receive your diary if you are ever silent for a long time, or have it deleted then. It is off unless you turn it on, and only your own silence can set it off.

## What it costs

ohmylife is free: nothing is charged, and no card is asked for. [The pricing page](/pricing/) lists what is included.

## Questions people ask

### Is this a free online diary?

Yes. Nothing is charged, and no card is asked for. [The pricing page](/pricing/) lists what is included.

### Is there a diary app to install?

No. An email arrives and you reply to it. There is no app to open, and there is a diary on the web when you want one.

### Can I write without the email?

Yes. There is a diary on the web as well, where you can write or change any day.

### Who can read my diary?

You. ohmylife is not end-to-end encrypted, because the service has to open the text to send you a day from years ago and to take your reply by email. What we promise instead is that we do not read it. There are no ads, nothing is sold, and no AI is trained on what you write. [The privacy page](/privacy/) says exactly what we can and cannot promise.

### Can I add photos?

Yes. Attach a photo to your reply, or add it to a day on the web: up to ten a day, 10 MB each, 1 GB in all.

### Can I stop the emails?

Yes. Each email has a link that stops them for that diary, and you choose the days and the hour they come.

### Can I get everything out again?

Yes. Download the whole diary whenever you like, as a folder of plain text files with your photos beside the days they belong to. Once a year the same download is emailed to you.

### Can my AI assistant use it?

Yes, if you connect one. It can read your diary and write in it when you ask, within what you allow. See [AI assistants](/ai-assistants/).

Last changed 13 November 2026.

[Start your journal](/app/). Sign in with Google and write your first day tonight.

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Contact: hello@ohmylife.app