Import from MacJournal

Alejandro

I used MacJournal for many years as a personal diary but now it is full of bugs and it even stopped synching causing me to loose a lot of my entries 😡. So far, hurray for Diarium! Is it posible to import my MacJournal entries? Or from Word (I think I have a MacJournal backup in doc format). Thanks!

timo

No, import from MacJournal is not possible, sorry.

Alejandro

timo Thanks for your reply, Timo! I read about the possibility of using an Excel format as used by other Supported apps, do you think that is possible? If so, does a specific format exist. It is a 10 year diary, I would love to have it all on Diarium. Best!

timo

What do you mean by Excel format? Diarium only supports the formats of the apps listed under the migration button.

Alejandro

timo I read in this thread that since importing depends on a specific format to be understood by Diarium a csv file (not .xls, sorry) with the appropiate format might do the trick.

timo

RobertSpencer

Alejandro I'm sorry to hear about the lost entries. I hate data loss, that's the quickest way to get me to find the exit.

That being said does your issues still persist on MacJournal version 7.2.1 (available on the original developers [Dan Schimpf] website)? Not that I'm wanting you to continue with something you no longer trust, I'm wondering if there's any way to get your lost entries back. If sync is the problem, I'm assuming the lost entries are still somewhere on another device. I hope so.

As for your Doc format backup, I wish apps would stop labeling that as an "export" format. It's a print format. I'm not aware of any diary app that attempts to import another diary apps exported Doc file.

By the way, if any one in future does find one that does please let me now?

RM

Hi, Timo, I have the same question. I do have years of MacJuornal entries and wondering possibilities move to Diarium.

BreBro

I have the same problem. My daily journal actually goes back to a database from 1994, and I had imported all those entries into MacJournal when I started using it in 2010 or so, but yeah, now that it no longer syncs with my iPad Pro tablet, I kind of want to change to something that will work on all my devices, but now I see Diarium won’t work on my 2014 iMac, so I still can’t get that. I upgraded my desktop MacJournal, and it seems to still function, but was there ever an update for the iPadOS or iOS version of it?

Rod

I have an import / export question. Perhaps I jumped too soon! After hours of research I concluded Diarium was the perfect journaling app for me from which to move from 17 years of using MacJournal. I am using MacOS Tahoe 26.2. I have tried everything I can think of: Exporting from MacJournal into HTML, purchasing Diarium for Windows 11 running in Parallels, converting to that, etc. The only additional option is to export day by day journal entries into plain text or Microsoft DOCX which would take hours and hours. Is there absolutely no workaround for getting data into Diarium from the MacJournal format or should I just abandon Diarium and post warnings on social media for potential future users?

BreBro

I ended up buying a new Mac Mini desktop so I could upgrade the OS to the current Tahoe version, but then I saw I still had to pay for Diarium again, for the desktop version for another $16 after tax, but still saw no way to import the years of MacJournal entries, so I exported them to text files that I could copy from, and paste into Diarium, but of course, that’s going to be a long process for 30 years worth of entries.

Now I see that Apple’s Journal app is available on my tablet. I had not used it when it was an iPhone-only app, but if they make it for use on iPad and desktop I may start using that, since I will have to copy and paste anyway in either app (I see NO import option for Journal) but I also hate to have spent over $26 on Diarium, just to switch over to Journal now…

Rod

Ok. I have been able to import my sixteen year’s worth of MacJournal to Diarium, but it was not easy. I had to also install Diarium for Windows in Parallels since the Windows version is gentler with the import process. I changed MacJournal files to HTML, then converted the HTML files to JSON files since Diarium will accept JSON files in ZIP format if the folder is a top tier folder. I then imported the JSON files into Diarium for Windows. Once installed there I synced my Windows, iPhone and Mac versions of Diarium using iCloud. Notice that in every platform the app has to be a re-set empty copy. After the sync all is working well and years of journaling is all in one place. Don’t let ‘em tell you it can’t be done!