Ember: Journal & Life Archive

Most journals keep events in the order they happened. Ember keeps the people. Type @ and a name while you write, and that entry joins the person's page, next to how you met, the stories you share and every moment you wrote down. Over the years the journal becomes a life archive, organised around the people who mattered.

Worlds group the circles you move in (family, work, college), and Stories hold chapters that span years. The Feed brings back moments on the right day, like a year since you met someone, and when a person you care about has been quiet too long, they gently surface, with no streaks and no guilt. A Map shows where memories happened, and on Mac and iPad a Graph shows everyone at once, gathered into the worlds you share.

Ember imports Day One and Apple Journal libraries, with photos, video and audio, and finds the people already named in old entries. Entries support Markdown, photos, voice memos and songs from Apple Music.

Ember is local-first. The journal lives on your device, locks with Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode, and syncs only through your own iCloud. There is no Ember account and no Ember server. Ember has no AI: it never reads, writes or summarises a word of your journal. Everything can be exported at any time as an open, documented archive.

KEY FEATURES

• @ mentions: mention a person once and the entry gathers on their page
• A page for everyone: how you met, shared stories, every moment written down
• Worlds and Stories for the circles and chapters of a life
• Feed: on this day memories and gentle nudges about people gone quiet
• Map of entries, stories and people; Graph of everyone on Mac and iPad
• Import from Day One and Apple Journal
• Markdown, photos, voice memos and Apple Music songs in entries
• Memory cards and story PDFs to send to the people in them (nothing is hosted)
• Local-first, app lock, private iCloud sync, full export, no AI
• Native on Mac, iPhone and iPad, in 12 languages

WHY IT EXISTS

"I've lost nearly five people I know. Not lost like they are gone. Lost like I forgot their name." Nandha built Ember so the people who crossed his path keep a place, even someone met only once. The full story: https://ember.mov/about/