A private journal · iOS first

A journal that listens, then asks the right question.

Marrow Journal reads your entries, learns the language you use to describe your life, and asks the kind of follow-up question a thoughtful therapist would ask. It never tells you what to do. It just helps you think more clearly about what you've already said.

On-device by default Encrypted Markdown No data monetization
A note

Marrow Journal is a journaling tool, not a therapy app, medical device, or crisis service. It does not diagnose, treat, or provide psychological advice. If you are in crisis, please contact a licensed professional.

The principle

Marrow Journal extracts. It does not advise.

Most journals are passive — they store what you write and do nothing with it. Most "AI journals" go the other way: they summarize, coach, suggest next steps, tell you what your patterns mean.

Marrow Journal does neither. It reads what you wrote, links it to what you've written before, and asks the next question. The interpretation is yours. Always.

What Marrow Journal is
  • A private journal that listens
  • An interviewer grounded in your own history
  • A mirror for emotional language
  • A timeline of how your feelings change
What it is not
  • A therapist or clinical product
  • A chatbot for open-ended conversation
  • A coach that tells you what to do
  • A cloud database of your private thoughts
How it works

Four small things, repeated every day.

01 / Capture

Write or speak.

Type freely or talk it out — voice mode transcribes on-device and reads questions back to you. Both modes use the same engine.

02 / Index

Your entry is read.

The app cross-references today's words against months of your own — by topic, by person, by the way you tend to speak about feelings.

03 / Reflect

One to three questions.

A small handful of questions, never advice. Sometimes drawn from clinical frameworks. Sometimes specific to a moment from a year ago.

04 / Notice

How did that feel?

After every entry: "How did that make you feel?" Your answer, in your own words, becomes part of the trail of how you change.

Connected moments

Today's entry, held next to a moment from last year.

When something you write today rhymes with something you wrote a long time ago, Marrow Journal shows you both — side by side, in your own words. No clinical labels, no diagnoses. Just the moments themselves, and a question.

JUN 14, 2025 · 9:42 PM

"I have to present to the whole leadership team on Monday. I can already feel my hands shaking. I don't know how I'm going to get through this."

terrified
APR 21, 2026 · 6:18 PM

"The presentation went better than I expected. I kept waiting for the moment it would fall apart but it just… didn't."

nervous but ready
Moments involving public speaking → terrified ··· dreading it ··· nervous ··· nervous but ready
Privacy is the foundation

Your thoughts belong to you.

Marrow Journal is local-first. Entries are stored as encrypted Markdown files on your device, in a format you can read, export, or delete at any time. We never possess your data, because there's nothing on our side to possess.

On-device by default

Indexing, pattern matching, and question generation run inside the app on supported hardware. The work happens where the writing happens.

Encrypted Markdown

AES-256 at rest. Keys live in the Secure Enclave. Files are human-readable when decrypted, portable enough to take anywhere.

No data monetization. Ever.

You pay a subscription for the app. That's the entire business. Your journal is never the product, and there's no account to delete on a server.

Three execution modes — choose where the work happens
DEFAULT
Auto
The app evaluates your device and chooses local or remote based on a capability gate. Best balance of privacy and responsiveness.
MAX PRIVACY
Local
Force everything on-device. Recommended on modern hardware. Nothing ever leaves your phone.
CONFIDENTIAL CLOUD
Remote
Heavy work runs in a hardware-backed enclave. Stateless. Verifiable by remote attestation. No plaintext retention.
Pattern taxonomy

The questions are grounded in clinical literature — but the reading is yours.

Behind the scenes, Marrow Journal matches your writing against a curated taxonomy of behavioral and emotional patterns drawn from CBT, ACT, Schema Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, and Emotion-Focused Therapy. The names below stay internal. What you see is always plain language: "Moments where you held back in tense situations."

B-01
Conflict avoidance
Behavioral
B-02
Procrastination
Behavioral
B-03
Overcommitting
Behavioral
R-01
People-pleasing
Relational
R-02
Repeating dynamics
Relational
R-03
Difficulty with vulnerability
Relational
E-01
Anticipatory worry
Emotional
E-02
Guilt & self-blame
Emotional
E-03
Suppressed anger
Emotional
E-04
Numbness
Emotional
C-01
Black-and-white thinking
Cognitive
C-02
Perfectionism
Cognitive
CONTEXTUAL

"You've written about Sarah three times this week. What would change if you told her directly how you feel about Tuesday?"

STANDARDIZED

"You said 'it doesn't matter,' but you've written three paragraphs about it. What would it look like to let yourself be angry about this?"

HYBRID

"Last June you wrote about a similar moment with a different team. You used the word 'terrified.' What feels different this time?"

FEELING

"How did that make you feel?"

Where we sit in the market

The other apps are either coaches, or notebooks. We're neither.

AI journaling apps that give you advice, and privacy-focused journaling apps that do nothing with your data. Marrow Journal is the thing in the middle.

Capability Rosebud Reflection Mindsera Day One Marrow Journal
On-device AI partial default
User owns all data always
Pattern taxonomy from clinical lit. partial
Connected moments across time partial
Emotional evolution in your words
Two-way voice mode partial
Never gives advice n/a by design
Pricing

One subscription. No data tax.

You pay for the app. Your data lives on your device. We host none of it, sell none of it, train on none of it. The numbers below are indicative and will be finalized at launch.

Monthly
Try it for as long as you need. Cancel any time.
$9/ month
  • Unlimited entries, voice and text
  • On-device pattern indexing
  • Connected moments & emotional arcs
  • Encrypted Markdown export
  • iCloud Drive sync (optional)
Get notified at launch

Optional: confidential-cloud re-index of your full history is à la carte. Compute happens inside a hardware-backed enclave; no plaintext retained. We'll publish exact pricing alongside the privacy spec at launch.

Frequently asked

The honest questions.

Is Marrow Journal a therapy app?

No. Marrow Journal is a journaling app with intelligent follow-up questions. It does not diagnose, treat, or recommend treatment for any condition. It does not replace a licensed professional. The line is bright by design — that's what allows it to be useful without being clinical.

Where does my data live?

On your device, as encrypted Markdown files. You can read them, export them, or delete them at any time. We don't host them, and there's no account on our servers. Optional iCloud Drive sync uses encrypted files; the keys never leave your device.

What about the cloud option?

For users on older hardware or anyone who explicitly wants faster re-indexing, we offer a remote compute path that runs inside a hardware-backed enclave (a Trusted Execution Environment). The cloud provider — including their admins — cannot see your data, model weights, or outputs. Processing is stateless and verifiable through remote attestation.

Will the AI ever tell me what to do?

No. Every output passes through a quality filter that rejects advice, diagnoses, or directives. The system asks questions. The interpretation belongs to you.

What devices and platforms are supported?

iOS first — iPhone 12 and newer recommended for full local inference. Older devices automatically fall back to the confidential-cloud path. Android is the next planned platform, starting remote-first with selective local inference on supported hardware.

What if I'm in crisis?

Please contact a crisis line or licensed professional immediately. Marrow Journal is a reflective journal, not an emergency resource. Onboarding includes regional crisis-line information and clear disclaimers.

How does the system get smarter over time?

Your indexed history grows with each entry. After roughly 10–15 entries the questions start to sharpen — they begin to reference specific people, recurring situations, and the way you tend to describe feelings. None of that learning leaves your device.

Coming to iOS

Write what's on your mind. The right question will find you.

Join the waitlist for early access. We'll only email you when the iOS app is ready, and once again at Android launch.