Import Day One JSON exports into Apple's Journal app with a Shortcut for iOS 26 and macOS 26.
This Shortcut was built to move a large Day One archive into Journal while working around a few current Shortcuts and Journal limitations. It has been used to move more than 1,200 entries, and other users have reported successful imports with much larger archives.
The current version is 1.1.0-beta.1. See the changelog for its fixes and test status. The signed beta includes the revised source, but Shortcuts runtime and Journal integration checks are still pending.
- Download 1.1.0-beta.1
- Original discussion: Day One to Journal Importer Shortcut for iOS & macOS 26
- Entry text from Day One JSON exports.
- Entry dates, converted to the relevant date and timezone when location data is available.
- Photos, up to Journal's per-entry attachment limit.
- Generated titles for entries that do not already have one.
- A weather summary appended to the bottom of the entry, since Journal import actions do not currently support Day One weather metadata directly.
- Day One location details appended to the entry text so you can manually add the location back in Journal later.
The Shortcut also keeps a JSON ledger of entries it has already imported. It checks each entry's UUID rather than skipping entries by their position in the export. Keep using the same ledger when resuming or importing reduced batches. If Journal creates an entry but the ledger cannot be saved afterward, a retry can still duplicate that entry.
- iOS 26 or macOS 26.
- Apple's Journal app.
- A Day One export in JSON format.
- Apple Intelligence, ChatGPT, or another model configured for the Shortcut's AI actions, unless you customize the Shortcut to remove those steps.
The Shortcut can run on macOS even if the Journal actions do not appear as standalone options in Shortcuts.
- Export your Day One journal as JSON.
- Day One will create a zip archive.
- Unzip the archive.
- Run the Shortcut and select the unzipped export folder.
- Choose Use export folder to load or create
already_imported_uuids.jsonthere. To resume with a ledger stored elsewhere, choose Choose existing ledger folder and select the folder containing that file. - Choose the Day One JSON file from the list. Ledger files are excluded.
The Shortcut saves progress back to the chosen ledger folder. The existing-ledger
option stops if that folder does not contain already_imported_uuids.json.
Run the Shortcut against the unzipped folder itself. That gives it access to the JSON files and the media files referenced by those JSON entries.
Large imports can take a long time. With thousands of entries, the Shortcuts progress indicator may appear stuck while it is still working.
Shortcuts may occasionally fail with an error like:
This action is trying to share 10315055452202434010 Finder items, which is not allowed. You can allow this in Settings.
If that happens, quit Shortcuts, reopen it, and run the importer again. The ledger file lets the Shortcut continue from entries it has not imported yet.
Journal may also drop entries if they are sent too quickly, so the Shortcut is designed to be run more than once. For very large libraries, expect to restart and resume the import multiple times.
- Audio files are not imported.
- Videos are not imported.
- Day One sub-journals cannot be assigned automatically by the Shortcut. Import smaller journals first if you want easier manual cleanup in Journal.
- Journal locations cannot be set directly by the Shortcut, so Day One location details are appended to the entry text instead.
- Entries with more photos than Journal allows will be limited by Journal's per-entry attachment cap.
- The title and weather steps use AI actions. Older devices without Apple Intelligence support, unsupported Siri languages, or model/content issues may cause those steps to fail.
The Shortcut intentionally leaves some variables in place even when they are not used by the default flow, so it is easier to customize.
Useful changes people have made or discussed:
- Remove the AI title generation step and use a blank or temporary title when Day One entries do not have one.
- Remove the weather summary step if you do not want extra text appended to entries.
- Switch the AI actions to ChatGPT or another model if Apple's model struggles with the entry content or language.
- Temporarily change your Siri language to one supported by Apple Intelligence if language support appears to be the issue.
- Add audio or video support by matching the media URLs in Day One's JSON export to the corresponding exported files, similar to how photos are handled.
If entry text is missing, truncated, or only imports up to the first paragraph
break, add a Shortcuts "Show Content" action around the text or
EntryWithoutPhotos value to inspect what the Shortcut is passing into Journal.
If titles look wrong, add an alert or "Show Content" action around the title extraction step and confirm whether the generated title is what you expect.
If you see a path error, make sure the Shortcut is being run on the unzipped Day One export folder and that every file it reads is inside that selected folder.
Patches are welcome. The Shortcut is intended to be open and editable so people can adapt it to their own export shape, AI model, and Journal cleanup workflow.
The editable plist is in
shortcuts/Import_Day_One_to_Journal.xml.
The root .shortcut contains the signed version of that source. After editing,
validate and sign the plist before replacing the download. Do not run the
importer against a personal Journal to test it.
Run the offline regression checks with:
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -vThese checks evaluate selected plist fragments with synthetic data and in-memory file operations. Unsupported actions, including Journal, are rejected. They cover JSON selection, UUID-based resume, ledger routing, and per-entry text and location state. They do not verify Apple's Shortcuts runtime, AI responses, iPhone compatibility, or Journal persistence.