myjournal
Help
A practical guide to writing, saving, and managing your journal in Google Drive.
How it works
Write one plain-text entry per day. Today opens in your browser’s time zone; past dates remain editable and future dates are unavailable. Use Entries to browse previews or Calendar to choose a date. Entries are stored as UTF-8 text files under myjournal/entries/<year>/YYYY-MM-DD.txt in your Google Drive.
Saving and recovery
After an entry loads successfully, changes save after five seconds of idle typing. You can also use Save. Leaving the editor or hiding the page attempts a save, but is not a guarantee. Check for Saved before leaving. Unsaved drafts are backed up separately in this browser tab when browser storage is available. Recovered drafts wait for editing or Save before autosave resumes. Closing the tab or clearing site data can remove the backup.
If loading or saving fails
Keep the page open and copy unsaved text somewhere safe. Retry a failed load before editing. A failed save pauses automatic writes; use Save to retry and follow the displayed instructions. If browser backup is unavailable, do not rely on a draft being recoverable after navigation. myjournal requires an internet connection to load and save entries.
Conflicting changes
If an entry changed elsewhere, review the conflict choices. Keep mine reads the latest version and attempts to save your text. Load the other version asks before replacing your draft. Keep both combines the versions for review before Save. Further changes can cause another conflict. Avoid editing the same entry simultaneously in another tab or directly in Drive; conflict checks cannot guarantee protection against every external write.
What it can and cannot see
Google sign-in identifies your account. The drive.file permission allows access to files and folders created by myjournal or explicitly made available through that permission; it does not grant access to all of Drive. The app presents its own journal files. You can inspect your saved files directly in Google Drive.
When to reconnect
If Google access expires or is revoked, reconnect when prompted. Keep unsaved text safe before navigating away and reconnect to the same account. Google Testing connections may expire sooner than the app’s maximum 30-day sign-in lifetime. Reconnecting does not recover drafts from a closed tab.
Trash, sign out, and Disconnect
Moving an entry to trash requires confirmation and uses Google Drive Trash. Restore or permanently delete it in Drive. Sign out ends your app session; Disconnect in Settings also revokes Google access. Neither deletes saved files. Save or copy unsaved text first: successful sign-out clears this account’s browser drafts. If cleanup fails after sign-out, use the cleanup retry shown on the page.
Need more help?
Contact support without including journal entries, passwords, or sign-in credentials. You can read more about data handling and service conditions below.