jrnl

jrnl is a simple journal application for the command line. It lets you collect thoughts and notes without leaving the terminal, and it stores entries as human-readable plain text. You can start a new entry by typing directly at the prompt or by using your external editor.

Natural phrasing like "yesterday:" is read as a timestamp, and jrnl treats the first sentence as the title and the rest as the body. You can create, search, and view entries from the command line, and any journal can be encrypted with AES.

Because entries live in plain text files on your own machine, the data stays portable and easy to read with any tool, with optional encryption when you want it locked down. jrnl is maintained by Jonathan Wren and Micah Ellison and installs through package managers such as Homebrew and pip.