Journalling Suggestions Intelligently Groups Daily Moments and Special Events

Journalling Suggestions uses on-device processing to intelligently group moments and events, in order to provide you with personalised suggestions. Using information stored on your device, Journalling Suggestions can recommend special moments for you to remember and write about. You control which suggestions are shared with journalling apps that use Journalling Suggestions.

Journalling Suggestions can include suggestions from your activities (such as workout type, duration, routes, energy burnt and heart rate), media use (such as which podcast and song you listened to, artist name and track name), contacts (such as whom you communicated with via texts, calls and FaceTime), photos (such as photos and videos from your library, names of people and pets from your library, shared albums, scene classifications and memories), significant locations (such as places you’ve recently been, including information about events you’ve attended, as well as how often and when you visited them, in order to learn places that are significant to you), and state of mind (such as moods and emotions you log).

When you enable Journalling Suggestions, limited historical data stored on your iPhone, including information about your workouts, media use, communications and photos, will be used to create meaningful suggestions for you. On your iPhone, you can customise the categories of data to include in your Journalling Suggestions by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journalling Suggestions, and tapping a specific category to turn it on or off. If more than one journalling app uses Journalling Suggestions, your choices of which categories to include in your Journalling Suggestions will apply to all apps. You can also clear the history of suggestions that have not yet been shared with a journalling app by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journalling Suggestions, then tapping Clear History. You can turn off Journalling Suggestions by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journalling Suggestions, then tapping Turn Off All. Your decision to turn off all suggestions will apply to all journalling apps using Journalling Suggestions. If you no longer want to see Journalling Suggestions on your iPad, you can stop syncing suggestions by going to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > See All > Journalling Suggestions, and tapping to turn off sync.

Prioritise Moments with Contacts

Journalling Suggestions uses Bluetooth signals to determine which suggestions may be more meaningful or relevant to you. Prioritise Moments with Contacts will use Bluetooth to detect the number of your mutual contacts who are nearby and to allow mutual contacts to include you in their number of nearby contacts. Contacts’ names and locations are not shared with you and your name and location are not shared with contacts. The number of nearby contacts is stored on device and used to prioritise moments spent with people you know. If you do not want Journalling Suggestions to use the number of your nearby contacts, or to allow contacts to include you in their number of nearby contacts to prioritise suggestions, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journalling Suggestions, then tap to turn off Prioritise Moments with Contacts.

In addition to prioritising moments with contacts, Journalling Suggestions may leverage other existing device signals, such as Bluetooth for AirDrop, to detect whether Apple devices (not necessarily contacts) are near you to prioritise suggestions with larger groups. Names and locations are not shared — only number of Apple devices.

iCloud Journalling Suggestions

If you use iCloud, your Journalling Suggestions are encrypted while in transit and at rest, and are kept up to date across your iCloud-enabled iPhone and iPad. If you have default two-factor authentication and a passcode, your Journalling Suggestions are end-to-end encrypted when stored in iCloud, so even Apple can’t read them. Only one iPhone can be used to sync Journalling Suggestions across your iCloud-enabled iPhone and iPad. You can change your primary iPhone for syncing Journalling Suggestions by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journalling Suggestions, then tapping Sync from this iPhone. You can disable iCloud for Journalling Suggestions on your iPhone or iPad at any time by going to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > See All > Journalling Suggestions, and tapping to turn off sync.

Sharing Journalling Suggestions with the Journal App and Third-Party Apps

You control which suggestions are shared with journalling apps that use Journalling Suggestions by selecting moments that are meaningful to you and adding them to the app. Only you can see your suggestions prior to sharing them. You can view which apps are using Journalling Suggestions by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journalling Suggestions, and viewing Apps Using Private Access.

If you choose to share your suggestions with the Journal app, you have control over your entries. When your phone is locked with a passcode, entries in the Journal app are encrypted. If you have default two-factor authentication and a passcode, all Journal entries are end-to-end encrypted when stored in iCloud, so even Apple can’t read them. Additionally, you can choose to enable secondary authentication and lock the Journal app with your device passcode, Face ID or Touch ID.

Notifications

If you enable Journalling Suggestions notifications, Journalling Suggestions may prompt you to write about moments and special events. Your location and routines, such as activity and app usage, will determine when you are notified, or you can create a custom schedule in Settings. If you have enabled Journalling Suggestions for more than one journalling app, you may choose which journalling app you’d like to open Journalling Suggestions notifications by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journalling Suggestions > Notifications > Customise Notifications > Open Notifications With, and tapping to select an app. You can disable Journalling Suggestions notifications by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journalling Suggestions > Notifications, and tapping to turn them off.

At all times, information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/au/privacy.

Published Date: September 15, 2025