Show HN: A journaling service that runs over WhatsApp

One can do note taking with self on Whatsapp.

Quoting from whatsapp website (https://faq.whatsapp.com/5913398998672934)

> Use https://wa.me/<number> where the <number> is a full phone number in international format.

Put your own number and you chat with yourself. Pin it to top, so it's always there. I use it to add information, search later use cases.

coldtrait · a year ago

This has been out for a while now. But before this, what people used to do is create a group with just yourself as a member, and send messages there. You had to create a group with 2 people (yourself and someone else), and just remove them because it could not be done directly. And this could be used as notes or whatever.

Right now I message myself but let's say if one wanted to maintain a separate chat for notes or some other purpose, they could create an infinite number of groups with just them in it and get it working.

Of course I think OP's solution is offering an interactive experience more than just one way communicaton.

sumitkumar · a year ago

Using this method one can have multiple conversations with self with different contexts. I use one to keep the important docs handy like ongoing travel tickets etc. Another one for Shopping list. and another for saving links and watch later.

lxgr · a year ago

You have more WhatsApp-savvy (or considerate) friends than me – I’ve had people text me notes before (because I’m pinned or otherwise on top of their chat list). “Just ignore please, but I’ll need this in a bit” :)

dmichulke · a year ago

You can also search for yourself.

BUT you won't find anything if you search for "me", you have to search for "you".

Trusting something as private as my personal diary to 3rd party sounds like a scary idea from a privacy point of view. Imagine someone hacking this site, exposing your very private information.

I wish there was something like that end-to-end encrypted. You are already using E2E encryption for the communication channel (WhatsApp). I wish there was a hookup to store the same data without breaking down the chain of encryption. WhatApp should look into that. Something like ProtonDrive connected to WhatsApp and APIs.

ethangk · a year ago

I think Day One probably fits the bill for you there. E2E encrypted. I’ve been using it for about a decade

oarsinsync · a year ago

Diarium is the only thing I’ve found that actually fits the bill, where there is cross platform support and self hosted E2EE.

Unfortunately, Diarium also reduces image quality significantly, even with their ‘higher quality’ setting. My Day One diary export is 90% larger than the data store Diarium syncs to webdav, the loss of fidelity is especially obvious when looking at screenshots.

create-username · a year ago

My thoughts exactly when all mighty Tim Cook granted us iPhone addicts a Journaling app

sutra_on · a year ago

I am not sure if this fits your usecase - but why not just to use encrypted Notes on a Mac or iPhone (if you have an Apple device), and set a daily reminder? What does WhatsApp have that Notes doesn't?

WhyNotHugo · a year ago

You can use XMPP+OMEMO for this. E2EE and self hosted.

rahulg · a year ago

I'd love to figure out a way where entries are encrypted but also the features/user-friendliness is not sacrificed.

smashah · a year ago

You can easily develop and self host such a thing without whatsapp business api

loloquwowndueo · a year ago

Yeah I wouldn’t anyone to mess with my milk either.

(You typoed diary and I couldn’t resist ;) )

dewey · a year ago

> amazing private collection of your life stories

I guess it's technically not "public" but then again it's shipping your most private thoughts to WhatsApp and an unknown person and "privacy" isn't mentioned on the landing page once.

Personally I can recommend DayOne which is built by a trusted entity Automattic (Wordpress etc.) and they do have a big focus on privacy: https://dayoneapp.com/privacy-pledge/

woodglyst · a year ago

End to end encryption is not really a pledge. That is expected of companies like such. Nevertheless, their promise to not sell any data is interesting. If they don’t sell data (which cannot be sold anyways for an E2EE system) I wonder why they collect so much data related to one’s identity as disclosed by them in the App Store Page? Is the behaviour of journaling then becomes a data point to be sold by these companies? Makes you wonder. And as mentioned in their privacy policy page, they are also not except from disclosing information the the US Govt if mandated by a warrant.

E2EE is not enabled by default on their cloud sync journals.

bcye · a year ago

I really wish otherwise great services would stop marketing with "military-grade encryption"

stinkytaco · a year ago

Having served in the military once upon a time, it always makes me chuckle. Now, I didn't do much related to information technology or security, but "unbreakable" is not a term I ever associated with military equipment.

zygo · a year ago

If you come into a clash with Matt, he might start broadcasting out your entries through Wordpress news widget hah (Half joking)

loremm · a year ago

Just because I'm interested in personal bots, doesn't whatsapp business have a (nominal, maybe) cost? I've been using telegram and they're amazingly bot friendly + free but I use whatsapp so much more

Does it feel like it works for small (and personal-use) players with buttons, callbacks, and the rest

You're right. WhatsApp Business API has a cost (which varies depending on country and type of message the Business initiates). I'm hoping to recover the cost through monthly subscriptions.

And I think you can do more about E2E encrypting it. Or at least trying to. At some point, people don't want plaintext journals floating around stored permanently. Although I know it starts as cleartext on whatsapp's servers

Huh yeah that's good to hear. As a small note, on my personal bot I set up a simple journaling (and then just used google sheets as the backend!) includes a nominal 'rating' 1-10 so I can see how my mood fluctuates.

Especially if they do it every day/most days, having the option to see what you wrote "on this day" 2-3 years back is great. Especially when I try to include people's names who I was interacting with (but who are easy to forget 3 years later). It can be a nice reminder to text them and say you were "just randomly", unprompted, thinking about them -- 'How's it going?'

meiraleal · a year ago

Yes it is paid but there are good unofficial APIs (better than the official actually). The problem as you would expect is that they aren't highly reliable and losing messages is common.

blackbear_ · a year ago

Congrats for the launch!

Apologies for the self-promotion, but I've done something similar for Telegram, and I believe some people here might be also' interested in that.

I also wanted to record more of my life, so I created a Telegram bot that saves all messages you send it into a Google Spreadsheet.

Hashtags can be used to split the text into sheets and columns, if so desired. Besides jotting down quick thoughts, this is very handy for short-form journaling such as tracking expenses, workouts, mood, period, weight, diet, etc., with the added bonus of easy charting and summarization from within the spreadsheet. It also supports pictures and other attachments that are uploaded automatically to Google Drive and linked into the spreadsheet.

Feel free to check it out, it's free of charge and does not require any registration: https://t.me/gsheet_notes_bot

Thanks. Telegram bot sounds perfect too. Let me give it a try.

egeozcan · a year ago

This is amazing. Is there a way to attach files/photos as well?

Thank you! Yes, if you share a file or picture with the bot it will be uploaded on a Google drive folder (in your account) and linked into the spreadsheet.

zerop · a year ago

Alifatisk · a year ago

I use Whatsapp often and one major issue I have with the app is how older media gets lost in the history, it's not retrievable anymore, you can only see the blurry thumbnail but downloading it again will not be possible. So until recently, I've considered everything I send on whatsapp as ephemeral unless I back it up.

Also, is exporting possible? Let's say I would like to export all text / media to my pc, is that possible?

WhatsApp does seem to delete old media from their servers, but it should be available on your primary phone indefinitely until you delete it.

Any chance you’re accessing your messages from a different device and your main phone is offline?

I use Google photos on my phone so everything I send is not directly stored locally.

Whatsapp wasn’t like this before, it was when they introduced E2E that old media started to get lost.

If you want a groupchat with accessible history, whatsapp is not the place sadly.

skydhash · a year ago

You can export WhatsApp conversations, but it was flaky last time I tried to do all of them (spanning 4 years). But I expect monthly or semiannually to be fine.

If you're referring to your journal entries to Today Has Been, Export functionality will be available soon.

BoppreH · a year ago

Did you get Meta or a lawyer to clear your usage, especially after you introduce monthly subscriptions, against the WhatsApp Business Policy?

I looked into it previously, and it seemed to imply software services were not welcome. From the WhatsApp Business Policy[1] (emphasis mine):

> 4. Prohibited Organizations and Restrictions on Use

> ...

> If you use Catalogs, or provide any other commerce experiences to sell or otherwise facilitate the exchange of goods or services prohibited by the Meta Commerce Policy, then we may prohibit you from using some or all of the WhatsApp Business Services.

And the Meta Commerce Policy[2] says

> Prohibited Content

> 16. No item for Sale: Listings may not promote news, humor, or other content that does not offer any product for sale.

> 19. Services: Services may not be listed.

> 22. Subscriptions and Digital Products: Listings may not promote the buying or selling of downloadable digital content, digital subscriptions, and digital accounts.

It was unclear to me whether this applies only to marketplace-like platforms, or any service or product that you provide yourself. A tenuous ground to build a company on.

[1] https://business.whatsapp.com/policy

[2] https://www.facebook.com/policies_center/commerce

vzaliva · a year ago

heythere22 · a year ago

The page says "14-day Free trial. No Credit Card Required." but there is no mention of any pricing page. What happens once the trial is over? Does the boy just stop sending messages?

It's mentioned right below "14-day Free Trial" but I need to make it more obvious.

"You can try THB out for 14 days for absolutely free. At the end of the trial period, you can choose between our monthly ($5 per month) or annual ($48 per year) subscription plans."

I have also added it in the bot before you subscribe to the free trial. Thanks for the feedback.

kstrauser · a year ago

Pricing feedback: That's $13/yr more than the full-blown Day One premium service.

playingalong · a year ago

"boy" is obviously a typo. But can be seen as a reference to Amazon Mturk kind of automation by delegating to a human.

ha!