Write about a past day
Every long journal has gaps — a busy week, a trip, a month that got away. A new entry in Reflect is dated to today on purpose, and the composer has no date picker. But a day you remember can still be filled in, from the calendar or from a photo of it. Such entries are marked as written later, so the record stays honest.
From the calendar · any device
Tap the day, write about it
The plain way. Works on the phone, in the browser, and in the installed app on a computer.
Open the day
In Calendar, open the month and tap the day. A day with nothing written shows a single button: Write about this day.
Write, dated to that day
The usual composer opens, with the day named at the top of the card. Type what you remember and tap Save — the entry lands on that day in the calendar and in Rediscover, like any other.
Add photos if you have them
Attach photos the same way you always do. If a photo carries a place, the entry gets that place; the day itself stays the one you tapped.
From a photo · iPhone
Let the photo pick the day
The photo already knows when and where it was taken. Share it to Reflect Day and the entry opens on that day, with the place filled in.
Find the photo
Open Photos and scroll back. The library is in the order things happened, and that order is what brings a day back — you rarely go looking for a date; you recognise one.
Share it to Reflect Day
Tap Share and choose Reflect Day. The same works from the Files app. You can select several photos from the same day and share them together — they become one entry, not one entry each.
The entry opens on that day
The composer opens dated to the moment the photo was taken, photos already attached, place filled in when the photo knows it. Check the day at the top, write, save.
Google Photos is the exception
Google Photos hands other apps a picture, not the photo file, so Reflect Day is not offered in its share sheet. Save the photo to your phone first (⋯ › Save to device), then share it from Photos. Google Photos also has its own setting, Hide photo location data — with it on, photos leave without their place.
What the photo knows
Date and place travel with the file
Reflect only uses what the photo itself records. Nothing is looked up, nothing is guessed.
The date comes from the photo
A photo taken with a phone or camera records the moment it was taken. Reflect reads that from the photo file the share sheet hands over and uses it for the entry's date and time.
So does the place
If the photo has a location, the entry gets that place, and for a photo from the last few months the weather of that day too. The share sheet on iPhone has an Options row at the top with a Location switch — keep it on, or the place is left out.
Some photos know nothing
Screenshots, pictures saved from a chat, and images downloaded from the web usually carry no date and no place. Reflect then asks you to pick the day, and adds no location. It never guesses.
Pick the day carefully
Once saved, an entry's date cannot be changed. Whether you came from the calendar or from a photo, look at the day at the top of the composer before you save.
Honesty
Remembered, and marked as such
A journal is valuable because you wrote it then. An entry written years later is still yours — but it is a different kind of entry, and the app keeps that difference visible.
Marked as written later
An entry made this way carries a small "Written later" label wherever entries show where they were written. Years from now you will know which words were written on the day and which were remembered.
Streaks stay honest
Filling in a day does not count as having written that day. Your streak and writing consistency ignore these entries; everything else — search, the calendar, Rediscover, the assistant — treats them as ordinary entries.
Kept out of your writing profile
Stylometry measures how your language changed over the years. Today's words filed under an old date would look like a change that never happened, so these entries are left out of it.
Writing it
A few habits that help
Say what you are unsure of
Memory fills gaps on its own. If you remember the place but not the mood, write that. "I think" and "I don't remember why" are honest entries; a confident paragraph you made up is not.
One day, one entry
Several photos from the same day belong together: share them in one go, or attach them to the one entry. If you find another photo of that day later, add it to the existing entry rather than making a second one.
Leave the gaps that are gaps
Not every empty day needs filling. A day you remember nothing about is a true record too — the point is to keep the days you do remember, not to make the calendar look complete.
Using the rest of your journal
Read about everyday writing, voice notes, Rediscover, and optional AI.
How Reflect Day works →