PicLoomDiaro alternative: when your diary is photos, not words
You open your diary to find a day, and the first thing you see is a wall of text. That is Diaro doing its job. It is a diary built for writing: folders, tags, and a mood tracker for people who remember in sentences. It is free, around since 2014, with about 4,500 ratings at 4.7 stars on its listing. If your days live in words, there is little reason to leave. But if you open your diary looking for a photo, the shape is wrong. A photo journal starts from the other end: the photo first, a line of your own second, and a page you can look at instead of a paragraph you have to read. This comparison covers what Diaro does, who should stay, and where a photo journal fits better.
What Diaro actually does
Diaro is a multi-platform diary, journal, and notes app for iPhone, Android, and the web. Its own listing describes it as a place to record activities, daily events, appointments, experiences, thoughts, feelings, and secrets throughout the day, and to sync them across devices and a PC. Entries are organized with folders, tags, and locations, and found again by keyword, date, tag, folder, or location. Around the entries sit a daily mood tracker, an atlas view, an on-this-day throwback, weather info, a calendar view, and statistics about your entries and mood. Photos can be attached to entries, and entries can be written by voice.
Sync runs through Dropbox: the same diary on your phone, on another device, and in Diaro Online in a browser. The listing puts sync and PDF export in Diaro PRO, alongside an ad-free experience and priority support. Diaro PRO is an auto-renewing subscription, and the listing shows US$5.99 per year, with the note that the actual price may vary by location and is shown in the app. The free app itself costs nothing to download. The listing's current version is 2.0.2, and its release notes are dated December 2023. As with every competitor fact in this article, these details come from the App Store listing as it stands today, and the store shows the final price and availability for your region.
Who should stay with Diaro
Stay if your diary is a book of words. Diaro fits the person who writes every day in sentences, keeps several kinds of log in one place, and wants to find an entry again by searching for it. The listing's own examples go beyond a diary: a diet log, a travel diary, a sleep journal, a wish list, daily expenses, even receipts and homework tracking. If several of those live in one app for you, a photo journal will feel narrow by comparison, because it is built for one thing: days as pages.
Stay also if you need more than an iPhone. Diaro runs on Android and in a browser, and its Dropbox sync is the bridge between them. If you journal from a Windows PC at work and an iPhone at home, or if your household mixes Android and iPhone, that bridge alone can be the reason to stay. And stay if mood patterns matter to you. Diaro tracks mood daily and turns entries into statistics. A photo journal does not do that, and it does not try to. Its answer to "how was the year" is a shelf of pages, not a chart.
Where a photo journal splits off
The split is about what an entry is. In Diaro, the entry is text, and a photo is something attached to it. In a photo journal, the page is the photo itself, laid out like paper, with stickers, tape, and a line of your own. That changes what you do when you open the app. A text diary asks you to write before you can remember. A photo journal lets you remember first: pick the photo, and the day comes back, and the line you add only has to say what the photo cannot.
It also changes how a diary gets reread. Diaro is built for retrieval: search, filter, folders, statistics. A photo journal is built for rereading: pages bound into books on a shelf, one book per journal, a shared journal getting a book of its own. And it changes who the diary is for. Diaro is a private diary for one person, with a lock and a passcode. A photo journal can still be private, but it also has a second shape: a shared journal two people write together, and letters sent between people, so the year two people lived gets one book instead of two separate diaries.
Diaro and PicLoom side by side
| What matters | Diaro | PicLoom |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | A blank entry to write in | A photo to build a page around |
| Writing | Full entries, voice to text, unlimited photos attached | One line of your own per page, plus auto pages |
| Organizing | Folders, tags, locations, search and filters | Pages bound into books on a shelf, by journal |
| Finding it again | Search by keyword, date, tag, folder, or location | Open the book, flip the pages |
| Platforms | iPhone, Android, and web, synced through Dropbox | iPhone and iPad |
| Sharing | Private diary, shared by email or message per entry | Shared journals and letters between people |
| Export | PDF, DOCX, CSV, and TXT, with PRO | Whole books as PDF, with Pro |
| Price | Free; PRO subscription listed at US$5.99 per year | Free to start; Pro one-time purchase of US$14.99 |
Five mistakes when switching
First, importing everything. A diary of ten years does not become a photo journal by moving it wholesale. Start from the photos: one trip, one month, one shared journal. The old diary stays where it is, as the archive, and the new journal earns its place page by page. Second, deleting Diaro before the export is checked. Export a PDF first, open it, and confirm the entries you care about are in it. Only then decide what the old app is for. Deleting first and exporting later is how entries disappear.
Third, expecting Android or the web. PicLoom runs on iPhone and iPad only. If part of your journaling happens on Android or in a browser, Diaro still covers that, and switching fully means giving it up. Fourth, expecting mood statistics. There is no mood tracker and no statistics chart in a photo journal. If the chart is how you check on yourself, that loss is real, and it is worth naming before you switch. Fifth, sorting the whole camera roll first. A photo journal does not need a sorted roll to start. Pick one day, make one page, and let the sorting happen around the pages you actually make.
Frequently asked questions
Can I move my Diaro entries into PicLoom?
There is no advertised one-tap import from Diaro. The honest move is to keep Diaro as your archive, export a PDF of the entries that matter, and start PicLoom fresh from your photos. The new journal is not a copy of the old diary. It is a different shape for the same years.
Does PicLoom work on Android or the web?
No. PicLoom runs on iPhone and iPad. If you journal on Android or from a browser, Diaro covers those, and that alone can be the reason to stay.
Is a photo journal private?
PicLoom needs no account to start, and your pages stay yours unless you choose to share them. A shared journal and a letter are the two ways another person sees your pages, and both only happen when you set them up.
What does PicLoom cost?
Writing every day is free. Whole books as PDF is a Pro feature, a one-time purchase of US$14.99. The App Store shows the final price for your region.
Do I have to write every day?
No. A photo journal is a selection, not a streak. A quiet month is a quiet month, not a failure, and a gap is easier to accept in a book than in a daily writing habit. Start with the days you remember, and add a page later if a photo turns up.
Diaro is a good text diary, and it earned its place: folders, tags, mood tracking, and a sync bridge across phones and the web. If your journal is a book of words, stay. If your memories are photos first, try the other shape. PicLoom is a photo journal app for iPhone: one day, one little page, with photos, stickers, tape, and a line of your own, plus shared journals and letters. It is free to start with no account, and Pro is a one-time purchase of US$14.99 (the App Store shows the final price for your region). See the pricing page, then start from the download section.
