Private journal for iPhone and iPad
Your life is already a story.
Read your life back by thread, not by date.
Every page can attach to what you are living through and the people who matter. Open a quest or a person: everything that touches it comes back in order.
- Free, no page limit
- No account needed
- No ads, no trackers
- Made in France
Why it never sticks
You have tried keeping a journal before.
And you probably stopped. Not for lack of discipline — because an ordinary journal gives nothing back.
You write into a void.
Three weeks of entries, then nothing. Nobody rereads a list of dates. Not even the person who wrote it.
The threads get lost.
What you wrote about that project, that relationship, that decision: scattered across eleven months, unfindable the moment you actually need it.
The blank page wins.
You are supposed to have something to say. Some nights you have a mood and two sentences — and that should be enough.
How it works
Four things, and nothing more.
Nacre lays a narrative grid over an ordinary journal. The grid is conceptual, never visual: no points, no levels, no badges.
Pages
Write the way you would in any journal: text, photos, a voice note, a place, a mood. The title comes from your first line, and everything saves while you type.
Quests
One main quest — the big question of your year. Side quests — a project, a complicated relationship, a move. Attach an entry with one tap, or not at all.
Learn more
People
Your sister, your therapist, the colleague it is tense with. Open someone and relive, in order, every page they appeared in.
Learn more
Constellation
Your pages, quests and people drawn as a sky. Drag through time and watch it build itself, day by day.
Learn more
What a chronological journal cannot do
Reread by thread, not by date.
This is the whole difference. Open “Find what I want from this work” and you get the eleven pages that punctuated it, in order, across eight months. Open “Priya” and you see every time she appeared.
And it cannot be reconstructed later. After three years, what you have built — your pages crossed with your quests and your people — exists nowhere else and cannot be imported back.
Zero friction
Two seconds between wanting to write and the first line.
A journal only survives if opening it costs nothing.
- A mood and one sentence is enough. That is a valid entry.
- Photo, camera, voice note, place: in the editor’s bar, not buried in a menu.
- Saves automatically while you type. Nothing to confirm, nothing to lose.
- A prompt of the day, for the nights the blank page wins.
- “On this day” brings back your older pages — with the quests that were active and the people who were around.
- Calendar, full-text search, a 30-day trash.
To be clear
What Nacre is not.
Better said up front. It will save you a download.
Not a game.
We say “quest” because that is exactly what it is, not to be playful. No XP, no levels, no badges, no leaderboard. Streaks exist, quietly: presence, not a score.
Not a social network.
No sharing, no public profile, no feed, no friends to add. Nobody reads your pages.
Not a therapy tool.
Nacre accompanies reflection. It diagnoses nothing and replaces no one.
Not a productivity app.
No habits to tick, no targets to hit. You have nothing to perform here.
Privacy
Your journal stays yours.
What is true, stated precisely — including where it costs us.
- The account is optional. Without one, everything stays on your phone.
- No analytics, no third-party trackers, no ads.
- Locked behind Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode.
- Free export to Markdown, JSON, TXT, any time, without asking anyone.
- AI-written Chapters are off by default. Until you turn them on, not a word of your journal goes to an AI service.
Why “Nacre”.
Nacre — mother-of-pearl — is not manufactured. It is deposited, layer over layer, year after year, until it becomes something else. That is exactly what a journal you actually keep does: the first month is worth almost nothing, and the third year cannot be replaced.
Pricing
Free to write. Paid to have it everywhere.
Writing, linking, rereading, searching and exporting are free, with no page limit. Nacre Plus adds sync across your devices, a Chapter every month, and 4 more themes, at €6.99 a month or €44.99 a year.
Frequently asked questions
Is Nacre free?
Yes. Writing, creating quests and people, rereading by thread, searching and exporting are all free, with no page limit. Nacre Plus is an optional subscription at €6.99 a month or €44.99 a year that adds sync across devices, a Chapter every month, all 7 themes, and unlimited backup of your photos and voice notes.
Can I write without creating an account?
Yes, and that is the default. Nacre works entirely offline on your phone. An account only exists to back your pages up and pick them up on another device.
Does an AI read my journal?
Not unless you ask it to. Chapters — the narratives Nacre writes from your journal — are off by default. If you turn them on, the text of your entries is sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to write the narrative. You can switch it off at any time.
Can I get my data out?
Always, and without subscribing. Export to Markdown, JSON, TXT lives in the settings, is free, and contains everything: your pages, your quests, your people, and the links between them.
Start tonight.
A mood and two sentences is enough. In a year you will have a thread to reread.
Same app: the App Store listing is still titled Quest.
Free, and no account required: the app works entirely on your phone.