Jornal User Guide

Jornal is a private health journal for keeping the records that matter to you in one place. It can bring together meals, hydration, symptoms, medications, supplements, notes, mood, cycle entries, sleep, activity, measurements, recipes, and related context for personal review.

The app is designed for record-keeping, reflection, and appointment preparation. It does not diagnose conditions, confirm causes, or replace a clinician. Any pattern, estimate, summary, questionnaire, or report is patient-generated and should be reviewed for completeness and accuracy before you share or rely on it in a GP or clinician conversation.

Feature availability can vary with your app version, device capabilities, permissions, language, location, and Jornal access level.

Start simple

You do not need to use every feature on day one. A useful first setup is:

Complete your profile and accept the terms on first run.
Use the optional app tour to learn the main areas. You can replay it from Settings > About.
Choose the diary sections and privacy protection options that suit you.
Start with a few repeatable records, such as meals, water, symptoms, medication logs, or notes.
Add context only when it helps you remember the day: timing, tags, mood, sleep, routine changes, or a short note.
Review a week of records before trying to interpret longer-term patterns.

Core use does not require a hosted Jornal account.

Navigate the app

The bottom navigation keeps the main workflows close at hand:

Diary is the daily timeline for logging and reviewing a selected date.
Medical opens the Personal Medical Workspace when it is enabled; otherwise this tab provides medication management.
Insights provides summaries, trends, review tools, and saved chart context.
Recipes stores reusable recipes and recipe-import tools.
Settings contains profile, privacy, data, integration, accessibility, help, and support controls.

Use Settings search when you know what you want to change but not where it lives. The in-app Help & how it works section is also searchable.

Use the Diary as your daily home base

The Diary keeps a day’s records on one timeline. Depending on your settings, you can log meals and drinks, water, symptoms, mood, energy, stress, medications, supplements, cycle entries, journal notes, sleep, activity, and measurements.

Past days are protected by default to reduce accidental changes. If you need to correct a past entry, unlock that day, make the correction, and review it before continuing. You can hide diary sections you rarely use and organize notes or timeline entries with tags.

Logging close to the event is usually more reliable than trying to reconstruct a day later. Short, factual notes are often enough.

Log food, recipes, and hydration

Choose the entry path that fits the moment:

Search your saved foods, recipes, bundled whole-food data, and available lookup sources.
Reuse favourites and recent entries.
Scan a packaged item’s barcode.
Scan a nutrition label when information is incomplete.
Use Scan Meal for a mixed dish or plated meal.
Create a manual food when you need precise control.
Save frequently cooked meals as recipes, created manually, scanned from a photo, or imported from a supported website.

Review a scanned or estimated entry before saving. Source badges, data-quality indicators, confidence labels, and Food Review Prompts are there to help you revisit records that may need a correction; they do not certify that a result is correct.

Scan Meal is shown only when the device has iOS 26 or later, Apple's on-device text model is available and ready for your selected language, and enhanced estimation is enabled in Jornal. The flow may therefore be unavailable even when other food-entry options work. When available, selected menu wording and details remain source claims, and nutrition values you enter from a menu are labeled as user-reported claims. They do not verify what was served. Dictation additionally requires supported on-device speech recognition for the selected language and the relevant permissions. Plate-photo suggestions are currently disabled while physical-device accuracy evaluation is pending. Any proposed ingredients or portions need your review; unknown nutrients remain unknown, and saved prepared meals are marked as estimates.

If Scan Meal is not available, use food search or manual food entry. The review can keep inferred ingredients as assumptions and distinguish the portion served from what you ate, including component-specific leftovers where supported. Your review records the assumptions you accept; it does not turn estimated nutrition into measured values.

Nutrition-label, recipe, and medication-package OCR depend on Apple Vision language support on the current device. The scan-language picker identifies direct support and any labelled fallback. A fallback is most useful when the supported language also appears on a bilingual label. Always check scanned text, serving sizes, and nutrition values against the source.

The water tools support quick-add amounts, custom intake, hydration targets, and reminders. Water from logged food may also be shown as context; it is an estimate, not a clinical hydration assessment.

Record symptoms, mood, cycle information, and notes

Symptoms are more useful when the record explains what you observed without trying to prove why it happened. You can capture symptom name, severity, timing, duration, ongoing status, and optional context such as nearby food, caffeine, alcohol, stress, illness, sleep, cycle timing, or a note.

Mood entries can include mood, energy, stress, emotion tags, time, and notes. Cycle entries can include flow, phase, spotting, ovulation-test information, basal temperature, symptoms, and notes where the feature is relevant to your profile.

Use journal notes for observations, questions, changes in routine, and topics to raise at an appointment. Mark important notes and save questions as they occur rather than relying on recall at the end of the month.

Keep medication and supplement records

The medications area lets you keep a personal medication and supplement list, schedule entries, log a status such as taken, pending, or skipped, and use reminders if they fit your routine. Medication entries can also be recorded from the Diary.

Some versions provide reference or safety context from a selected source. Treat it as informational only: it may be incomplete, delayed, or specific to a jurisdiction. Do not start, stop, or change a medication, supplement, treatment, or diet plan solely because of information in Jornal. Confirm important questions with a pharmacist or qualified clinician.

Add measurements, Apple Health, and connected-device data

You can enter measurements manually and, where supported, use Apple Health or a connected Bluetooth accessory for information such as weight, blood pressure, blood glucose, oxygen saturation, temperature, or scale readings.

These connections are optional. Grant only the permissions you want, check the displayed reading before you save it, and use manual entry if a connection is unavailable. Device and HealthKit data may be delayed, incomplete, or inaccurate; confirm a reading with an appropriate reliable method when it matters to your health or treatment.

Use Siri and Shortcuts

Open Settings > Siri & Shortcuts in Jornal and turn on only the actions you want. Every action is off until enabled, and each logging category has its own control. Saved Shortcuts follow the current setting and diary access rules. Hidden diary sections stay unavailable; when an action needs a saved recipe, medication, symptom, or other record name, Jornal offers matches only after that action is enabled and you authenticate in Jornal. If authentication is cancelled or unavailable, no names are returned. Siri and Shortcuts responses are brief and do not repeat the health details you logged. Apple's Siri and Shortcuts services may process information needed to recognize or run your request under Apple's terms and privacy practices.

The available actions include opening today's diary; logging water, weight and other supported measurements, saved meals, mood, symptoms, activities, medication use, and nicotine; adding a plain journal entry; and opening the existing medication setup form. Medication setup does not save a medication until you review and save it in Jornal. Weight and supported measurements may also be written to Apple Health only when the relevant connection, permission, and feature settings allow it. A HealthKit write problem does not undo a Jornal entry.

Journal dictation is available from the editor when the selected language supports Apple's on-device speech recognition and you grant the required microphone and speech-recognition permissions. If dictation is unavailable or permission is denied, type the note. Optional structured journal suggestions require iOS 26 or later, a ready Foundation Model, a supported language, and the existing Apple Intelligence setting. If those requirements are not met, save the note normally without suggestions. Siri invocation, dictation, HealthKit, and structured suggestions have separate availability and permission requirements. The app target supports iOS 17.5; structured journal suggestions have the higher iOS 26 requirement.

If an action is unavailable, check its toggle in Jornal, make sure its diary section is visible and unlocked, and review the related permission in iOS Settings. For dictation, try typing. For HealthKit, check the data-type permission in Apple Health. For model suggestions, check iOS version, Apple Intelligence readiness, language, and the existing setting. If a Shortcut fails, open Jornal and use the manual entry flow. Contact support@byldya.com with your device model, iOS and Jornal versions, action, and the step that failed; leave out health details unless support specifically needs a minimum example.

Review weekly summaries and insights

Weekly Summary gives you a short review of the last seven days. Insights offers longer-range charts and observations based on what you have logged. Available tiles can include nutrition, water, sleep, weight, movement and recovery, mood, symptom burden, food context, medication and supplement logging, cycle context, nicotine support, and broader Pattern Findings.

Use these views to notice timing, gaps in your records, or questions worth exploring. They can show information logged near other information, but they do not establish cause and effect. Save only the clearest charts or observations for notes and appointment preparation.

Use nicotine and habit-support features with care

Where enabled, nicotine support lets you record nicotine use, cravings, a quit or reduction plan, and personal support notes. It can help you notice patterns and plan what to discuss with a clinician or support person. It is not a substitute for medical, pharmacy, or emergency support.

Appointment Prep brings together important notes and questions for a selected date range. You can create an editable summary and, where available, add selected saved Insight graphs to a clinician-facing PDF.

Before sharing, check that the date range, notes, medications, measurements, and questions are current and complete. Remove anything you do not want to disclose. Jornal summaries and exports are patient-generated records, not clinic-authored medical records, diagnoses, triage results, or treatment plans.

If Event Prep is available, it provides a focused planning window for an upcoming event, with user-set targets, notes, review views, and editable summaries. It is a planning and record-keeping tool, not coaching or medical advice.

Personal Medical Workspace

Where enabled, the Medical tab is a patient-controlled workspace for organizing selected health information. It may include medical history, medications and allergies, measurements, documents, appointment preparation, Evidence Packs, questionnaires, and patient-reviewed reports.

Use it to make your own records easier to review, correct, and discuss. Document OCR and structured suggestions may make a record easier to organize, but you remain responsible for checking the source and correcting anything that is incomplete or wrong. Review any Evidence Pack or report for completeness, currency, accuracy, and scope before export or sharing.

For more detailed workspace guidance, see the Jornal Help Center.

Protect, export, archive, and restore your data

Jornal is designed as a local-first app. Some core records may use Apple’s iCloud and CloudKit behaviour where it is available for your devices and Apple account; some newer Medical Workspace records may follow a separate protected local-storage path. The exact storage and sync behaviour is explained in the Privacy Policy.

Privacy & Data provides a JSON export and a full local-data deletion flow. Backup & Restore provides export options, encrypted backups, selected-date archives, Saved Archives browsing, and supported import or restore tools. Some versions also offer FHIR export or tracker-data import.

Backups, archives, exports, reports, and shared files can contain sensitive information. Keep passwords and recovery information secure, inspect an archive before restoring it, and remember that Jornal cannot control a copy after you share it with another person or service.

Accessibility, privacy, and notifications

Jornal includes settings for language, appearance, units, diary sections, and optional protection of selected areas with the device’s biometric or passcode authentication. Apple handles biometric verification; Jornal receives only the result.

Notifications are optional and can support reminders, weekly summaries, and entry-review prompts. Notification delivery depends on iOS or iPadOS settings, Focus, and device state. Where privacy-safe wording is used on the lock screen, it may be intentionally general.

Camera, photo library, microphone, speech recognition, Bluetooth, Apple Health, and notification permissions are requested only when you choose a feature that needs them. You can change permissions in device Settings.

Get help

Start in Settings > Help & how it works for searchable in-app guidance. Settings > Support links back to the Help Center and provides direct contact details.

For technical help, email support@byldya.com. Include your device model, iOS or iPadOS version, Jornal version, a short description, and the steps that led to the issue. For scans, imports, backups, exports, archives, Medical Workspace, or connected-device issues, say which screen, file type, source, or device you were using. Please share only the minimum health information needed to explain the problem.

Jornal support cannot provide medical advice. Do not use the app or support email for emergencies, urgent symptoms, medication emergencies, or time-sensitive treatment decisions. If you think you may be experiencing a medical emergency, call local emergency services immediately and contact a licensed clinician.