# Desandar — Journal, Reflect, Remember > Private journaling app with on-device AI for memory exploration and reflection. (iPhone/iPad app by Paul DeSalvo.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/desandar/id6781366941 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Paul DeSalvo](https://appshunter.io/developer/1892507755) - Category: Lifestyle, Productivity - Price: Free - Rating: 5.00/5 from 1 App Store ratings · 1 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 26.0 · 18 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-08-16 - Data updated: 2026-10-11 - Monetization: free - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/desandar/id6781366941/reviews.md ## What is Desandar? Write privately. Rediscover your past. Desandar brings text and audio journaling together with on-device tools to explore your memories, notice recurring themes, and reflect on your life. Desandar is a Spanish verb meaning to retrace your steps—to return to the path you have taken and see it from a new perspective. I created Desandar after more than six years of journaling. I had accumulated hundreds of entries, but they had become difficult to meaningfully revisit. I could search for a particular word or scroll through old writing, but I could not easily see the themes that kept returning, understand how I had changed, or reconnect with the people and moments I had written about along the way. Desandar is built to make your journal something you can interact with—not simply a place to write and forget. Using Apple’s latest on-device intelligence tools, you can search, reflect, and chat with your journal without sending your entries to an outside AI provider. The processing happens privately on your device, and Desandar has no developer-operated servers storing or analyzing your journal. Sometimes writing is a way to put something down and move forward. But there are also experiences you will want to remember, patterns you may want to understand, and parts of yourself that only become visible with time. Desandar helps you return to those moments without requiring you to reread years of raw journal entries. Write naturally with text or audio, organize entries with journals and tags, and add photos, places, weather, and moments from your day. When you are ready to look back, Desandar helps you explore the history you have created. Use Reflect to ask questions across your journal, rediscover experiences you may have forgotten, notice recurring themes, revisit memories of the people in your life, and see how your perspective has changed over time. Reflect draws on your journal entries and lets you revisit its sources. With Desandar, you can: • Write or record journal entries • Start entries from templates with your own prompts • Transcribe audio privately on your device • Clean up and organize your writing • Search by meaning, not only exact words • Chat with your journal through Reflect • Explore recurring themes and experiences • Rediscover related entries and past memories • Revisit the people, places, and moments in your life • Create daily, weekly, and monthly recaps • Organize entries with journals, tags, places, and favorites • Import your existing entries from Day One • Export your journal whenever you choose • Protect access with Face ID or your device passcode Guided Entry requires a supported device with Apple Intelligence enabled. Core journaling remains available without Apple Intelligence. Your journal belongs to you. Desandar does not use third-party AI, third-party transcription, or a custom cloud backend. Your entries are not uploaded to Desandar servers, because there are no Desandar servers. Reflect conversations, semantic search, and private intelligence remain on your device. You may choose to sync your journal through your own private iCloud account so it remains available across your Apple devices. Journaling should be more than writing something down and losing it in an archive. Desandar helps you return to the path you have taken, understand where you have been, and recognize who you are becoming. ## Key features - Text and audio journaling - On-device AI for private analysis - Search by meaning, not just keywords - Interactive 'Reflect' feature - Organize with journals and tags - Import from Day One - Export journal entries ## Is Desandar safe? Not enough ratings yet to assess Desandar. ## Is Desandar legit? Desandar has limited verification signals. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Desandar is 58 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data. ## Recent user reviews (1 of 1) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/desandar/id6781366941/reviews.md ### 5/5 — Beautiful journaling app *2026-09-23* Desandar is an elegant and simple journaling app. ## Frequently asked questions about Desandar ### Does Desandar have ads? No, Desandar is ad-free. The app is free to use and does not contain advertisements, allowing for an uninterrupted journaling experience. ### How does Desandar protect my privacy? Desandar uses on-device processing for all AI features, meaning your journal entries are never sent to external servers. Processing happens privately on your device. ### What devices does Desandar support? Desandar is available on Mac and iPhone. It requires Apple Intelligence for certain features like Guided Entry, but core journaling is available on supported devices. ### Can I import my old journal entries into Desandar? Yes, Desandar allows you to import your existing entries from Day One. This makes it easy to consolidate your journaling history into one private space. ### How often is Desandar updated? The latest version of Desandar is 1.4, last updated on October 5, 2026. Updates typically include improvements and new features to enhance the journaling experience. ### What is the 'Reflect' feature in Desandar? Reflect allows you to interact with your journal by asking questions. It helps you rediscover forgotten experiences, notice recurring themes, and see how your perspective has evolved over time. ### Is Desandar suitable for younger users? Desandar has an age rating of 4+, making it accessible for a wide range of users. Its focus on personal reflection and memory keeping is beneficial for users of all ages. ### Can I export my journal from Desandar? Yes, you can export your entire journal whenever you choose. This ensures you always have a backup of your personal writings and memories. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.4 — 2026-10-05 Start an entry from a template. A template gives a new entry its title, a few prompts with hints underneath, and its journal and tags. Write under the prompts you want; the ones you skip are removed when you're done. Desandar comes with a few starters, and you can make your own from the Journal menu or Settings. Pin one to the Today card to start it in one tap. You can also apply a template to an entry you've already started, adding its prompts below your writing or replacing it, and undo that if you change your mind. Shortcuts can start an entry from a template too, and on the Mac it's Journal → New Entry from Template. The map is faster with large journals. Nearby entries share one marker that splits apart as you zoom in, so the map stays readable whether you've written in one city or forty. Traveling with Pin and Plot? Choose Send to Desandar when you export a day of your trip, and it opens here as a journal entry. Desandar has a new app icon, made for Liquid Glass. Everything is still worked out privately, on your device. ### 1.3.3 — 2026-09-24 You can now add an entry from Shortcuts. Hand it some text — dictated to the Action Button, passed from another app, or produced by an automation — and it is saved to your journal without opening Desandar. Choose which journal it goes to, or leave it to your default. Shortcuts can also import a Desandar JSON file in the background. Entries you already have are skipped, so a shortcut that runs every week never adds the same entry twice. Week and month recaps are shorter and easier to read: one line for each day or week, and an overview that picks out the thread running through the period instead of retelling it. Fixed Shortcuts and Spotlight sometimes treating your journal as locked while it was open and unlocked. Fixed a crash that could happen when opening a recap on iOS 27 if the on-device model declined one of the entries in it. Fixed a crash that could happen in the background after your device locked. On the Mac, the window can now be resized. Everything is still worked out privately, on your device. ### 1.3.2 — 2026-09-16 Desandar now feels at home on iOS 27 and macOS 27. The editor, recording controls, and the New Entry button use Liquid Glass throughout, your entry text scrolls beneath the translucent controls, and every control scales with your text size. Siri, Spotlight, and Shortcuts know your journal better. Ask Siri to search your journal, open an entry or tag from Spotlight, and see clearer summaries for each shortcut. Entries you keep private stay out of every system surface until you unlock the app, and Spotlight can now repair its own index. Privacy Settings shows whether iCloud sync is actually moving data in each direction, not just whether an account is signed in. Fixed a crash that could happen when switching to AirPods or another audio route mid-recording. Everything is still worked out privately, on your device. ### 1.3.1 — 2026-09-07 Fixes the calendar header, which was missing Thursday and Saturday. Everything is still worked out privately, on your device. ### 1.3 — 2026-09-06 Your day, written in your own voice. Your past entries, ready to rediscover. Guided Entry now writes in first person using your calendar events, workouts, places, and photos. Photos appear directly in your entry, and health details now appear in a dedicated section. On This Day now lets you revisit past entries in full, including their titles, photos, and formatting. Expand a year to read its entries beneath the summary, or use Expand All to open every year at once. Weekly recaps also show each source entry in full beneath the summary, with its photos and formatting. Also in this update: • Older entries with deeper headings now display correctly, without visible Markdown characters • The editor preserves your place, open sheets, and work in progress when a new entry saves for the first time • A more reliable Apple Journaling Suggestions picker • General interface, performance, and stability improvements AI processing stays on your device. ## More apps by Paul DeSalvo - [Little Learners Lab](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/little-learners-lab/id6762405831) - [Pin and Plot](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pin-and-plot/id6800444562) All apps by Paul DeSalvo: https://appshunter.io/developer/1892507755 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-11.*