# PaperThoughts - Journal — Handwritten, private journal

> Handwritten, private journal (iPhone/iPad app by Cody Nicoll.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/paperthoughts-journal/id6789969540 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Cody Nicoll](https://appshunter.io/developer/1441045060)
- Category: Lifestyle, Productivity
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 17.0 · 4 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-07-28
- Data updated: 2026-08-22
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/paperthoughts-journal/id6789969540/reviews.md

## What is PaperThoughts?

A quiet place to think.

PaperThoughts is a private, handwriting-first journal for iPad. Write by hand
with your Apple Pencil, sketch in the margins, and keep every entry to
yourself.

WRITE BY HAND
• Natural Apple Pencil handwriting and drawing
• Blank, lined, grid, or dotted paper in multiple sizes and colours
• Journaling prompts when you don't know where to start drop a question
  onto the page and answer it in ink
• Prefer to type? Typed entries are always a long-press away

REMEMBER THE MOMENT
• Tag entries, set a mood, and pin the place they happened drop the pin
  on a map yourself, wherever the entry belongs
• Add photos alongside your handwriting or leave a placeholder slot on
  the page and fill it with the photo later
• Find things again with filters by journal, place, tag, or date

WORKS WHEREVER YOU DO
• No connection needed write, sketch, and read your journals fully
  offline
• At the cabin, on the trail, in the air: your journal lives on your
  device, and syncs through your own iCloud when you're back online
• Day or night — a dark mode that keeps the page calm

WATCH YOUR PRACTICE GROW
• Streaks and gentle insights: how often you write, and the places your
  entries have taken you
• Bookmark the pages you return to
• Export entries or whole journals to PDF anytime your words are never
  locked in

PRIVATE BY DESIGN
• Your entries live on your device and in your own iCloud — nowhere else
• No account, no sign-up, and nothing to log in to
• No analytics, no tracking, no servers of ours: we have no way to read
  what you write
• Moods are saved to Apple Health on your device; App Lock uses Face ID or
  Touch ID without biometric data ever leaving it

ON IPHONE
• A companion for reading your journals and capturing quick typed notes the Pencil stays the star on iPad

PAPERTHOUGHTS PREMIUM
The free app includes 3 journals with 5 entries each — enough to make it
yours. Premium removes every limit, with a monthly or yearly subscription
or a one-time lifetime purchase. Payment is charged to your Apple Account;
subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before
the end of the period, and can be managed in your Apple Account settings.

Privacy policy: https://paperthoughts.app/privacy
Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**Subscriptions**

| Subscription | Price | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Premium Monthly | $3.99 | per month |
| Premium Yearly | $24.99 | per year |

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Premium Lifetime | $59.99 | one-time |



## Version history (last 4 releases)

### 1.3 — 2026-08-19

Handwriting has its own tools now, and the app gets out of the way while you write.

• Pen, pencil, highlighter, eraser, and lasso, in a strip beside the page
• Four ink colours, highlighter shades that stay readable over your writing, and a custom picker
• Four widths for every tool — the eraser too
• Drag the strip to whichever side suits your hand; it stays there
• Squeeze an Apple Pencil Pro to bring the tools up under the nib, and again to put them away
• Double-tap swaps the eraser in and out, or returns to your last tool
• The + button gathers photo library, camera, placeholder, and writing prompt
• Begin a stroke and the toolbar fades out, leaving the page. It's back when you pause, tap, or squeeze — and undo stays put throughout
• Prefer everything on screen? Turn off Distraction-free writing in Settings
• The system picker's other inks — monoline, fountain pen, watercolour, crayon — aren't in the new palette. Anything you've drawn with them is unchanged; you just can't pick them for new writing

### 1.2 — 2026-08-02

Typed entries can now be formatted as you write.

Type **bold**, *italic*, or # for a heading and it takes shape as you go. Five heading sizes, bullet and numbered lists, strikethrough, links, and code. There's a formatting bar above the keyboard if you'd rather tap than type, with indent controls for nesting a list.

Entries you've already written open clean. The formatting marks stay out of the way while you're reading — tap the page, or the pencil in the corner, when you want to change something. Feed cards and exported PDFs are clean too.

On iPad, typed entries scroll as one continuous page instead of jumping page to page. And if you type more often than you draw, you can set the + button to open the keyboard by default.

On iPhone, the writing on feed cards is readable again instead of shrunk to fit.

A few smaller things:

New entries are tagged with your location by default. You can turn that off in Settings.

You can hide the photo thumbnails on one entry's card without changing it everywhere else — it's in the card's menu.

If iCloud has trouble syncing, the app now tells you what actually went wrong instead of just saying you're offline.

### 1.1 — 2026-08-01

A new way to add pages, and a round of polish.

• Scroll past the bottom of your last page and the next sheet is waiting on the desk — tap it to start writing at the top of a fresh page.
• The sheet greets you with a different small note each time.
• Reorder your journals — press and hold Reorder in the drawer, then drag.
• New entries now start in the journal you last used.
• One typeface throughout, clearer buttons, and easier-to-read text across the app.
• Entries settle gently into the feed when you finish writing

### 1.0 — 2026-07-28

No release notes.

---

*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 2026-08-22.*