from Hacker News

Show HN: Write a private diary using good old email

by kossnocorp on 1/14/20, 2:37 PM with 284 comments

  • by kossnocorp on 1/14/20, 2:37 PM

    Yesterday Paul Graham asked for an email diary service (https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1216714155731890176):

    > Is there an easy way to build, or a startup that offers, something that will email you once a day asking "What's happening?" and then accumulate the replies?

    I did just that! Let me know what you think.

  • by rognjen on 1/14/20, 3:20 PM

    I just email myself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    e: Also, I used to use https://750words.com which is quite similar.

  • by latortuga on 1/14/20, 4:20 PM

    This used to exist, it was called OhLife. They would email you every day and say "What's happening in your life" and "Hey do you remember this?" with one random email from your history included. I always liked this service and was sad when they shut down. Pretty sure I started using it due to a post right here on HN.

  • by artfulhippo on 1/14/20, 3:12 PM

    >Private and Secure

    It’s as private as your email...which probably means not private.

    Like most people, I depend on an advertising company to host my emails. But I wouldn’t share my private diary with them.

  • by Waterluvian on 1/14/20, 3:12 PM

    I love that you took the programmer equivalent of a writing cue and ran with it. And I think this is a really cool idea to explore.

    I know it's largely a one person experiment and not a real business, but some feedback

    > I won't sell your data and will be very personal with you.

    This isn't good enough anymore. You need to promise that my data won't ever _ever_ be sold. Especially since you're asking me to share my diary with you. I'm not sure if this kind of promise can be made though. Maybe we need some legal apparatus you can declare that gives me peace of mind that no future owner of your company can change their mind.

  • by obiefernandez on 1/14/20, 4:23 PM

    Hey HN I have exactly this and have maintained it for years as a replacement for OhLife: https://ahhlife.com

    Thousands of active users. Very (very) slowly enhancing and monetizing with additional features, but it's far down on my priority list.

  • by thepete2 on 1/14/20, 3:12 PM

    Please don't break the back button. I like my back button.

  • by windowshopping on 1/14/20, 3:57 PM

    Why doesn't the guy just write a python script to mail himself that prompt everyday? Sometimes I think if Paul Graham tripped he would start wondering if there was a start-up aiming to put an end to uneven ground.

  • by athenot on 1/14/20, 4:18 PM

    The very humble Notes app on macOS/iOS fulfills this for me. I just start typing, the minimalistic interface gets out of the way. Timestamping is on last modification instead of creation date but I add one manually. That's about my only drawback. Some features I find compelling:

    - I can start a train of thought on the mac, continue it on the phone and complete it on my mac.

    - It's not mined by some advertising company, no subject to the viability of some business.

    - Being so simple, the contents can be exported to some other format very easily.

    - Works offline (only background sync requires connection).

    - And search is near instant since everything is stored locally.

  • by bad_user on 1/14/20, 3:41 PM

    The service that Paul Graham mentioned is probably this one:

    http://ohlife.com

    Shutdown announcement:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8345881

    I used it and loved it. It was cool while it lasted. Unfortunately it's just one more example for why I don't trust startups.

    Also you probably don't need a service, personally I can just send email to yourself, PGP encrypted. The only bit that's missing is a periodic reminder, to which you can reply. But I can probably set that up as a cron job.

  • by lancer on 1/14/20, 4:55 PM

    A friend and I had the same need for an email diary service in 1998. DailyDiary [0] has been online ever since :)

    [0] https://dailydiary.com

  • by Aperocky on 1/14/20, 6:31 PM

    I uses good old terminal and vim, with a single command to enter current diary:

    https://github.com/Aperocky/termlife/blob/master/diaryman.sh

    Writing diary has been so much easier! (though probably will be hard to extend to people who don't know/like terminal editors, or command line itself)

  • by haxiel on 1/14/20, 3:38 PM

    I use a service named Penzu for keeping a journal. It's primarily web-based, but you can make it email-based if you wish to. Basically, you'd set up a daily reminder at a specific time, and you can reply directly to that email to make a new entry.

    I should point out that Penzu is not a completely free service. There is a basic free tier, and then there are paid plans with additional features.

  • by reaperducer on 1/14/20, 7:58 PM

    Why does this need to be a "service?"

    Why not just write the e-mail in your current e-mail client and then store the draft in its own folder?

    People have been doing that for centuries. They'd write a letter to themselves and then store it in a box somewhere instead of sending it.

    Some people took it a step farther and would write the letter, and then burn it if they were angry. Very cathartic.

  • by josephwegner on 1/14/20, 8:36 PM

    This is a real "Dropbox is just rsync" sort of comment, but I personally use a small CLI util for this[1]. It automatically creates a new text file for each day that I use it and stores it in a dated folder/file. I can look at notes by day, or grep around in that directory fairly easily. And it syncs to wherever, so I can also just search within my file storage service.

    I use this for both regular "diary" sort of journaling as well as notes around what I was doing on a particular day. It's wildly useful keeping daily notes on things, for questions like "Hey, do you remember that bug we dealt with last year...?"

    [1] https://gist.github.com/josephwegner/677ce82556fcbde6ae626a8...

  • by _august on 1/14/20, 3:30 PM

    I 100% read "Dairy Email" until the page loaded. I thought you figured out how to email me milk.

  • by davnicwil on 1/14/20, 4:52 PM

    On seeing this tweet I wondered who would be the first to do it, and how long it would take.

    Congratulations, from a fellow hacker - what's it been, 2 days? That's really impressive speed, especially considering it's nice looking.

    A lot of people would confidently assume they could knock this out in a couple of days no problem, but it'd actually take them a few weeks at minimum. I had a post on the front page a few weeks ago on the topic [0], perhaps you saw it - I could learn a lot from you :-)

    [0] https://boxci.dev/blog/why-it-took-12-weeks-to-ship-an-mvp-I...

  • by nausher81 on 1/14/20, 10:12 PM

    I use an App called Daylio [https://daylio.webflow.io/] as a personal diary and mood tracker.

    It has a single notification per day which is directly actionable (Asks for your mood for the day).

    Data is stored locally on the phone and can be backed up to your iCloud/Google Drive.

    I have found this app to be more habit forming in terms of creating a micro-diary, rather than sitting down and jotting thoughts.

  • by haberdasher on 1/14/20, 5:07 PM

    If anyone wants to give a multi-year journal (5-year Journals are popular in print form) chrome extension a try: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/goal-board-vision-...

  • by bergie on 1/14/20, 4:23 PM

    That's a great idea, can write on any device!

    In the early 2000s, I had a setup where I could blog by either email or SMS. By default emails would become new posts. SMS would append to the latest entry, or I could create a new one with a keyword (NEWPOST title, I think).

    This was a nice way to create and update travel journals before mobile internet and smartphones were widespread.

  • by nicklovescode on 1/14/20, 3:30 PM

    A few days ago a weekly letter I wrote myself called Dear Nick that I BCC a few close friends. I love doing it now

    Please steal the idea if you like!

    http://nickcammarata.com/writing/two-experiments-2019

  • by tlackemann on 1/14/20, 4:44 PM

    Alternatively, jrnl.sh. It's tiny, allows you write using your favorite editor, and can be backed up or replicated with simple git. It's even encrypted.

    Maybe I'm not the target demographic for services like these but I would never trust my personal thoughts with a service like this.

  • by kop316 on 1/14/20, 6:13 PM

    For a different thought of how to do it, I self-host a Wordpress site that is essentially a diary. However, right now the scope is to keep track of recipes that I have made, if I liked them, and where I found them.

    While I could have made a notes app, this allows my fiancée to look at it, comments on it, or make her own posts to give her thoughts too (though she hasn't used it).

    I have thought about expanding it into a more general blog (technical or otherwise), I haven't gotten to that step yet.

    Thinking about it, I could make a cron service on it to ask me "what's going on" with a link to make a new post as well, and make it optionally private (so only I or who I choose can see it).

  • by Dyaz17 on 1/14/20, 3:56 PM

    Great job. Here is what I propose to make it more secure and prevent you from being able to read anyone diary...

    I propose that each day a link/token is sent to your email. The link then ask for a password that is handled only with client side javascript and does the encryption of the data before sending it do the server. Look at what Blockhain.info or myetherwallet is doing for client side encryption. Maybe also propose provide all the front end as opensource and provide a way for people to host their own front (a few HTML, JS files where you input the link or token sent to you by email...)

  • by disiplus on 1/14/20, 4:31 PM

    I stumbled on a "lets call it a bug". If i register with a plus sign using my gmail something+diaryemail@gmail.com

    i cannot send emails from that email address and so it wont work for me.

  • by tectonic on 1/17/20, 5:43 PM

    I've been doing this for myself for a couple years now with a little service I wrote that just sends me an email each day that I reply to. It's archived in my email history and in a simple, searchable web UI. It's been super useful for figuring out when I did something a few years ago, medical notes, etc.

  • by samdung on 1/14/20, 3:15 PM

    Congrats. This is cool. Quick question. Did you pull this off in one day (after PG's tweet)? If yes, that is mighty impressive.

  • by nif2ee on 1/14/20, 3:47 PM

    It's pointless to say the least to claim "Private and secure" without at least having client-side AEAD of some sort.

  • by vi-mode on 1/14/20, 4:39 PM

    PG is a smart mind with a long track record of achievements. Still people shouldn't follow him in a cult-like manner or turn him into a voodoo-kind role model, 'PG tweeted he needs a pink phone, I made him one'.

    While the initial email idea is tempting, it's nonsense from a security perspective especially with this use case.

  • by kldavis4 on 1/14/20, 3:43 PM

    I used http://ohlife.com/ until they shut down. After that I just switched to using a Google Doc. The service mostly just provided me a daily reminder, but after you get into the habit it isn't hard to keep it up without that.

  • by rahuldottech on 1/14/20, 3:13 PM

    Honestly, I love it!

    A very related project, that focuses on being a "social network" through email: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21853667

    Edit: I'm getting errors with the login functionality. Please check it out.

  • by EllieEffingMae on 1/15/20, 12:41 AM

    My personal solution to this is using http://itty.bitty.site

    You can write a lot on one page. And I wrote some bash functions to store the links when you close your browser, and then give you the option of opening one based on the title.

  • by cyberferret on 1/15/20, 2:04 AM

    This thread makes me miss the old Posterous service. I used to enjoy emailing shot blog posts, and only having a few friends of mine knowing what my blog address was. It was a form of journalling that I enjoyed until they inexplicably shut the service down.

  • by komali2 on 1/14/20, 3:27 PM

    I really like the layout of the page and your manner of speaking. Both are web design ideals I strive for. I also want people to write more :)

    Little nitpick - try out your signup page on Firefox mobile and you will see a one character width input field for the email input box :)

  • by overcast on 1/17/20, 6:35 PM

    Out of curiosity, how are you preventing spoofed email spam? It looks like you're accepting everything to one generic email address, and posting via the senders address?

  • by juandazapata on 1/14/20, 7:09 PM

    What’s the difference between this and using...your email? I’m genuinely confused.

  • by mc3 on 1/15/20, 4:08 AM

    The codeless way of doing it: Set up a daily recurring event on Google Calendar, with an email reminder saying "Wazzaaaap?" then you reply to it. To accumulate, use Gmails search functionality.

  • by ohsik on 1/15/20, 10:40 PM

    Funny when I came to post my diary app, I saw this haha

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22058792

  • by Swtrz on 1/14/20, 4:47 PM

    I do this with my own mail account using a filter that drops messages with an @NoteToSelf tag in the body into a particular folder. I hate to be that guy, I think Paul thought too hard about this one.

  • by cryptozeus on 1/14/20, 4:31 PM

    Great job, very fast. One more person delivered this on Twitter thread...https://nom.blue/

  • by JamesAdir on 1/15/20, 6:53 AM

    Looks great. I've gone through the comments but might missed it - Could you share a bit on what you used to develop this? language? frameworks? thanks!

  • by johnnyballgame on 1/14/20, 7:52 PM

    Click "Open Diary". Click back button. Nope.

  • by maxpv on 1/17/20, 1:30 PM

    I use a dedicated email address and send emails to myself. Much private, you can make threads ect..

    Using protonmail by the way.

  • by marta_morena on 1/14/20, 4:27 PM

    Cool, so people post their diary to an email service? Interesting. Why not just post on Facebook? It's about as public as it gets.

  • by XnoiVeX on 1/14/20, 4:25 PM

    Isn't this exactly like https://posthaven.com/?

  • by wodenokoto on 1/14/20, 5:40 PM

    What do you use for sending and reading emails?

    I’m looking to build a simple script that can send out some emails and respond to simple replies.

  • by kazinator on 1/14/20, 7:39 PM

    private@diaryemail.com is an oxymoron. Why would I write an e-mail to some random address at a domain I don't own, and pretend that it's private, when I could send it to <myalias>@<mydomain>, where it ends up on a server under my desk?

  • by kper1337 on 1/14/20, 3:39 PM

    Why exactly do you need to store my age to store my data (in the signup process)?

  • by mariocesar on 1/14/20, 3:52 PM

    How do I update my Full Name? or change the newsletter subscription options? ∞?

  • by esjeon on 1/14/20, 4:35 PM

    TBH, I don't think this is anything practical, but I love the design.

  • by matt_the_bass on 1/14/20, 3:52 PM

    Nice work. FYI pricing tables are not readable on my iPhone 8 in safari

  • by qntty on 1/14/20, 5:51 PM

    This is a newer feature of Day One (but you have to pay to get it).

  • by NicoJuicy on 1/14/20, 4:00 PM

    I dogfood handle.sapico.me , I used to email it to myselve though.

  • by drharby on 1/14/20, 3:50 PM

    shut up and ship it

    I love the simple sourcing of requirements. Good job!

  • by kper1337 on 1/14/20, 3:39 PM

    Why do you exactly need to know my age to store my data?

  • by sandeeps_ on 1/14/20, 6:08 PM

    @kossnocorp How long did it take for you to build this?

  • by racuna on 1/14/20, 7:15 PM

  • by macleginn on 1/14/20, 4:20 PM

    A hard limit of 30 friends is a bit annoying.

  • by agentofoblivion on 1/14/20, 5:04 PM

    Amazing speed/execution. Kudos!

  • by moralsupply on 1/14/20, 3:37 PM

    Do you store the diary in plain text?

  • by eerrt on 1/14/20, 4:25 PM

    How do you handle the security?

  • by dang on 1/14/20, 6:05 PM

    Submitted title was "Show HN: Paul Graham requested an email diary service, so I shipped it", which isn't a bad thing, but given that the post is now high on the front page I think we should do the usual edit and take out the celebrity name.

  • by kissgyorgy on 1/14/20, 8:40 PM

    I have a big problem with this: You can't seem to edit the post after it has been sent. A typo staying there forever would drive me crazy :)

  • by deadmetheny on 1/14/20, 6:27 PM

    Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul Graham. Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul Graham? Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul Graham!

    Paul Graham.