Patterns beat memory
It's easy to remember last week as "fine" or "awful" depending on how today feels. Looking at a trail of entries, of sunny streaks, rough patches, the quiet in between: that keeps the story closer to what you actually lived.
Made for Mac · by one person
VoxThermic for macOS
A journal that helps you notice how you've been
Journaling isn't only about what you wrote last night, but also about showing how you feel across days, weeks, and months. VoxThermic turns private voice and text entries into a living map of your moods and writing themes. Almost like weather patterns. And it does it all on your Mac.
Why this exists
Most journals are great at capturing a day, but not many can answer the simple question of "how have I actually been, over the past week or month or year?" And not many are built to make talking to a journal as easy as typing. VoxThermic was built to be good at both.
Your words become a signal
Write (or speak) normally, and the app reads the emotional weight on-device and turns it into weather labels, themes, and trends you can scan without homework.
Voice when typing won't do
Some days it's easier to just talk rather than type. Hit record, talk it out, edit the transcript, save. Great at home, though maybe not the coffee shop. Same journal as text, but just another way in.
What you get
A native Mac app: timeline, weather view, calendar, and voice. Everything is built specifically for macOS, with the latest technology, and designed so it could run offline. There's no servers, no data centers: everything runs on your device.
Timeline
Write it down. See the mood later.
A straightforward place for what matters. Each entry picks up weather and themes from your words. If you want more, premium on-device reflections can turn a raw page into a clearer read of the day, and it does it all on your machine.
- Searchable journal with mood filters
- Weather and theme chips per entry
- Optional AI reflections that never leave your Mac
Emotional Weather
This is the part I built it for.
After you've journaled for a while, open Weather and see a sentiment curve over 7, 30, or 365 days. Spot the climb after a hard stretch. Click a day to jump back into those entries. Export a PDF when you want a keepable record.
- Rolling windows, not rigid "fill out a form" mood logs
- Themes pulled from your own language
- Click the chart → open that day's writing
Calendar
A month of feelings, at a glance.
Days tinted by inner weather: sunny, partly cloudy, stormy. Less "appointments," more "how did this week actually feel?" Jump to any day and open the entries that made it so.
- Month grid colored by mood
- Quick jump from weather to words
- Mini calendar in the sidebar for daily use
Voice Orb
Talk it out. Get text. Stay offline.
Start recording, talk to the Orb, watch a private transcript appear. Edit before you save: nothing becomes an entry until you say so. Same mood smarts as typed text. Audio never leaves your Mac.
- On-device speech recognition
- Edit the transcript before saving
- Or just write: same journal, your pace
The full picture
Timeline, weather, calendar, voice. One private place to capture how you feel and look back without guessing.
What I cared about when I built it
Mood over time, voice when you need it, and privacy that isn't a footnote. That's because a journal only works if you trust it.
Voice + text
Speak to the Orb or type in a quiet editor. One journal, two ways in. Some days it's easier to type, and some days it's easier to just talk it out.
Mood over time
Charts, a calendar, and weather labels so scattered entries become "how I've been" and not a side feature buried in settings. That was the whole point.
On-device intelligence
VoxThermic was built to use Apple's on-device Foundation Models and Natural Language frameworks so analysis and reflections can run on your hardware. Your diary doesn't need someone else's data center.
Native macOS
SwiftUI, keyboard-friendly, multi-pane, local storage. Built for Apple Silicon, where the on-device models actually live. Offline-first because that's how a journal should be.
Your mind. Your Mac.
I wouldn't put my own journal in a product that phones home. Transcription, analysis, and reflections stay on-device. No trackers. No ad networks mining a bad day.
- On-device transcription. No audio leaves your Mac
- On-device Foundation Model AI that runs entirely locally
- All data stays on-device with no cloud dependency
- No tracking, no analytics, no data collection
Try it if this sounds like what you needed too
Download the app, drag it to Applications, write or speak a first entry. Free to journal. Optional premium unlocks fuller AI prose, PDF export, and more if you want them, via Polar, with a short trial on the paid bits.
Download VoxThermic 1.0.1Updates: VoxThermic → Check for Updates… · License portal: polar.sh/jbri/portal