Support

How do I create a journal entry?

Tap + on the Journal tab and choose Journal entry. Pick Something Good, Something Neutral or Something Bad — or Help me log to be walked to the exact feeling by the Feelings Wheel. A neutral entry has a slider from −5 to +5 for its shade; a good or bad one takes an intensity from 1 to 10. Describe what happened, then attach up to 20 photos, videos, audio recordings or documents if you like. Leave the form with words typed — by any route — and BrightLog keeps them as a private draft and offers them back the next time you open it.

How do I log my mood?

Tap + and choose Log mood, or tap a face on the Daily Mood widget. Pick how the day felt — Awesome, Good, Not sure, Bad or Terrible — and tap Save now. If you want to, go on to name the feelings, add a note, a photo, a recording or a place. One mood a day: a check-in after midnight belongs to that day, and opening the check-in again edits the same mood.

What is the Feelings Wheel?

A guided picker that helps you name what you feel: first one of seven core emotions (happy, sad, disgusted, angry, fearful, surprised, or simply “bad” — bored, busy, stressed, tired), then a sub-emotion, then a precise word such as proud, powerless, anxious, hopeful or overwhelmed; a surprise is also asked whether it was a good or a bad one. Open it with Help me log when you start an entry, or on a mood check-in after choosing the level. On the first step, Not sure — I’ll just log it skips the wheel. The same wheel is on this website: the feelings wheel, explained.

How does voice input work?

Tap the microphone on the situation, description, note or gratitude fields and speak; the words appear in the field and stop when you pause. Long-press the microphone to keep listening hands-free until you stop it. The transcription is done by your device’s own speech recognition — Apple’s on iPhone and iPad, Google’s on Android — which may use their online service to do it. BrightLog keeps only the text, never the recording, and you can edit it before saving.

What are daily nudges, and how do I change them?

Short, kind reminders to look after yourself through the day — a glass of water, a stretch, a minute outside, a kind word. They are on from the moment you allow notifications, and everything about them is under Settings > Notifications > Daily nudges: Nudges a day (1 to 12; five to start with), Your day (the hours they arrive in), Kinds of nudge (a switch for each of the twenty kinds), Mute today, Pause for… a day, three days or a week, and Preview a nudge. Each nudge has three buttons: Done records a moment of care, Later brings it back in half an hour, Not today keeps that kind quiet until tomorrow. After a bad or terrible mood, only the gentlest kinds come for the rest of the day. Every line is written by hand, never generated. More in our guide to self-care reminders.

How do reminders work?

Everything is under Settings > Notifications. Allowing notifications at setup turns on the daily reflection reminder (early evening), the weekly reminder (Saturday morning), the daily streak reminder (in the evening, only on a day you have not logged anything yet), the monthly and yearly insight reminders, and goal reminders, which arrive at the time you set on each task with 15m, 1h, Tomorrow and Too hard today buttons. The Weekly review stays off until you turn it on, and lets you pick its day and time. Daily nudges have their own section (above). Reminders are scheduled on your device; nothing is sent from a server. On Android, if reminders stop arriving, open Settings > Notifications > If reminders aren’t firing for the steps for your device.

How do goals and habits work?

On the Goals tab, start from Goal ideas — ten ready-made starting points, from better sleep and small mood-lifting actions to staying in touch and Take my medication — or build your own with a when-then plan and an if-then plan for the days something gets in the way. Each task has its own rhythm, including any N days a week. Tick a task from the list, the goal or the check-in; a Rate it task then asks how it felt, and a Write a note task offers a short prompt. Once tasks have ratings, the goal shows Your ratings and What lifts you. This week at the top of the tab counts what you have done; tap it for Your week: a ring per goal, the last twelve weeks, and next week’s plan — Keep, Adjust or Pause. Take a break from goals (a day, three days, a week or until a date) silences every goal reminder and counts nothing as missed. More in how to build habits that stick.

What is the Experts tab?

The Experts tab lists psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists and mental-health centres near you, nearest first (or A–Z). Listings come from OpenStreetMap — the free, volunteer-built map of the world — and each card shows the practice, speciality, address, distance, phone, email, website and opening hours that local contributors have added; tapping a card searches the web for it. Map data is © OpenStreetMap contributors under the Open Database License. No account is needed — just your country, and optionally your postcode, under Settings > Language & Location. Only that goes to the map service; your entries never do. A gentle “Need support?” card appears at most once a week; tick Don’t show this again to stop it for good.

Do I need an account to use BrightLog?

No. Journaling, moods, gratitude, goals, the meditation timer, export and the widgets all work without an account. Sign in with Google (Android) or Apple (iPhone and iPad) only for cloud backup, AI insights and therapy preparation. The AI features also ask your permission the first time, and you can change your mind under Settings > Privacy & Analytics.

How do cloud backups work?

Once you are signed in, the automatic monthly backup is on: it runs the first time you open BrightLog each month, and Back Up Now under Settings > Backup & Restore runs one whenever you like. Your data goes to your own Google Drive on Android, or your own iCloud on iPhone and iPad — there is no BrightLog server. The newest three backups are kept. If a monthly backup cannot run, BrightLog tries again and tells you plainly what to do — sign in again, free up cloud storage, or wait for a connection.

How do I restore my data on a new device?

Install BrightLog on the new device of the same kind (iCloud backups restore on iPhone and iPad, Google Drive backups on Android), sign in with the same account, go to Settings > Backup & Restore and choose a backup. Restoring replaces what is on the device. Everything comes back: entries, mood check-ins, notes, photos and recordings, gratitude, goals and their history, therapy preparations, your streak, your badges and your moments of care. AI insights are written afresh rather than restored.

What are AI Insights?

Monthly and yearly insights, each with five views. The Story is written by Google Gemini from your journal entries and mood check-ins — a month of check-ins alone is enough — in your own language: how the period went, its patterns, what they might mean, your strengths, one small habit to try, an action plan and a checkpoint. Heatmap, Trend, Wheel and Mood are created on your device and work offline and signed out. The Story needs a sign-in, your permission to send entries to the AI, and a connection. Every insight says when it was written and from how many entries; if you add entries afterwards it offers Update, Write it again is available once a day, and the previous version stays one tap away. Export the Story as a PDF from the same screen. If an insight cannot load, the screen offers Update and Try again.

How do I prepare a therapy session?

Open the Prepare & Export tab and tap Prepare Your Therapy Session. Choose the dates (up to 60 days) and BrightLog builds a six-part summary from your entries and the notes you added to them: your mood and emotion trend, what kept coming up, triggers, thought patterns, what shifted, and points to discuss. Share it as a PDF or copy it as text; earlier preparations stay in the history, and Your week links straight to it. It is written only when you ask, needs a sign-in and your consent, and is labelled for what it is: AI-suggested patterns, not a clinical diagnosis. See how to prepare for a therapy session.

How do I enable App Lock?

Go to Settings > Security and turn on Require authentication. BrightLog then asks for Face ID, Touch ID, your fingerprint or your device’s screen lock, and Lock after lets you choose 30 seconds, 1 minute or 5 minutes away from the app. The lock covers every screen, sheet and popup, and a reminder you tap opens only after you unlock. Your biometric data never leaves your device — the operating system handles it.

Is my data private?

Your entries are stored on your device, and there is no BrightLog server that receives them — we never see what you write. Your words leave your device only for a feature you choose: an AI insight or a therapy preparation, which send the words of your entries to Google’s Gemini after you have said yes under Settings > Privacy & Analytics; a backup to your own iCloud or Google Drive; or dictation, which your device’s speech recognition may process online. The Experts tab sends only your country and postcode to the map service. Anonymous usage statistics — how often a screen is opened, never what you write — can be switched off under Settings > Privacy & Analytics, which also erases what was already collected. Read our full Privacy Policy for details.

Can I export my journal?

Yes, without signing in. Open the Prepare & Export tab to save your entries as a PDF or a CSV, or send the CSV by email from the same tab. Insight Stories, therapy preparations, a goal’s detail, Your week and the goal activity log each export as a PDF from their own screens; therapy preparations and Your week can also be copied as text.

How do I add the home-screen widgets?

On iPhone and iPad, touch and hold an empty area of the Home Screen, tap Edit > Add Widget and choose BrightLog; on Android, touch and hold the home screen and choose Widgets. There are three: Daily Streak (your streak, and your badges one tap away), Daily Mood (the five faces — tap one and the check-in opens with that mood chosen), and Daily Tasks (today’s tasks and what is done; one tap opens the check-in). They are created on your device, in the app’s language, and never show journal text. See the widgets guide.

How do I delete my data?

To delete one entry, touch and hold it in the Journal, or open it and choose delete. The Journal also offers Delete entries older than 1 year. To delete everything at once — the data on your device, your cloud backups and your BrightLog sign-in — sign in, then tap Delete All BrightLog Data at the top of Settings and confirm; you are asked to sign in once more to prove it is you, and the app returns to first setup. Your Apple ID or Google account itself is not affected. Every step is on the delete my data page.

The app isn’t working correctly. What should I do?

Try these steps:

• Make sure you have the latest version of BrightLog from the App Store or Google Play — an insight screen that says “Make sure BrightLog is up to date, then try again” means exactly that
• Restart the app
• If sign-in issues occur, try signing out and signing back in
• If reminders stop arriving on Android, open Settings > Notifications > If reminders aren’t firing
• If the problem persists, contact us at mlicst.apps@gmail.com with a description of the issue