📔 Diary

A lightweight, encrypted personal diary for the GNOME desktop, distributed as a Flatpak. Every entry is automatically timestamped and stored encrypted with your master password.

Your whole diary is a single portable vault file that you choose where to store. Move it to another computer, open it in Diary and type your password. You can also export backup copies anytime.

Install (recommended)

Download diary.flatpak from the latest release, then:

flatpak install diary.flatpak
flatpak run org.diary.Diary

The app then appears in your application menu as Diary.

Requires Flatpak and the GNOME 48 runtime, which is fetched automatically from Flathub during install. If you don't have Flathub yet:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Build from source

Requirements (one-time, from Flathub):

flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Platform//48 org.gnome.Sdk//48 org.flatpak.Builder

Then build and install into the user scope:

./flatpak/build.sh

The cryptography dependency is bundled as pre-downloaded wheels in flatpak/wheels/, so the build runs fully offline (no Rust toolchain needed).

Using the app

First start shows a welcome screen with two choices:

• Create new diary – pick a master password, then choose where to save the diary file. Diary remembers that location and uses it from then on.
• Open existing diary… – pick a .vault file from anywhere, then enter its password.

Day to day:

• Write in the editor on the left and click Save entry (or press Ctrl+Enter). Each entry is timestamped automatically.
• Formatting: the editor understands simple Markdown. The B, I, H and • buttons add bold, italic, headings and bullet lists.
• Read: the list of entries is on the right. Click one to read it, rendered with its formatting.
• Delete: open an entry and click the trash icon. A confirmation dialog appears before anything is removed.
• Search: filter the list with the search box.
• Menu bar → Diary:
  • New diary… – create another diary at a location you choose.
  • Open diary… – switch to a different .vault file.
  • Export a copy… – save a backup copy elsewhere.
  • Lock – return to the password screen.

Portable vault file

The entire diary is one self-contained file (JSON):

{ "format": "diary-vault", "version": 1, "salt": "…", "data": "…" }

Because the random salt is stored alongside the encrypted data, the file works on any machine: copy it over, Open it, type your password. Without the password the contents cannot be read.

Where is my data?

Wherever you chose to save it (e.g. ~/Documents/mydiary.vault). The active location is remembered in:

~/.var/app/org.diary.Diary/config/diary/config.json

If you don't pick a folder, the suggested default is ~/.local/share/diary/diary.vault (inside the sandbox).

The Flatpak is granted access to your home directory so it can read and write the vault at the location you choose. Save your vault somewhere under your home folder.

Security

• Encryption with Fernet (AES-128 CBC + HMAC) from the cryptography library.
• The key is derived with scrypt (n=2¹⁵) from your password + a random salt.
• The password is never stored – it only lives in memory while running.
• Files are written atomically with permissions 600 (owner only).

⚠ Important: without your password the entries are not recoverable. Use Export a copy regularly to keep a backup.

Project files

File	Contents
diary_gtk.py	GTK4/libadwaita application
diarycore.py	cryptography + portable-vault storage (with chosen location)
flatpak/	Flatpak manifest, icon, desktop entry, build script, wheels

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. © 2026 Diary contributors.