Most of the decision-making around a diary app happens before you've written a single entry — comparing features, checking if it syncs, deciding whether the free plan is enough. The question that actually matters tends to show up years later, once the app holds something you can't casually recreate: can you get it all back out, in a format that still works if you stop using this app entirely?
Storyie's answer is a full export: every diary and note, as Markdown, with photos included, in a ZIP you can download and keep — not a support ticket, not a "contact us," not a format only this app can open.
TL;DR
- Settings → Export downloads your diaries, notes, or both as a ZIP of Markdown files, one file per entry.
- Photos attached to entries are downloaded into a shared
images/folder in the ZIP, with the Markdown rewritten to point there. - You can scope an export to all time, this year, this month, or a custom date range.
- The export is plain Markdown — openable in any text editor, Obsidian, Notion import, or just as files in a folder — not a proprietary format.
- Export is a Pro feature; what you've already written stays yours and stays readable in the app on the free plan regardless.
Why "can I get my data out" is the real question
A diary is one of the few things people write that's meant to accumulate for years, not get archived and forgotten after a project ends. That makes the lock-in question sharper than it is for most apps: if an app folds, changes its pricing, or just stops being what you need, you want the actual writing — not a promise that it's "in there somewhere."
The honest failure mode to watch for isn't an app with no export button. It's an export that technically exists but hands you something unusable — a PDF with no structure, a proprietary file format, or a dump that drops your photos and leaves broken image placeholders in their place. A real export is one you could hand to a different app, or no app at all, and still read everything in it.
What's actually in a Storyie export
From Settings → Export, three choices control what you get:
Choice | Options |
|---|---|
Target | Diaries only, notes only, or both |
Date range | All time, this year, this month, or a custom range |
Output | A single ZIP file, downloaded directly to your device |
Inside the ZIP, each diary or note becomes its own .md file. The original rich-text formatting — bold, italics, headings, lists, blockquotes, hashtags — comes through as standard Markdown syntax, not flattened into one unstructured block of text. If an entry has photos attached, those images are downloaded into a shared images/ folder at the top of the ZIP, and the Markdown itself is rewritten with a relative path back to that folder. Open the exported file in any Markdown viewer, on any device, with no network connection, and the photo still renders — because the file sitting next to it in the ZIP is the actual image, not a link back to Storyie's servers.
That combination — real Markdown structure plus photos that travel in the ZIP instead of staying hosted elsewhere — is the part worth checking for in any diary app's export, not just Storyie's.
Scoping an export
Not every export needs to be your entire history. The date-range options exist for cases like:
- Archiving a specific trip or life period without touching the rest of your diary.
- Pulling this year's entries for an end-of-year personal review.
- Testing the export format on a small sample before committing to exporting everything.
Picking "Diaries only" or "Notes only" keeps the output focused if you only care about one of the two.
If you're moving from another app
There's no single-click import that works across every diary app, because every app's own export format is different — moving into Storyie from somewhere else realistically means checking what your current app's export offers, then bringing that content over as new entries rather than an automated one-button migration. What the export above changes is the other direction: whichever app you use after Storyie, or if you stop using any diary app at all, your writing leaves in a format you can actually open. That's the same thing worth checking for in whatever app you're moving away from — ask what format its export uses and whether your photos come with it, since that's what makes a future move painless regardless of where you land next.
Takeaways
Export is one of those features you hope you never urgently need and would be in real trouble without. Storyie's version is deliberately boring: real Markdown, real photos, scoped by date and type, downloaded as a plain ZIP — nothing you need this app installed to open. For how Storyie handles the platforms you actually write on day to day, see a Day One alternative for iPhone, Android, and the web or a diary app that syncs between iPhone, Android, and the web. Otherwise, sign in and start writing — exporting is there if and when you need it.
