FAQ

hibi is a journal app where you can easily keep what happened each day and how you felt, starting with just one line. Each entry holds up to 140 characters, and you can add photos and videos. You can look back on what you’ve written in the Calendar and in your month in review (the Monthly Report).

What matters to us is that you can keep going, without feeling you have to “write it properly.”

No. You can start writing right after you install the app, without registering an email address or password.

Signing in with your Google account is optional, and only for when you want to use backup (saving your records to your own Google Drive). You can write without signing in.

They’re stored on your device. hibi has no server that stores your records.

Only if you set up backup are they also stored in your own Google Drive (see Q4 below).

Go to My Page → SETTINGS → “Backup” and sign in with your Google account to turn it on.

Once it’s set up, each time you write, edit, or delete an entry, your records are saved automatically to a folder called “hibi-backup” that is created in your own Google Drive. You don’t need to do anything by hand.

To choose whether photos and videos are backed up too, turn “Include Photos and Videos” on or off on the same page.

No. Your backups are stored in your own Google Drive, and the people behind hibi have no way to access them.

hibi has no server that collects the text, photos, or videos of your journal.

Yes. Go to My Page → IMPORT & EXPORT → “Export Entries” to export all your records so far as a text (.txt) or CSV file. You can share the exported file by email or with other apps.

You can take your records with you at any time. You’re never tied to one app.

Yes. Put the entries you’ve written so far into a CSV file, and you can move them into hibi, nothing left behind.

Columns you can import

At a minimum, two columns are all you need: date and text. If you also have the following columns, they can come along too.

• Tags — Separate them with spaces, like “#travel #cafe”, to make several tags.
• Mood — hibi’s moods (“Happy”, “Calm”, “Wistful”, “Unsettled”) can be read, as well as some other English words (such as good and bad). Any other word is imported without a mood.
• Location — A place name like “Kamakura” goes in as it is.
• Created (the time you wrote it) — If you choose a column with both a date and a time, like “2025/10/5 21:30”, that time is used. You can also choose the same column as the date. Without one, the time is set to 12:00.
• Favorite — Rows with “yes”, “1”, or “true” become favorites.

Photos and videos are not imported from a CSV.

How to make a CSV

If your old app can export to CSV, use that. Even if the column names are different, you can choose which columns to use for the date, text, and so on when you import.

For notes with no export, you can paste them into a spreadsheet app. Write the headers “Date” and “Text” in the first row, then put one entry per row from the second row on. If you use these two headers, the columns are chosen automatically when you import.

Save as UTF-8

Set the character encoding to UTF-8 and save as CSV.

• Excel (computer) — Save with the file type set to “CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited)”
• Google Sheets (computer) — “File” → “Download” → “Comma Separated Values (.csv)”
• Numbers (iPhone) — “More” → “Export” → “CSV”

How to write dates

Dates written like “2025-10-05”, “2025/10/5”, “2025.10.5”, or “2025年10月5日” can be read. Dates with a time, like “2025/10/5 21:30”, can be read too. Dates without a year (such as “October 5”) are not imported.

Import into hibi

Put the CSV file somewhere your phone can open (on iPhone, the Files app or iCloud Drive; on Android, Downloads or Google Drive, and so on).

In hibi, go to My Page → IMPORT & EXPORT → “Import Entries”, tap “Choose a CSV File”, and select the file. Check the date and text columns and the 3-entry preview, then tap “Import” to bring your entries in.

If something goes wrong

• The text is garbled or the file won’t load — Try saving it again as UTF-8.
• You see “Nothing to import” — Check how the dates are written, and which columns you chose for the date and text.

Yes, you can write as many entries a day as you like. Each entry can be up to 140 characters.

We kept entries short on purpose, to take away the pressure of having to “write it properly” and make it easier to keep going.

Both are features for looking back on your past records.

• Monthly Report — Shows a month of records gathered into pages: a cover, highlights from your photos and words, your mood trends, the times of day you wrote, and more. It gives you a feel for a month of writing.
• On This Day — Shows past entries written on today’s date, such as “1 week ago,” “1 month ago,” and “1 year ago,” in one continuous flow. It’s a way to come across your own past words, unexpectedly.

There are two kinds. You can turn either one on or off in My Page → SETTINGS → “Notifications.”

• On This Day Notifications — Only on days when you have records from the same date in the past, hibi lets you know about them (9:00 in the morning by default).
• Daily Reminder — If you haven’t written yet that day, hibi gently lets you know in the evening (off by default).

All notifications are created on your device. They aren’t sent from any server.

On the writing screen, you can add up to 4 photos or videos to each entry. Media you add is stored on your device.

If you’ve set up backup and turned on “Include Photos and Videos,” they’re also stored in your own Google Drive. These are the only two places they’re stored. hibi has no server that stores photos or videos.

hibi has no server that collects the text, photos, or videos of your journal. Your records are stored only on your device (and, if you’ve set up backup, in your own Google Drive).

To improve the app, we do record anonymous usage information, such as which screens were opened and which buttons were tapped. This never includes the contents of your journal, your name, your email address, or any other information that identifies you.

Yes. Go to My Page → SETTINGS → “Security” to set a 4-digit passcode. If your device supports it, you can also unlock with biometrics, such as your fingerprint or face. You can change your passcode at any time after setting it.

For your security, no one, including the people behind hibi, can look up or remove your passcode. We’re sorry for the trouble, but please delete the app and install it again.

If you’ve set up backup, after reinstalling, sign in with the same Google account and use “Restore from Backup” to get your records back.

You can move them if you’ve set up backup.

1. On your old device, check that My Page → SETTINGS → “Backup” is set up (if it is, your records have already been backed up automatically).
2. On your new device, install hibi and sign in with the same Google account as on your old device.
3. Go to SETTINGS → “Backup” → “Restore from Backup,” and your records come back on the new device.

Right after a restore, photos and videos are downloaded one by one, so they may take a little while to appear. Please wait a bit, then close and reopen the app.

If that doesn’t fix it, please contact us from “Contact Us” on the app’s “Help & Contact” page. Telling us the name of your device and which screen it happened on helps us look into it smoothly.

Fully closing the app and opening it again may fix it. If that doesn’t help, please contact us from “Contact Us” on the app’s “Help & Contact” page.

When you do, telling us which screen you were on and what you were doing when it happened helps us find the cause faster.

Please send it from “Contact Us” on the app’s “Help & Contact” page. You can choose “Report a problem” (不具合の報告), “Request a feature” (機能のご要望), or “Other” (その他) and write your message.

We aren’t able to reply to every message individually, but we read every one and use it to help improve hibi.

The contact form is currently in Japanese, but you’re welcome to write in English. If we reply, it may take a few days (Japan time).

Yes. With “Delete All Data” at the bottom of SETTINGS on My Page, you can delete all records, photos, videos, and settings on your device at once. If you’ve connected a Google account, hibi’s access to it is removed at the same time.

Note that, as a precaution, this does not delete the backup that remains in your own Google Drive (the “hibi-backup” folder). To erase it completely, delete this folder yourself in Google Drive.