How to export a _specific_ journal in Day One

macOS
1

I am looking at starting to log data into a data journal in Day One. This data would be stored as a json string that I could then parse later. I’m starting off with logging daily ratings (general mood, how well I worked at specific goals, etc.). Then, I can compile statistic later on. I will probably use either Shortcuts or Drafts on iOS or the Day One CLI on macOS to actually log the data.

The problem comes with getting the data out of Day One. So far, the best option I can find is to:

  1. export the data journal as JSON
  2. extract/unzip the generated zip file
  3. parse the JSON file from Day One
  4. parse each entry’s JSON payload

I have a script that can do steps 2-4, but I can not figure out how to automate step 1.

Any idea of how to automate exporting a single journal in Day One? I know I can right click on a journal in the sidebar and select Export, but I can’t find a way to do the export programmatically. If you use the File > Export option, it exports all Journals, and there appears to be no AppleScript action for Day One.

This would also be moot if there was a way to query the Day One database directly. ಠ_ಠ

Any suggestions would be awesome! Thank you :slight_smile:

2

A couple of thoughts.

  1. Could Keyboard Maestro help with the export? You can get it to do key presses, click on screen areas based on an image, etc.
  2. If you export all journals via menu actions, could you process it to strip out any unwanted journal entries?
3

Keyboard Maestro could probably do the export - I will have to research how to get it to click on specific areas.

I can export everything, but that creates a huge zip file due to all of the photos in the archive.

I will start research how to do the export with Keyboard Maestro.