Video Diary
Don't assume your iPhone backup has your video journal in it. Apps can keep their files out of device backups, and journaling apps often do: Apple Journal's entries are left out of ordinary iCloud backups, and the app I make, Video Diary, keeps its videos out of every device backup. So the job has two parts. Find out where your app keeps a second copy, if it keeps one at all. Then keep another copy yourself, somewhere you control.
Is my video journal in my iPhone backup?
Maybe not, and nothing on the phone will tell you. An app decides which of its files go into iCloud Backup and computer backups. A journaling app has good reasons to leave some out, and they all come down to the entries being private and, in the case of video, heavy.
Here's how four apps you might be using handle it. I checked each one's help pages and plans on 31 October 2026.
| App | In your iPhone backup? | Its own backup | Can you export the videos? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video Diary | No, never | Automatic iCloud backup with Premium | Yes, free: one clip, a montage, or everything |
| Apple Journal | Only in an encrypted backup to a Mac or PC | None. Syncing between your devices isn't a backup | Yes: Export All Journal Entries makes a ZIP with your media |
| Day One | Doesn't rely on it; entries live in Day One's cloud | Cloud backup on every plan; video needs Silver ($49.99/year) | Yes: JSON export with a videos folder |
| 1 Second Everyday | Yes, its help says iCloud Backup covers it without Pro | 1SE Cloud Backup with Pro | The finished mashup, yes |
Mine is the one that looks worst in that table, so let me be plain about it. If you use Video Diary without Premium, the only copy of your diary is on your phone. A full iCloud Backup won't save it, and nor will restoring a new iPhone from that backup. Premium's iCloud backup runs on its own and brings everything back when you reinstall on a phone signed into the same Apple Account. Without Premium, the free export is your safety net, and you have to remember to use it.
1SE gets this right for free users, and that's worth knowing if you're choosing between the two. Apple Journal is the one that surprises people most. It syncs between your iPhone, iPad and Mac, which feels like a backup and isn't one: sync mirrors every change, including the ones you didn't mean to make, and Apple's own help page says Journal entries aren't backed up to iCloud.
How much storage does a year of video take?
More than people expect, and this decides where your backups can go. Apple doesn't publish a size per minute. Independent measurements of iPhone video at 1080p, 30 frames per second, in the default High Efficiency format land at roughly 60 to 90 MB per minute. Your app's recording settings will move that up or down, so treat these as estimates:
| Daily entry | Per year, roughly | Fits in free 5 GB iCloud? |
|---|---|---|
| 10 seconds | 4 to 6 GB | Barely, if nothing else is there |
| 30 seconds | 11 to 16 GB | No |
| 1 minute | 22 to 33 GB | No |
| 3 minutes | 66 to 99 GB | No |
So for anyone talking for a minute a day, a cloud backup means paying for iCloud+ as well as the app's backup feature. In the US, Apple charges $0.99 a month for 50 GB, $2.99 for 200 GB and $9.99 for 2 TB. A minute a day fits in 50 GB for about a year and a half, and in 200 GB for several years. This is the honest cost of keeping a diary as video. You get faces and voices, and you pay for them in gigabytes.
A backup routine for a video journal
Step 1: Find out what your app backs up
Look for a backup or iCloud section in the app's settings, then search its help pages for "backup". You're looking for one of three answers: the app's files are in your iPhone backup, the app runs its own cloud backup, or neither. If the help pages don't say, ask the developer. If you can't find out, treat it as neither.
Don't test it by deleting and reinstalling the app. If the answer was "neither", that test deletes your diary.
Step 2: Turn on the app's own backup, if it has one
This is the copy that works without you thinking about it, and it's the one that gets you back to normal fastest on a new phone. Check two things: whether it's a paid feature, and whose servers it uses. A backup to your own iCloud account sits inside your Apple Account and its protections. A backup to the developer's servers means trusting their security and their retention policy for years. I wrote more about that trade-off in how to keep a private video diary.
In Video Diary, Premium turns on the iCloud backup and it runs by itself after that. Premium is $6.99 a week or $44.99 a year on the US App Store, and it also adds palettes, fonts and a Face ID lock. The backup counts against your own iCloud storage, so the table above still applies.
Step 3: Export a copy you hold yourself
A cloud backup protects you from losing the phone. It doesn't protect you from the app. Developers stop updating apps, subscriptions lapse, sync bugs happen. A plain video file on a drive you own survives all of that.
Once a month, export everything new and move it off the phone:
- To a computer: AirDrop the exported files to a Mac, or connect the iPhone and copy them across.
- To an external drive: plug a USB-C drive into the iPhone (or a Lightning one with an adapter) and save the files there in the Files app. No computer needed.
- To a folder in iCloud Drive or another cloud service: easy, but it's a second copy in the cloud, not a copy in your hands.
Photographers have a rule of thumb for this, 3-2-1: three copies, on two different kinds of storage, with one of them somewhere else. For a diary, the phone, the app's cloud backup and an external drive in a drawer covers it.
In Video Diary, you can export one clip, a finished montage, or every entry at once, and none of it needs Premium. If you don't pay for Premium, this step is your backup, so set a monthly reminder.
Step 4: Keep the copies as private as the diary
A backup is one more place your diary can be read. Three things to do:
- Turn on Advanced Data Protection (Settings › your name › iCloud). Under Apple's standard protection, iCloud Backup and iCloud Drive are encrypted, but Apple holds the keys. With Advanced Data Protection they become end-to-end encrypted, and so does third-party app data stored in CloudKit encrypted fields and assets. Only your devices can read them. If you lose access to your devices you'll need a recovery contact or recovery key, so set one up properly.
- Keep exports out of Photos. Save them to Files instead. In the photo library, diary entries get mixed in with everything else, turn up in Memories, and can end up in a Shared Library.
- Encrypt the external drive. On a Mac, Disk Utility can format a drive as encrypted APFS. Then a drive that goes missing from the drawer doesn't take your diary with it.
Step 5: Before you change phones, check, then wipe
The most common way to lose a diary is trading in the old iPhone too soon. Before you erase it: let the app's backup finish, do one last full export, set up the new phone, open the journal app, and scroll back to your oldest entry. Wipe the old phone only once that entry plays.
Common mistakes
- Assuming "iCloud Backup is on" covers everything. It covers what each app lets it cover.
- Mistaking sync for a backup. Sync makes your devices match. If you delete something by accident, it's deleted everywhere.
- Only exporting the montage. A montage is an edit, often trimmed. Keep the full clips too, because next year you may want a different film from the same days. More on that in making a memory montage from daily videos.
- Backing up once. One export from March doesn't protect October. Put it on a calendar.
- Never opening a backup. Every few months, open a file from the external drive and watch it. A backup you've never opened is only a hope.
A diary you can take with you
Video Diary opens on the camera. Tap REC, talk, and the day lands on a calendar. Exporting is free: one clip, a montage, or every entry at once, as ordinary video files that open anywhere. Premium adds an automatic backup to your own iCloud that comes back when you reinstall. No account, no AI, no feed.
Free for daily journaling on iPhone (iOS 17.6+). Premium is $6.99 a week or $44.99 a year in the US and adds iCloud backup, Face ID lock, palettes and fonts, not the ability to record. Try Video Diary free. No Android version. If you want to compare it with the alternatives first, I've put six video journaling apps side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Does iCloud Backup include my journal app?
Not necessarily. Apps can exclude their files from device backups, and journaling apps often do. Apple Journal entries are left out of unencrypted iPhone backups, and Video Diary's videos are left out of all device backups. Check your app's help pages or settings, and if they don't say, assume the backup doesn't cover it.
How much storage does a video journal need?
At typical iPhone 1080p quality, a video takes roughly 60 to 90 MB per minute. A one-minute entry every day comes to about 22 to 33 GB a year; ten-second clips come to about 4 to 6 GB. The free 5 GB of iCloud storage won't hold a year of daily one-minute entries.
Is a video journal backed up to iCloud private?
It's encrypted in transit and on Apple's servers, but under standard data protection Apple holds the keys. Turn on Advanced Data Protection and iCloud Backup, iCloud Drive and third-party app data in CloudKit encrypted fields become end-to-end encrypted, so only your devices can read them.
Learn more: what a private video diary needs →What happens to my video diary if I lose my phone?
Whatever wasn't copied off the phone is gone. If your app had its own cloud backup switched on, reinstalling it on a new iPhone signed into the same Apple Account brings the entries back. If not, your last export is all you have, which is why a monthly export is worth the five minutes.