[HN Gopher] Show HN: A journaling service that runs over WhatsApp
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Show HN: A journaling service that runs over WhatsApp
Hey Hacker News, I'm excited to share a tiny service that's very
close to my heart - Today Has Been. Here's how it works: We have a
phone number that has WhatsApp Business API enabled. Your messages
sent to this number (after you activate your free trial) are added
to your journal. It's a super light weight journaling service - no
app download or registration is required. We also send you a daily
nudge asking "How did your day go?" and after you have a few posts
we send you a random blast from the past. Why I built it: I was an
active user and fan of Ohlife - only journalling app that could
make me write 100s of entries. So, when it shut down it left a hole
in my life too (just like it did for Paul G -
https://x.com/paulg/status/1216714155731890176). :) "Today Has
Been" is Ohlife on WhatsApp. I'd love to hear your feedback and
ideas. Please visit http://todayhasbeen.com and tap on Get Started.
(Note: Works on WhatsApp only) Also, if you have questions on
using WhatsApp as a platform, I'm happy to chat. Thank you!
Author : rahulg
Score : 113 points
Date : 2024-09-23 12:37 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (todayhasbeen.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (todayhasbeen.com)
| usmanmehmood55 wrote:
| How is user privacy handled?
| loremm wrote:
| Just because I'm interested in personal bots, doesn't whatsapp
| business have a (nominal, maybe) cost? I've been using telegram
| and they're amazingly bot friendly + free but I use whatsapp so
| much more
|
| Does it feel like it works for small (and personal-use) players
| with buttons, callbacks, and the rest
| rahulg wrote:
| You're right. WhatsApp Business API has a cost (which varies
| depending on country and type of message the Business
| initiates). I'm hoping to recover the cost through monthly
| subscriptions.
| loremm wrote:
| Huh yeah that's good to hear. As a small note, on my personal
| bot I set up a simple journaling (and then just used google
| sheets as the backend!) includes a nominal 'rating' 1-10 so I
| can see how my mood fluctuates.
|
| Especially if they do it every day/most days, having the
| option to see what you wrote "on this day" 2-3 years back is
| great. Especially when I try to include people's names who I
| was interacting with (but who are easy to forget 3 years
| later). It can be a nice reminder to text them and say you
| were "just randomly", unprompted, thinking about them --
| 'How's it going?'
| rahulg wrote:
| I do agree that getting to read entries from your past is
| quite magical and has to be experienced to really
| understand it.
|
| Fantastic that you've set it up for yourself.
| loremm wrote:
| And I think you can do more about E2E encrypting it. Or at
| least trying to. At some point, people don't want plaintext
| journals floating around stored permanently. Although I know
| it starts as cleartext on whatsapp's servers
| meiraleal wrote:
| Easy to say, very difficult to implement it right (and
| implementing it not right is diffcult AND useless). Also,
| let's be clear here, whatsapp E2EE is a joke.
| ylk wrote:
| > whatsapp E2EE is a joke
|
| Could you please elaborate why (in detail)?
| grvdrm wrote:
| Yes - I would love that too. Please back that up?
| jusepal wrote:
| My guess is since its closed source, no one beside them
| can verify that the supposedly e2e is even true, or exist
| in current latest binary. Sort of telling everyone that
| I've got a mountain of gold inside my house but the door
| is locked, no one beside me could verify my claim.
| Security and/or privacy via obscurity is moot.
| meiraleal wrote:
| They also handle and store users backup unencrypted by
| default so they have access to all messages in plaintext
| in multiple opportunities.
| ylk wrote:
| Meta has access to the backups that are stored on each
| individual's Google Drive/iCloud? How does that work
| exactly? Please elaborate.
| meiraleal wrote:
| > Meta has access to the backups that are stored on each
| individual's Google Drive/iCloud?
|
| Why the surprise?
|
| Meta has access to the folder it manages in the user's
| Google Drive. That's obvious, otherwise they wouldn't be
| able to write to it.
| ylk wrote:
| The app uses the (i)phone OS's cloud storage APIs to
| write to the backup folder, meta's servers don't have
| access to any credentials. For Android I currently can't
| check, but it's obvious from their FAQs that they have
| the app upload to Google's servers even if they don't use
| the OS APIs there: https://faq.whatsapp.com/4811350906403
| 75/?cms_platform=andro...
|
| They have indirect control over the user's backup folder
| via the app, but meta would need to distribute a
| malicious update to everyone that causes the user's apps
| to download the backup and send it to meta, at which
| point they could just skip trying to access the backup
| and directly upload the chats from the app.
|
| It's impressive how much misinfo you're spreading.
|
| Edit: Meta's actions over the years clearly show that
| they don't want to know the contents of your messages.
| Not knowing their contents means, for example, that they
| don't have to run scanners to detect illegal content (but
| users can report messages). They benefit from making
| WhatsApp a secure platform, as it allows them to collect
| everyone's metadata, which apparently has lots of value
| to them.
| ylk wrote:
| You can always go ahead and decompile the apps and then
| show everyone that they're in fact lying, that story
| would be huge. That alone doesn't make it true, but there
| have so far not been hints of them pulling weird stuff
| with their e2ee, unlike telegram, for example. They're
| even working on improving the default mode 99% of users
| use e2ee chat apps with - trust on first use (TOFU):
| https://engineering.fb.com/2023/04/13/security/whatsapp-
| key-...
|
| They probably do all kinds of horrible stuff with the
| metadata. I'm honestly too lazy to read the privacy
| policy. But I have yet to see critique of their e2ee
| that's actually backed up by substance instead of
| people's imaginations.
| jusepal wrote:
| If debunking security and/or privacy claims, and
| indirectly, to prove security and/or privacy claims is as
| simple as reverse engineering binaries then the very
| concept of open source for better privacy and/or security
| itself would be moot. Its outrageous to even suggest
| that.
| ylk wrote:
| It's certainly not outrageous. It's how people regularly
| find vulnerabilities in all kinds of closed-source
| software.
| jusepal wrote:
| It certainly is for proving privacy claims. Even finding
| vulnerability by reverse engineering is to debunk
| security claims, not to strengthening it.
| ylk wrote:
| The topic has been e2ee, which is first and foremost
| about security. You can have e2ee without privacy, as is
| likely the case with WhatsApp.
|
| You certainly can "prove" and "disprove" "security" by
| reverse engineering, to the same extent a source code
| review can (or even more, since you're looking at what's
| actually running on the device). It can often require a
| bigger time investment, but even that's not always the
| case in my experience, especially if you're working with
| a really bad code base.
| compootr wrote:
| > people don't want plaintext journals floating around
| stored permanently
|
| this is facebook. they're data-mining pictures of your dog
| for money. I don't think privacy/safety is expectable with
| meta
| meiraleal wrote:
| Yes it is paid but there are good unofficial APIs (better than
| the official actually). The problem as you would expect is that
| they aren't highly reliable and losing messages is common.
| lambdadelirium wrote:
| What a great idea to share even all the personal private life you
| had with a random company AND Meta /s
| maipen wrote:
| It's such nonsense lmao.
|
| I usualy don't like to hate on people's work, but damn I hate
| this thing.
|
| I prefer trustless rather than believing in other entities good
| will.
|
| I rather use a pen and paper.
|
| Also, when people already know it's a bot, there is no
| illusion.
| heythere22 wrote:
| The page says "14-day Free trial. No Credit Card Required." but
| there is no mention of any pricing page. What happens once the
| trial is over? Does the boy just stop sending messages?
| playingalong wrote:
| "boy" is obviously a typo. But can be seen as a reference to
| Amazon Mturk kind of automation by delegating to a human.
| rahulg wrote:
| ha!
| rahulg wrote:
| It's mentioned right below "14-day Free Trial" but I need to
| make it more obvious.
|
| "You can try THB out for 14 days for absolutely free. At the
| end of the trial period, you can choose between our monthly ($5
| per month) or annual ($48 per year) subscription plans."
|
| I have also added it in the bot before you subscribe to the
| free trial. Thanks for the feedback.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Pricing feedback: That's $13/yr more than the full-blown Day
| One premium service.
| rahulg wrote:
| Thank you! Let me consider this.
| gagik_co wrote:
| This is cool! I fully get the appeal of texting for journaling as
| I did that a lot with Signal. For a while now I have been working
| on a different way to capture this text yourself-powered
| journaling with my app tetr. It acts as a standalone app but
| employs a similar texting-based journaling system where you can
| set regular messages to be sent to you (even with stuff like
| checkboxes for routine tasks). It's also offline-first so data
| stays on your devices (and will employ e2ee sync once that's
| out).
|
| https://tetr.app/
| rahulg wrote:
| Hey! Looks great. Will give it try for sure.
| blackbear_ wrote:
| Congrats for the launch!
|
| Apologies for the self-promotion, but I've done something similar
| for Telegram, and I believe some people here might be also'
| interested in that.
|
| I also wanted to record more of my life, so I created a Telegram
| bot that saves all messages you send it into a Google
| Spreadsheet.
|
| Hashtags can be used to split the text into sheets and columns,
| if so desired. Besides jotting down quick thoughts, this is very
| handy for short-form journaling such as tracking expenses,
| workouts, mood, period, weight, diet, etc., with the added bonus
| of easy charting and summarization from within the spreadsheet.
| It also supports pictures and other attachments that are uploaded
| automatically to Google Drive and linked into the spreadsheet.
|
| Feel free to check it out, it's free of charge and does not
| require any registration: https://t.me/gsheet_notes_bot
| rahulg wrote:
| Thanks. Telegram bot sounds perfect too. Let me give it a try.
| egeozcan wrote:
| This is amazing. Is there a way to attach files/photos as well?
| blackbear_ wrote:
| Thank you! Yes, if you share a file or picture with the bot
| it will be uploaded on a Google drive folder (in your
| account) and linked into the spreadsheet.
| gagzilla wrote:
| This is really useful! Makes it easy to feed unstructured
| (thoughts) into a spreadsheet for processing later on.
| Thanks for doing this. Are you planning on making this
| open-source?
| Yenrabbit wrote:
| Lovely idea! I have a 'Note To Self' chat that gets used for all
| sorts, it's really hard to beat the convenience of Whatsapp for
| sharing things. Do you support voice notes?
| rahulg wrote:
| Thank you! Voice notes - not yet. But definitely on the radar.
| Would you prefer voice notes as it is or transcribed?
| ignacioaal wrote:
| @rahulg Could you tell me about your experience getting approved
| for production on the meta business account? I've been trying to
| get approval for months now. it's always denied. Building on
| Whatsapp has been impossible for this reason. Any tips?
| rahulg wrote:
| Hi. WhatsApp keeps changing its policies but if you have a
| business entity it should be possible to get it. If the
| business is verified by Meta then it should straight forward.
| Would you like to email me - I'm happy to get on a call and
| help. I'm on rahulg at bakbak dot me.
| vzaliva wrote:
| Trusting something as private as my personal diary to 3rd party
| sounds like a scary idea from a privacy point of view. Imagine
| someone hacking this site, exposing your very private
| information.
|
| I wish there was something like that end-to-end encrypted. You
| are already using E2E encryption for the communication channel
| (WhatsApp). I wish there was a hookup to store the same data
| without breaking down the chain of encryption. WhatApp should
| look into that. Something like ProtonDrive connected to WhatsApp
| and APIs.
| rahulg wrote:
| I'd love to figure out a way where entries are encrypted but
| also the features/user-friendliness is not sacrificed.
| smashah wrote:
| You can easily develop and self host such a thing without
| whatsapp business api
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Yeah I wouldn't anyone to mess with my milk either.
|
| (You typoed diary and I couldn't resist ;) )
| create-username wrote:
| My thoughts exactly when all mighty Tim Cook granted us iPhone
| addicts a Journaling app
| ethangk wrote:
| I think Day One probably fits the bill for you there. E2E
| encrypted. I've been using it for about a decade
| sutra_on wrote:
| I am not sure if this fits your usecase - but why not just to
| use encrypted Notes on a Mac or iPhone (if you have an Apple
| device), and set a daily reminder? What does WhatsApp have that
| Notes doesn't?
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| You can use XMPP+OMEMO for this. E2EE and self hosted.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| Diarium is the only thing I've found that actually fits the
| bill, where there is cross platform support and self hosted
| E2EE.
|
| Unfortunately, Diarium also reduces image quality
| significantly, even with their 'higher quality' setting. My Day
| One diary export is 90% larger than the data store Diarium
| syncs to webdav, the loss of fidelity is especially obvious
| when looking at screenshots.
| dewey wrote:
| > amazing private collection of your life stories
|
| I guess it's technically not "public" but then again it's
| shipping your most private thoughts to WhatsApp and an unknown
| person and "privacy" isn't mentioned on the landing page once.
|
| Personally I can recommend DayOne which is built by a trusted
| entity Automattic (Wordpress etc.) and they do have a big focus
| on privacy: https://dayoneapp.com/privacy-pledge/
| bcye wrote:
| I really wish otherwise great services would stop marketing
| with "military-grade encryption"
| stinkytaco wrote:
| Having served in the military once upon a time, it always
| makes me chuckle. Now, I didn't do much related to
| information technology or security, but "unbreakable" is not
| a term I ever associated with military equipment.
| woodglyst wrote:
| End to end encryption is not really a pledge. That is expected
| of companies like such. Nevertheless, their promise to not sell
| any data is interesting. If they don't sell data (which cannot
| be sold anyways for an E2EE system) I wonder why they collect
| so much data related to one's identity as disclosed by them in
| the App Store Page? Is the behaviour of journaling then becomes
| a data point to be sold by these companies? Makes you wonder.
| And as mentioned in their privacy policy page, they are also
| not except from disclosing information the the US Govt if
| mandated by a warrant.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| E2EE is not enabled by default on their cloud sync journals.
| bschmidt1 wrote:
| Out of curiosity why WhatsApp vs regular SMS (via Twilio)?
| rahulg wrote:
| SMS behaves different in different countries. If I take a
| single country's number then international charges may apply if
| a non-resident sends me a message.
|
| Also, interactive elements like buttons/images etc. are not
| supported.
| BoppreH wrote:
| Did you get Meta or a lawyer to clear your usage, especially
| after you introduce monthly subscriptions, against the WhatsApp
| Business Policy?
|
| I looked into it previously, and it seemed to imply software
| services were not welcome. From the WhatsApp Business Policy[1]
| (emphasis mine):
|
| > 4. Prohibited Organizations and Restrictions on Use
|
| > ...
|
| > If you use Catalogs, or _provide any other commerce experiences
| to sell or otherwise facilitate the exchange of goods or
| services_ prohibited by the Meta Commerce Policy, then we may
| prohibit you from using some or all of the WhatsApp Business
| Services.
|
| And the Meta Commerce Policy[2] says
|
| > Prohibited Content
|
| > 16. No item for Sale: Listings may not promote news, humor, or
| other content that _does not offer any product for sale_.
|
| > 19. Services: Services may not be listed.
|
| > 22. Subscriptions and Digital Products: Listings may not
| promote the buying or selling of downloadable digital content,
| digital subscriptions, and digital accounts.
|
| It was unclear to me whether this applies only to marketplace-
| like platforms, or any service or product that you provide
| yourself. A tenuous ground to build a company on.
|
| [1] https://business.whatsapp.com/policy
|
| [2] https://www.facebook.com/policies_center/commerce
| faangguyindia wrote:
| In my opinion, journaling, note-taking, and building an archive
| of knowledge or reminders should work seamlessly together. It
| should be possible to ask simple, yet specific questions like:
|
| "When did I last buy 10kg of garbanzo beans, and from where? What
| price did I pay?"
|
| And get an answer like:
|
| "Actually, you didn't buy 10kg; last time you only bought 5kg
| from X shop at Y price. Based on your past consumption, your
| stock will likely run out by next week. Should I set a reminder
| for today, after your gym session, to pick some up? (X shop is on
| your way home from the gym.)"
|
| This level of contextual response would be incredibly useful.
| These days, I bulk order everything thanks to my streamlined
| note-taking and reminder setup. I'm surprised there isn't already
| an open-source tool that works this well.
|
| I keep my day organized with simple methods. During my morning
| walks, I plan out my tasks, priorities, and schedule--talking
| through everything in my head. These thoughts are then
| transcribed using speech-to-text and sent to an LLM. Since LLMs
| aren't great at remembering specific facts or handling complex
| relationships, I pair it with a knowledge graph to keep
| everything organized.
|
| This setup generates reminders, creates schedules, and flags
| conflicts where I can reschedule or drop tasks. I dislike most
| conventional note-taking or reminder apps, so I stick to plain
| text files stored across Dropbox, a Raspberry Pi home server, and
| cloud storage like S3.
|
| To keep me on track, I've built a custom notification system that
| sends reminders through text, email, Telegram, and WhatsApp.
| These notifications continue--staggered across platforms--until I
| acknowledge them. Since I rarely use my phone, I rely heavily on
| a smartwatch that receives SMS notifications. It's a game
| changer: with its own SIM and long battery life, it costs me
| almost nothing--just $30 a year.
|
| I avoid traditional apps for adding new information. Instead, I
| use a private Telegram group with a bot for input. Messaging in
| this group has become the easiest way for me to update my system,
| and I've grown to rely more and more on Telegram bots for this
| reason.
|
| For example, yesterday the system reminded me to check my solar
| batteries. Months ago, I had told it that I watered them, and it
| automatically followed up at the right time. It's these small,
| automated details that help me stay on top of long-term tasks.
|
| I'm using Gemini Flash (a dirt-cheap, fast LLM), Neo4j, and
| Whisper, all tied together with Python glue scripts to make this
| work. Maybe someday I'll have hardware powerful enough to run a
| local LLM, but for now, this setup is more than good enough.
| gregschlom wrote:
| That sounds really interesting, could you you share more
| details? For example, what do you mean by organizing the
| information into a knowledge graph? Could you perhaps share the
| prompt you use?
| Hasnep wrote:
| If you think that's a simple notes system I'd hate to see what
| you think a complex notes system is!
| gavmor wrote:
| Hey, I also do this. I have a GPU at home that I run whisper
| and Llamas on to crunch through my voice memos to distill eg
| TODOs. I do it all in BASH.
|
| I haven't built out a smoother toolchain because I haven't
| settled on a form factor / affordance.
|
| How much time do you spend maintaining your system? If you
| wanted to onboard a family member, what kind of effort would
| that take?
| sandeep1998 wrote:
| I do this already, In my private WhatsApp/Telegram group and I
| encourage my friends to do the same.
| zerop wrote:
| One can do note taking with self on Whatsapp.
|
| Quoting from whatsapp website
| (https://faq.whatsapp.com/5913398998672934)
|
| > Use https://wa.me/<number> where the <number> is a full phone
| number in international format.
|
| Put your own number and you chat with yourself. Pin it to top, so
| it's always there. I use it to add information, search later use
| cases.
| coldtrait wrote:
| This has been out for a while now. But before this, what people
| used to do is create a group with just yourself as a member,
| and send messages there. You had to create a group with 2
| people (yourself and someone else), and just remove them
| because it could not be done directly. And this could be used
| as notes or whatever.
|
| Right now I message myself but let's say if one wanted to
| maintain a separate chat for notes or some other purpose, they
| could create an infinite number of groups with just them in it
| and get it working.
|
| Of course I think OP's solution is offering an interactive
| experience more than just one way communicaton.
| sumitkumar wrote:
| Using this method one can have multiple conversations with
| self with different contexts. I use one to keep the important
| docs handy like ongoing travel tickets etc. Another one for
| Shopping list. and another for saving links and watch later.
| lxgr wrote:
| You have more WhatsApp-savvy (or considerate) friends than me
| - I've had people text me notes before (because I'm pinned or
| otherwise on top of their chat list). "Just ignore please,
| but I'll need this in a bit" :)
| dmichulke wrote:
| You can also search for yourself.
|
| BUT you won't find anything if you search for "me", you have to
| search for "you".
| siscia wrote:
| I created a similar bot for telegram.
|
| The focus was on searchable audio. So you send either a text or
| an audio. It passes through Open ai whisper and replies with your
| message transcribed.
|
| https://t.me/Simple_DIary_bot
| Alifatisk wrote:
| I use Whatsapp often and one major issue I have with the app is
| how older media gets lost in the history, it's not retrievable
| anymore, you can only see the blurry thumbnail but downloading it
| again will not be possible. So until recently, I've considered
| everything I send on whatsapp as ephemeral unless I back it up.
|
| Also, is exporting possible? Let's say I would like to export all
| text / media to my pc, is that possible?
| skydhash wrote:
| You can export WhatsApp conversations, but it was flaky last
| time I tried to do all of them (spanning 4 years). But I expect
| monthly or semiannually to be fine.
| rahulg wrote:
| If you're referring to your journal entries to Today Has Been,
| Export functionality will be available soon.
| lxgr wrote:
| WhatsApp does seem to delete old media from their servers, but
| it should be available on your primary phone indefinitely until
| you delete it.
|
| Any chance you're accessing your messages from a different
| device and your main phone is offline?
| Alifatisk wrote:
| I use Google photos on my phone so everything I send is not
| directly stored locally.
|
| Whatsapp wasn't like this before, it was when they introduced
| E2E that old media started to get lost.
|
| If you want a groupchat with accessible history, whatsapp is
| not the place sadly.
| lxgr wrote:
| WhatsApp never had persistent server-side storage. I
| believe they keep media binary blobs only for a few days
| after each recipient has downloaded them.
|
| If you delete your local copy, that's arguably on you -
| there was never any promise that WhatsApp would be holding
| your media for re-downloads forever.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| > If you delete your local copy, that's arguably on you
|
| I don't know if you've participated in a large group
| chat, but on those occasions, lots of media is being sent
| to each other.
|
| I am not that eager to have every media sent in the group
| chat stored on my Photos library. I don't think anyone
| wants that.
|
| So I guess everyone, including me turns off that feature
| (automatically storing images received), meaning no one
| will eventually have that image stored on the device
| which causes the data loss after a while.
|
| Now, there is a backup feature in iOS, but it can only
| backup to iCloud drive, which I don't pay for so the
| limit will be exceeded pretty quickly.
|
| I wouldn't put the blame on anyone for this, except
| Whatsapp.
| nachi wrote:
| Sorry for the self-promotion, but this sounds a lot like Peaked,
| an Android app I built.. It is privacy-first and your data stays
| on your device. Also it's completely free (as in beer):
| https://peaked.today
|
| It serves my purpose (and that of some friends), so I have no
| plans to monetise or even update it.
| ale42 wrote:
| Never tried but looks great (especially the offline & private
| part). Thanks for sharing!
| newhotelowner wrote:
| Telegram would be a better choice as you can use multiple
| devices. You can retrieve old images/docs And it has an API for
| your bot that you can use to post content from anywhere.
| rahulg wrote:
| Yes, will definitely consider adding support for Telegram as
| well.
| pricechild wrote:
| WhatsApp lets you link multiple devices now - I have the same
| account on an android and spare iPhone.
|
| The main restrictions are that you have to use the main device
| every 14 days and can only have ~4 linked devices.
|
| https://faq.whatsapp.com/378279804439436/?helpref=faq_conten...
| notpushkin wrote:
| > The main restrictions are that you have to use the main
| device every 14 days and can only have ~4 linked devices.
|
| I'm trying to think of a rationale and really can't. Any
| ideas?
| lxgr wrote:
| Due to the way WhatsApp does (person to person, not group)
| chat encryption, the number of messages scales linearly
| with the number of devices of either party to the
| conversation.
|
| They probably want to put a cap on how much data/CPU the
| sending device has to expend per message.
| obiefernandez wrote:
| Reminds me of https://ahhlife.com
| yapyap wrote:
| Nice product though
|
| idk if I'd ever trust a 3rd party with all my notes, thoughts,
| "entire stream of consciousness" or anything of the like.
|
| I'll stick to txt files and/or paper.
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