Best Apps to Help You Prepare for Therapy (UK)

You had a lot to say on Tuesday. By the time Thursday's session starts, most of it has gone, or it has shrunk into "it's been a funny week". If that sounds familiar, an app can help you hold on to what happened between sessions, so you walk in with something to start from.

This guide compares the apps worth looking at if you want to prepare for therapy in the UK: what each one is good for, how it handles something as private as what you'd tell a therapist, and whether you need to pay. One of them is ours. We make thred, so we've held it to the same questions as everything else, and said plainly what it doesn't do.

What "preparing for therapy" actually involves

Preparing doesn't mean rehearsing. Most people who want help with it are trying to do three things:

• Remember. Catch a moment, a conversation or a feeling while it's still fresh.
• Find the words. Get closer to what you actually felt, not just "stressed" or "fine".
• Choose what to bring. Arrive with one or two things you want to talk about, rather than everything or nothing.

Any app below can help with the first. They differ more on the second and third.

What to look for in an app

Privacy you can check. You'll be recording things you may not have told anyone. Look for a plain answer to three questions: is it encrypted, does anyone else (including AI providers) see it, and can you delete it? If a company's privacy policy doesn't answer those, treat that as an answer.

Voice or typing. If you won't write at the end of a long day, an app that lets you talk will get used. If you think best on the page, a written journal suits you better.

Prompts. A good prompt turns "I don't know what to write" into a few honest sentences. Useful if you tend to freeze in front of a blank page.

Something your therapist can actually read. Most apps let you export your entries, but an export is usually everything you wrote: a record for you, not something a therapist can take in during a short session. Look for a way to share a short summary, or plan to pick out the one or two things that matter yourself.

Cost. Several have a free version that's enough to find out whether the habit sticks. Check the App Store or Google Play for the current UK price before you pay for anything.

The best apps to help you prepare for therapy

Yes, there are apps that help you journal for therapy, though most of them aren't built for it. They're general journals or trackers that can work well enough. Of those, Rosebud comes closest; thred, ours, is built around getting ready for sessions. They're listed below in roughly that order.

The last column asks the question that matters most for therapy: is what you can share made for your therapist to read, or is it a full record for you? A session is short, and a therapist isn't going to spend 25 minutes reading through an export. A full copy of your journal is still useful, but you'll need to pick out what matters yourself before you go in. We built thred around this problem, so judge that column with that in mind.

App	Voice	Prompts	What you can share	Privacy	Made for your therapist to read?
Rosebud	Yes	Guided journaling	A weekly summary, and a data export	Encrypted in transit and at rest	Yes: a weekly summary, once you've written 1,500+ words that week
Stoic	Not listed	Daily prompts, quotes and affirmations	Export to a text file or JSON	Says content isn't used to train AI	No: a record for you
Day One	Audio recordings, on paid plans	Daily prompt and library	Export to PDF, CSV or JSON	End-to-end encrypted by default	No: a record for you
Daylio	Voice memos, not transcribed	Writing templates, on premium	Export to CSV, or PDF on premium	Stored only on your phone	No: a record for you
thred (ours)	Built around voice notes	Reflections on each note	Share a summary by private link	Recordings deleted once transcribed	Yes: a short summary you choose

Rosebud: the closest to a journal for therapy

Of the general apps here, Rosebud comes closest to working through what you'd bring to therapy. It's an AI journal: you write or speak, it guides your journaling, remembers earlier entries, and sends you a weekly report.

• Good for: people who find a conversation easier than a blank page.
• Privacy: Rosebud says your data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Entries are processed by AI providers it names in its privacy policy, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, under what it calls zero data retention agreements. Its therapy page says your data is never used to train AI, though its privacy policy doesn't say so either way, and the policy says AI systems may review real conversations for quality checks.
• Bringing it to therapy: Rosebud suggests sharing its weekly summary with your therapist before a session, so you can skip the recap. The summary covers key themes, how your week felt and up to five insights, but it only appears once you've written more than 1,500 words that week. Rosebud doesn't say how you share it. There's also a data export.
• Cost: free to start, with a paid plan.
• Works on: iPhone, Android and in a browser.

Stoic: a daily wellbeing journal

Stoic is a daily journal with prompts, quotes, affirmations and mood and habit tracking. It isn't built around therapy, and it leans on daily streaks and badges to keep you coming back. There are two paid tiers: Premium, and Premium + AI, which adds its AI features.

• Good for: people who want a structured daily habit: a prompt, a quick mood log, a streak.
• Privacy: journals are stored on your devices. When its AI features are on, entries go to AI providers it names (such as OpenAI, Anthropic or Google Gemini), and Stoic says your content isn't used to train AI models. You can turn the AI features off.
• Bringing it to therapy: export your entries as a text file or a JSON file from the app's data settings. Its help centre suggests the text file for sharing with a therapist.
• Cost: free to start. Premium has a 7-day free trial and Premium + AI a 3-day one. Prices in the app change often with offers, so check before you subscribe.
• Works on: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Android and in a browser.

Day One: a general daily journal

Day One is a long-established daily journal for everyday life, not something built for therapy. You write entries and add photos, with a daily prompt and a prompt library on every plan. The paid plans add audio recordings, more photos and videos, and syncing across your devices; the top plan adds AI summaries, deeper prompts and a daily chat for guided reflection.

• Good for: people who like writing and want one place for everything in their life, with therapy as one part of it.
• Privacy: end-to-end encryption is on by default for new entries, so only you hold the key.
• Bringing it to therapy: export entries to PDF, or to CSV or JSON, on every plan.
• Cost: a free plan, with two paid plans and a 30-day free trial. Audio recording needs a paid plan.
• Works on: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Android, Windows and in a browser.

Daylio: a mood and activity tracker

Daylio isn't really a journal for therapy. It's a tracker: each entry is a couple of taps to pick a mood and what you've been doing, and it turns those into charts over time. You can add a short note, a photo or a voice memo to an entry.

• Good for: keeping track of how your days are going, if you won't write much.
• Privacy: your entries are stored only on your phone. Daylio says it doesn't send them to its servers, and backups go to your own Google Drive or iCloud.
• Bringing it to therapy: export to CSV on the free version, or PDF on premium. Voice memos aren't transcribed, so they stay as recordings you'd have to play back rather than notes you can read or share.
• Cost: the free version has no time limit. Premium adds PDF export, writing templates, more charts and automatic backups, with a 7-day free trial.
• Works on: iPhone and Android.

A day-by-day mood record is a different thing from preparing what to say. Daylio can show that a week was hard; it won't help you put into words why.

thred: voice notes shaped for your next session (ours)

We built thred for one job: getting what happens between sessions into the room. You record a voice note whenever something's on your mind. thred transcribes it, reflects back the themes and a moment worth noticing, and asks how you're feeling so you can compare that with what you actually said. Over a week it builds a summary you can read before your session, or share with your therapist if you choose.

• Good for: people who'd rather talk than write, and want something to bring to their next session rather than a diary to keep.
• Privacy: your voice recording is deleted as soon as it's transcribed. Your transcripts and reflections are stored on servers in the UK/EU, but the transcription and AI analysis run on Google Cloud, which may process them in any of its data centres around the world, including the United States. We never use your recordings or reflections to train AI models for anything beyond your own reflection. The privacy policy has the detail.
• Bringing it to therapy: share a summary through a private link protected by a code. You choose which sections go in, and nothing is shared unless you do it.
• Cost: free during early access.
• Works on: any phone or computer browser, and you can add it to your home screen. It's in English.
• What it doesn't do: it isn't a general journal for photos and long writing, and it doesn't track moods day by day the way Daylio does.

You don't need an app

If none of these suits you, the simplest options work too:

• Your phone's voice recorder. Say what happened, in your own words, while you still remember it. Listen back the night before your session and note the one thing you want to raise.
• A notes app. A running note called "for therapy", with a line or two when something comes up.
• A paper notebook. Private, nothing to set up, and some people find writing by hand slows their thinking down in a useful way.

The best tool is the one you'll actually use on a bad day.

How to bring your notes into the session

Whatever you use, a little preparation goes a long way:

1. Look back the day before. Skim the week and notice what stands out.
2. Pick one or two things. You don't need to cover everything. Choose what feels most alive.
3. Bring them as they are. It's fine to say "I wrote this down on Tuesday" and read it out, or to show your therapist your screen. Rough notes are still a way in.
4. Ask your therapist what helps them. Some like a shared summary before the session; others prefer you bring it up in the room.

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Prices and features change, so check each app's own website or app store listing before you choose. We last checked the details in this post on 5 November 2026.