Log your mood across your cycle by voice,
one sentence a day

3 min read · checked against its sources · updated 15 Oct 2026

To log your mood across your cycle by voice, use an app that lets you speak an entry and saves it under the day of your cycle. Then say one sentence each day: how you felt, your strongest symptom, and anything that made it better or worse. On iPhone, Tideline works this way and turns your speech into text on the phone itself. Pink Ink: Mood & Cycle Journal also offers voice-to-text journaling.

Why one sentence is enough

On a bad day you'll skip a form with twenty boxes, but you can still manage one sentence. The NHS suggests keeping a diary of your symptoms for at least two menstrual cycles before you see a doctor about PMS. What makes that diary useful is that it's daily and dated, so the pattern around your period shows up. A short entry still helps. A missing day is what costs you. There's more on this in why doctors ask for two cycles.

What to say

If you don't know where to start, pick one of these and finish it out loud:

Use your own words. "I snapped at my sister over nothing and felt flat by the evening" tells a doctor much more than "irritable, 3 out of 5".

When you're exhausted

Speak instead of typing. You can do it lying down with your eyes half shut. Tie the entry to something you already do every evening, like brushing your teeth, and set a reminder for that time.

If one word is all you've got, say the word. "Awful" still marks the day. And during the hard week you don't have to read back over old entries if it gets you down. Just add today's.

Where your voice goes

A spoken entry is health data, so it's worth knowing where it gets turned into text. Tideline's App Store listing says speech becomes text on your phone and the audio is never sent anywhere. There's no account and no server, and your entries stay on the phone. Pink Ink's listing says all data is stored on the device and it needs no account. It doesn't say where its voice-to-text happens, so if that matters to you, ask the developer.

Tideline and Pink Ink compared

Both apps take voice entries, keep your data on the phone, need no account and can make a PDF report for a doctor.

Tideline does better in three places. First, it picks the mood and symptoms out of your sentence and files them under the right cycle day for you. Pink Ink's listing describes a separate daily mood check-in next to the journal. Second, Tideline's report is built around PMDD. After two cycles it puts the week before each period next to the week after, symptom by symptom, and quotes your own words. Third, its listing says plainly that speech is processed on the device. Tideline also comes in English, German and Spanish, while Pink Ink is in English only. Logging is free in Tideline, but the PDF report is part of Tideline Plus.

Pink Ink does better on other things. It has a Face ID and passcode lock, a 30-day mood chart and a mood calendar heatmap. It runs on iOS 15.1, where Tideline needs iOS 16.4, and its App Store page lists its subscription prices. It also has a few ratings already. Tideline doesn't have any yet.

Which to pick

If you want mood charts, an app lock or a general mood journal, pick Pink Ink. If you suspect PMDD and want to say one sentence a day and come away with a report comparing the week before your period with the week after it starts, pick Tideline. Whichever you choose, the habit counts more than the app. Read luteal phase mood tracking for what to look for once you have a few weeks of entries.

Keep the record your doctor needs. Tideline is a period and mood tracker for iPhone: write one sentence a day, and after two cycles it puts the week before your period next to the week after it starts. Free to track, no account.
Get Tideline on the App Store

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Sources

© 2026 Ben Jonas Goedeke · Tideline keeps a record. It does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition.