A journal that's quiet while you write, and alive when you look back.
You're one of the first people to use Reverie. Download below, then read the short manual — it's everything you need to know. When something feels even slightly off, tell us at support@freeholder.dev. That's exactly the polish we care about.
curl -fsSLo /tmp/freeholder.asc https://binaries.freeholder.dev/arch/freeholder.ascsudo pacman-key --add /tmp/freeholder.ascsudo pacman-key --lsign-key 8C0317E6B734B639/etc/pacman.conf:[reverie]Server = https://binaries.freeholder.dev/archsudo pacman -Syu reverie-bin (the u matters on Arch: it refreshes and upgrades the whole system in the same step, which is how Arch stays consistent). On Omarchy, which guards direct system upgrades, run omarchy update first and then sudo pacman -S reverie-bin. Reverie appears in the launcher with its icon, and every system update from then on keeps it current. The key is Freeholder package signing <support@freeholder.dev>, fingerprint A140 D75B 35B8 5B7F 91B1 0D83 8C03 17E6 B734 B639 — check it against this page before you sign it. If you added the repository earlier with a SigLevel = Optional TrustAll line, delete that line once the key is trusted. An AUR package follows when the AUR reopens registration.chmod +x Reverie_1.0.16_amd64.AppImage). Arch and Omarchy ship without FUSE 2, which AppImages still need to mount, so the file does nothing on a double-click until you either install it once — sudo pacman -S fuse2 — after which it opens like any other app, or run it unpacked: APPIMAGE_EXTRACT_AND_RUN=1 ./Reverie_1.0.16_amd64.AppImage.curl -fsSLo /tmp/freeholder.asc https://binaries.freeholder.dev/arch/freeholder.ascsudo pacman-key --add /tmp/freeholder.ascsudo pacman-key --lsign-key 8C0317E6B734B639/etc/pacman.conf:[reverie]Server = https://binaries.freeholder.dev/archsudo pacman -Syu reverie-bin (the u matters on Arch: it refreshes and upgrades the whole system in the same step, which is how Arch stays consistent). On Omarchy, which guards direct system upgrades, run omarchy update first and then sudo pacman -S reverie-bin. Reverie appears in the launcher with its icon, and every system update from then on keeps it current. The key is Freeholder package signing <support@freeholder.dev>, fingerprint A140 D75B 35B8 5B7F 91B1 0D83 8C03 17E6 B734 B639 — check it against this page before you sign it. If you added the repository earlier with a SigLevel = Optional TrustAll line, delete that line once the key is trusted. An AUR package follows when the AUR reopens registration.chmod +x Reverie_1.0.15_amd64.AppImage). Arch and Omarchy ship without FUSE 2, which AppImages still need to mount, so the file does nothing on a double-click until you either install it once — sudo pacman -S fuse2 — after which it opens like any other app, or run it unpacked: APPIMAGE_EXTRACT_AND_RUN=1 ./Reverie_1.0.15_amd64.AppImage.⌘? (ctrl+?) opens their drawer, ← → turn them like pages, and the last letter's next page is your first entry. The page reads from the keyboard: ↑ ↓ glide the text smoothly and settle on a line, ← → turn to the neighbouring entry, and the page you land on announces itself — title or date — in a small pill. The timeline walks: one tab, and the arrows step entry to entry. The three modes say their names — Read, Edit, Write — and a setting chooses which one a fresh page opens on. And Reverie comes to Linux — Omarchy and Arch first, with .deb and .rpm alongside.⌘F washes every match and inverts the one you're on. Tags, deliberately: the palette's Tag this entry… writes them into the entry's front matter, #coast in a search answers with the entries that carry it — and if you came from Day One, the tags it kept simply work now. Typing = over selected words builds a ==highlight== by hand, the way two * build bold. Settings became a panel summoned over the page, and the keyboard grew a grammar: tab moves between a panel's parts, the cursor keys move within — never out — a slim amber bar shows the keys' territory, and an underline glides beneath the control you're on.backspace strikes out the last word and the strike stays, the way a typebar can't take anything back, and a word that outgrows its line travels whole to the next one while you keep typing into it. Marginalia puts each footnote in a small dated box out in the page margin, beside its line — the oldest way of talking to a text. The timeline learned a second layout: index cards, 5×3 under quiet month headings, the first photo on the right. The launch flash is gone — a dark-mode Reverie arrives already wearing its theme — the margin-numbers niggle from 1.0.11 is fixed, long comments fit every window, and a new butterfly sits on the door.⌘? (ctrl+? on a PC) opens the user guide from anywhere, and it reads on the same quiet page as your entries. Checking for updates now offers Read what's new, so the decision to download arrives informed. Deleting an entry is no longer forever: it moves — photos, replays and all — to a plain trash folder inside your journal; Put back the last deleted entry lives in the palette, and nothing empties on its own, ever. The words can grow — ⌘+, ⌘− and ⌘0 scale the type, just the words, in every view — and five margin settings from Widest to Narrowest set how much room the writing takes, independent of the type size. And on Windows, the frame is gone: no title bar, no menu strip — the same quiet window the Mac has had all along, with every command in the ctrl+K palette.⌘-click (ctrl on a PC) travels to it and back. Undo now keeps its word: ⌘Z steps back one edit at a time — a formatting command undoes as one step with all its marks — and ⇧⌘Z retraces exactly. Bold and italicise from the keyboard (⌘B/⌘I), typing a bracket or quote around a selection wraps it, underscore italics are a Settings option, your text selection stays visible under the ⌘K palette, and the window can be dragged by its title bar again — on every screen.⌘K (ctrl+K on a PC) anywhere and type a few letters of anything Reverie can do — every action is in there, and nothing needs the mouse any more: change an entry's date, delete its replays, manage photos, all from the keyboard. ⌘E flips between reading and writing, and a small pill names the mode you've just entered. When Reverie opens, just start typing — the first letter opens a fresh entry with that letter already on the page. Your journal grows an inbox that turns notes saved from your phone into entries (and the capture folder can live anywhere — iCloud Drive included), and the dark appearance is redrawn in graphite and amber.esc leaves Settings for wherever you were, the new-entry pen rides every screen (and can be switched off in Settings), and saves work wherever your journal folder lives.--- now survives macOS's smart dashes, a click in the page margin brings your selection back, and the caret got quieter still. On Windows the keyboard shortcuts now work and the menu bar steps aside while you write (alt brings it back). The full story is in Reverie → Help → User Guide, under "What's new".esc leaves a replay; window remembers its place; plus a long list of quiet fixes. The full story is in Reverie → Help → User Guide, under "What's new".A journal that's quiet while you write, and alive when you look back.
Welcome — you're one of the first people to use Reverie. This page is everything you need to know, and it's deliberately short.
Your words are yours, in the plainest sense. Reverie doesn't have a cloud, an account, or a database. Your journal is a folder you choose on your own Mac, full of ordinary Markdown files with your photos beside them. You can open them in any text editor today or in thirty years, back them up like any folder, and leave Reverie behind at any time without losing a word.
The page gets out of the way. No toolbars, no sidebars, no word counts. While you write, even the app's own chrome fades — it's just you and the page, in a typeface made for prose. Formatting is light Markdown (**bold**, *italic*, # headings, - lists, > quotes), styled softly in place as you type.
Your past comes back to you. Most journals are write-only; the words go in and never come out. Reverie is built around looking back — resurfacing what you wrote in past years (Reverie), and turning your own words into gentle prompts (Reflect).
You can watch yourself write. Reverie can record the act of writing an entry — every pause and correction — and play it back later, like watching yesterday think (Replay).
Open Reverie and choose a folder. That folder is your journal — pick somewhere that gets backed up (iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or anywhere Time Machine sees). Reverie organises it like this:
your-folder/
entries/2026/2026-07-11_143022_a3f9.md ← one file per entry
entries/2026/2026-07-11_143022_a3f9/ ← that entry's photos & replaysOn first run Reverie asks whether it may record replays of your writing. Recordings are files in your folder like everything else; you can say no, or change your mind later in Settings.
Tap Write and start. There's nothing to save — Reverie saves as you type, one second behind your fingers. The date is the entry's title. Tap Done when you're finished (or just walk away).
Photos — paste one straight in with ⌘V, or use the ⋯ menu → Add photos…. Photos land in the text right at your cursor and live next to the entry on disk. HEIC from an iPhone is converted automatically, and if a photo carries its own date, Reverie offers to use it as the entry's date — handy when you're writing up yesterday's walk.
Timeline lists everything, newest first. Open an entry and it's a bare page — chrome appears only when you park the pointer at the very top or bottom edge. Click any word to start editing at that word; press esc (or ⌘[) to step back out.
Deleting an entry takes two deliberate taps (⋯ menu → Delete entry → confirm). Nothing in Reverie deletes anything with one click.
The Reverie tab is the looking-back mode: it surfaces entries from around this same date in previous years, as a slideshow. Early days — this view will grow into a proper "review of good moments" over time.
Reflect greets you with your own past words: a line that stood out, and questions you yourself asked in past entries. Tap any of them to open the entry they came from — the line arrives briefly lit, so you see it in its home. It's a conversation with yourself, on a delay.
Open an entry's ⋯ menu → Watch it being written. The entry writes itself back onto the page, cursor and all — hesitations, deletions, the lot. Playback starts on its own; the floating controls pause it, restart it, change speed (1× / 4× / 16×), and skip the long pauses (on by default — thinking time is long).
Two honest notes:
Change your journal folder, switch dark mode, toggle replay recording — and import from Day One: export your Day One journal as a .zip (JSON format) and Reverie will bring your entries and photos across as ordinary Markdown files. Nothing about the import is destructive; your Day One export is only read, never modified.
There is no fine print. No account, no telemetry, no server. If you can see your folder, you have your journal — all of it.
One ask, since you're first: when something feels even slightly off — a jitter, a hidden button, a weird cursor jump — please tell us. That's exactly the polish we care about.
Feel free to share your feedback via email to support@freeholder.dev