Journal app lagging on my iPad mini 7 after iPadOS 26 update

loek256 wrote:

Anyone else experiencing an extremely laggy and slow Journal app on the officially released IOS26 for Ipad Mini 7?

If you have a lot of entries, give it at least 24 hours to finish re-indexing.

Yes laggy. I noticed that much of the lag for me was due to entries with ink. I temporarily moved those entries into a separate journal from my main one, until reindexing cleans things up or Apple issues a fix.

Try GoodNotes, it’s brilliant: no lag, lots of different options for pens, pencils, papers, colours, I have been using it to journal for several years now. Today I decided to try the Apple journal, and my iPad began overheating, and the lag was extremely annoying, which is why I’m here. I’ll return to GoodNotes, for now at least.

Kawin2r wrote:

Yes I’m also having this issue. It is super frustrating because it makes using the pencil in the journaling app useless.

Tell Apple:

Product Feedback - Apple

I find the third-party app Day One far superior.

Applemac199 wrote:

Yes. Using the Apple Journal has been awful. The writing in ink with Apple Pencil has serious lag. Didn’t save, so lost a lot of my entries. Takes ages to load in and then freezes. Have really tried to persevere with it because I love the idea of it. Unfortunately it’s to unstable and unpredictable.

Tell Apple:

Product Feedback - Apple

I am extremely disappointed, bought the ipad mini and was so excited about the Journal app. I wanted it to replace my physical journal and third day in a row, everything I wrote just disappeared. The lag is really horrible, I can't see what I am writing and after a few seconds I lose the entire journal entry. I did some searching and some said to turn off jornaling suggestions. I had to also ensure that I delete information and not download too many apps and information on my ipad to hope that it will not be as laggy. I cannot imagine after spending so much money on the Apple pencil, and I also bought Paperlike for the writing experience and now I have a iPad that does not provide the writing experince all because it cannot process the Journal app properly. I tried to make edits to my entries with pictures and they get stuck and I cannot access or edit it without the Picture totally getting in the way and not allowing me to do a pagedown. I feel cheated.

Iammarilyn wrote:

I am extremely disappointed, bought the ipad mini and was so excited about the Journal app. I wanted it to replace my physical journal and third day in a row, everything I wrote just disappeared. The lag is really horrible, I can't see what I am writing and after a few seconds I lose the entire journal entry. I did some searching and some said to turn off jornaling suggestions. I had to also ensure that I delete information and not download too many apps and information on my ipad to hope that it will not be as laggy. I cannot imagine after spending so much money on the Apple pencil, and I also bought Paperlike for the writing experience and now I have a iPad that does not provide the writing experince all because it cannot process the Journal app properly. I tried to make edits to my entries with pictures and they get stuck and I cannot access or edit it without the Picture totally getting in the way and not allowing me to do a pagedown. I feel cheated.

Consider a third-party journal app like Day One. Or, simply use Notes.

Yes. Using the Apple Journal has been awful. The writing in ink with Apple Pencil has serious lag. Didn’t save, so lost a lot of my entries. Takes ages to load in and then freezes. Have really tried to persevere with it because I love the idea of it. Unfortunately it’s to unstable and unpredictable.

YESSSS!!! OMG it's horrible, which is disappointing because I was looking forward to using the app as my main journal on my iPad mini since it's my main driver. I thought I was the only one having this issue.

Yea the app itself is super nice and I hope Tim Apple keeps adding features. But the ink stuff is useless, at least on my iphone 13 PM. Just got the 17 so maybe that'll help but i doubt it.

In contrast, Notability is nice and speedy with ink, so it's not a hardware issue. I suspect it may have more to do with iCloud storage gumming things up.

Not_the_Real_Tim_Apple wrote:

Yea the app itself is super nice and I hope Tim Apple keeps adding features. But the ink stuff is useless, at least on my iphone 13 PM. Just got the 17 so maybe that'll help but i doubt it.

I don't know who "Tim Apple" is. But, if you want Apple, the company, to add more features, you should let them know here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Yes I’m also having this issue. It is super frustrating because it makes using the pencil in the journaling app useless.