Ten minutes is not long enough to remember.

By the time the appointment comes round, the details have gone soft. Was it three mornings last week or five? Did it start before the new tablets or after them? You end up saying "quite often, I think", which is the least useful sentence in the room.

A notebook solves this. SymDiary is that notebook, kept somewhere you will not leave it on a train, with the times filled in for you and a tidy document at the end.

It stays on your computer

Health notes are about as personal as writing gets, so SymDiary does not send them anywhere. It cannot: SymDiary's own code holds no networking at all; a test in the source forbids it outright. The one exception never touches your notes. On a Windows computer missing Microsoft's WebView2, the part SymDiary draws its window with, it asks before fetching Microsoft's installer for it.

• No account. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to sign in to, no email address wanted.
• No cloud and no syncing. The record is one file on your machine, where your documents are.
• No adverts and no tracking. Nobody is counting what you write or how often you open it.
• Yours to take away. Export the whole record to a plain file whenever you like, then read it back in.

Said plainly, because it matters: SymDiary does not encrypt the file. It is protected the way the rest of your documents are, by the account you sign in to on your own computer. If other people use that account, they can read it.

What it will not do

A program about symptoms is usually assumed to do a few of these. SymDiary does none of them, on purpose.

• It does not diagnose, suggest conditions or recommend treatment.
• It does not interpret your notes, score them or rank them.
• It does not rewrite what you wrote into medical terminology.
• It does not remind you or nag you to record anything.
• It is not a substitute for talking to a healthcare professional; it is something to bring with you when you do.

It opens dark and there is a Light mode button in the bar; press it once and it opens that way from then on. It will not change under you because the desktop reached dusk.