Switching from Way of Life
Way of Life users tend to have the longest histories of anyone, sometimes a decade of red and green. All of it can come with you.
What comes across
- Every journal in the export, by name, in the order the file lists them
- Every day you marked green, on its own date
- Every day you marked as skipped, which stays a skip rather than becoming a miss
- The note you wrote against a completed day, kept on that day
What changes
Your streak number may be different here, and that is the point.Ritua counts a streak against the schedule you set rather than against the calendar, so a ritual you do three times a week keeps its streak through the days off instead of breaking every Tuesday. A skipped day bridges rather than resets. The number you land on is usually the more accurate one. You cansee exactly how it is countedbefore you move anything.
These do not come across:
- Days marked red arrive as ordinary missed days, because that is what they recorded.
- Tags, colours, reminder times and chart settings, which Way of Life does not put in the CSV export.
Getting the file out of Way of Life
Open Settings in Way of Life
The export lives in the app’s own settings rather than on a website. Way of Life keeps your data on the device, so the export is the only way it leaves.
Find the export option and choose CSV
Way of Life can write your journals to a comma separated file. If your version offers more than one shape, CSV is the one Ritua reads.
Send the file to yourself
Use the share sheet to put it in Files, Drive, or an email, so you can pick it from the phone you are installing Ritua on.
Keep a copy
If you have years of history, keep the export somewhere safe regardless of what you decide about Ritua. It is the only portable copy of a decade of days.
What you should have: A .csv file whose first column is the date and whose remaining columns are your journal names, with cells reading yes, no or skip. Some journals also have a second column named after them ending in (notes). Exports are often named journals_export. The name does not matter: Ritua identifies the format by reading the contents.
Getting it into Ritua
Install Ritua and open it
You do not need an account, and there is nothing to sign up for. Do this on whichever phone you want your history to live on.
On the welcome screens, tap "Been here before? Restore from backup"
It is the underlined line beneath the main button, and it is there on every intro slide. Do it now rather than later: restoring during setup is free, while the same action from Settings afterwards is part of Premium.
Pick your file, then choose Merge or Replace all
Ritua works out the format by reading the file itself, so a renamed or re-shared file still imports. Before it writes anything it shows you what it found, counted out as rituals, logs and settings, along with anything it had to leave out. Nothing changes until you choose.
The import reads the file on your phone. Nothing is uploaded, and Ritua has no account system and no server to upload it to. If the file is not one Ritua recognises, it says so and writes nothing.
However many rituals you bring, they all come in. Ritua's free tier tracks five active rituals, but that limit is on creating new ones, not on recovering what you already had. An import of twelve habits restores twelve.
What is different here
- Streaks that follow the schedule, not the calendar
- Way of Life counts every calendar day the same way. In Ritua a journal you only ever meant to keep three times a week keeps its streak through the days off, and a deliberate skip bridges rather than breaks. Long histories usually read better here for exactly that reason.
- A score that dips instead of resetting
- Alongside the streak, Ritua keeps a Ritual Score that falls a few points on a miss and recovers within days. With ten years of data behind it, one bad month barely moves it, which is the fair way to read a decade.
- Rest that the app plans for
- A holiday is a plan you set once, and Ritua marks the days as skips as they arrive rather than making you remember. A long history is the one most worth protecting from a fortnight away.
And one thing Ritua does not do: Ritua has no diary or long-form journalling surface. It keeps one short note per ritual per day and nothing larger. If the writing is as much the point as the tracking, Way of Life does that job and Ritua does not try to.
Not ready to move yet?
Leave your email and we will send the occasional note about Ritua, including when a new import format lands.
Questions
I have nearly ten years of history. Will the import handle it?
Yes. The import reads the whole file at once and writes it in a single transaction, so a long history is a larger file rather than a harder import. Nothing is written until the preview has shown you what it found.
Do my notes come across?
Notes attached to days you completed do. Way of Life stores them in a column beside the journal, and Ritua keeps them on the same day. A note written against a day you did not complete is not carried, because Ritua attaches a note to a day's entry.
What happens to days I marked as skipped?
They stay skips, which is the important part. A skip bridges your streak in Ritua rather than breaking it, so the deliberate days off you recorded over the years keep working in your favour instead of reading as failures.
Is the export a premium feature?
Way of Life has historically put export behind its paid tier. If you cannot find the option, that is the likeliest reason. Nothing on the Ritua side charges you to import, and Ritua can always export your data back out again.
Is anything uploaded when I import?
No. The file is read on your phone by the app, and Ritua has no account system and no server to send it to. That matches how Way of Life has always kept your journals on the device.
The Way of Life steps on this page were last checked in August 2026. If a menu has moved since, tell us and we will fix it.