How to import Penzu to Innerholm
Penzu has held a lot of people's private writing for years. Getting it back out is the awkward part: the built-in export is Pro-only and gives you a PDF, which reads fine but does not re-import cleanly. Here is the honest path from Penzu to Innerholm, with support doing the heavy lifting a PDF cannot.
To move from Penzu to Innerholm: export your journal using Penzu's built-in export, which is part of Penzu Pro and produces a PDF (TXT, RSS, and XML appear in places too). Save that file as your backup. Because a PDF is hard to re-import, the cleanest route into Innerholm today is support-assisted: email your export to Innerholm support and we will help you bring your entries and their dates across. A one-click Penzu importer is on the roadmap; the honest reason it is not instant is Penzu's PDF-first export.
Getting your writing out of Penzu
Open your Penzu journal
Sign in to Penzu on the web and open the journal you want to move. Penzu's built-in export lives in the Penzu Pro subscription, so you will need an active Pro plan to use it. On the free plan you may need to upgrade, or copy entries out by hand.
Export your journal
With Pro, run the export. The headline format is PDF; Penzu also lists TXT, RSS, and XML in some places. PDF is readable and good for keeping, but it bakes your text and dates into a fixed layout, which is why it does not drop neatly into another journal app.
Save your backup
Download and keep the file somewhere safe. If your journal is long, export in batches so nothing is skipped. Do not delete anything in Penzu yet; this file is your safety net until your entries are confirmed inside Innerholm.
Hand it to Innerholm support
Email your export to Innerholm support. Because Penzu's export is PDF-first, a person on our side helps recover your entry text and dates and place them into Innerholm in order. You should not have to fight a PDF to get your own writing back.
Penzu export details verified June 2026: built-in export is Pro-only and produces a PDF; getting a clean, portable archive out of Penzu is a known friction point.
What Innerholm keeps from your entries
Whatever the source, Innerholm protects the same two things first: your words and the date you wrote them. Here is how that looks for a Penzu migration, stated plainly given the PDF constraint.
| Penzu | Innerholm | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Entry text | Entry body | Recovered from your export; the priority of the move |
| Entry date | Entry date | Each entry keeps its place in your timeline |
| Titles | Carried into the entry | Where the export preserves them |
| Formatting | Best-effort | PDFs describe layout, not clean structure, so styling may simplify |
Because PDF carries layout rather than structured data, formatting is best-effort and some styling may simplify. The text and the dates are what we guard, and those come across.
Where import stands today
Honesty over hype: a one-click Penzu importer is on the Innerholm roadmap, not finished. The reason it is not instant is Penzu's own export, which is Pro-gated and PDF-first, so there is no clean data file to read automatically the way a JSON or ZIP would allow.
So today the move is support-assisted, and that is a feature, not a brush-off. Export what you can, email it to support, and we will help you bring your entries and dates into Innerholm by hand. You keep your backup the whole time, so nothing is ever at risk.
Deciding whether to make the move at all? Here is the honest comparison: Innerholm vs Penzu →
Frequently asked questions
Can I import Penzu into Innerholm today?
A one-click Penzu importer is on the Innerholm roadmap, not finished yet. The honest reason is Penzu itself: its built-in export is Pro-only and produces a PDF, which is readable but not a clean format to import from. So the migration today is support-assisted. Export what you can from Penzu, email it to Innerholm support, and we will help you bring your entries and dates across by hand.
How do I export my journal from Penzu?
Penzu's built-in export is part of the Penzu Pro subscription. Sign in on the web, open your journal, and use the Pro export. The main format is PDF, with TXT, RSS, and XML available in some places. If you are on the free plan, you may need Pro to export, or copy entries out manually. Whatever you get, save it as your backup before changing anything.
Why is getting data out of Penzu hard?
Penzu's export is gated behind Pro and produces a PDF, which is great for reading and printing but awkward to re-import into another app, because the text, dates, and structure are baked into a fixed layout rather than a portable data file. This is a known friction point. It does not mean your writing is stuck; it means the move benefits from a person helping, which is exactly what Innerholm support is for.
What does Innerholm keep from my entries?
Innerholm focuses on your written entries and their dates so your timeline stays in order. When support helps with a Penzu migration, we work from your export to recover the entry text and the date each entry was written. Formatting from a PDF is best-effort, since PDFs describe layout rather than clean structure, but the words and the dates are what we protect first.
Should I keep using Penzu while I migrate?
Yes, do not delete anything in Penzu until your entries are safely in Innerholm and you have confirmed they look right. Export a backup, start your Innerholm account, and let support help you move the writing across. Only once you are happy with the result should you consider closing your Penzu account.
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