Digital dive logbook: a companion to your official log

A dive logbook is the history of your diving: where you went, how deep, how long, on what gas and with whom. Paper still works, but it gets wet, lost, filled up and hard to search. A digital dive logbook keeps the same information in a form you can search, back up and share. This guide covers what a good one should do, and where it fits next to the logbook your training agency, employer or regulator asks for.

Companion, not replacement

Start with the rule that matters most: a digital logbook is a companion to your official logbook, not a substitute for it, unless the body that asks for your logbook says otherwise.

Professional rules are specific. In the UK, regulation 12 of the Diving at Work Regulations 1997 requires every diver at work to keep a daily record of their diving and to keep it for at least two years after the last entry. Canada's offshore rules (SOR/88-600, section 63) set out what a diver's logbook must contain and who signs it. In the US, 29 CFR 1910.440 sets the employer's recordkeeping duties. Training agencies and employers often add their own format, such as a bound book with numbered pages and a supervisor's signature in ink.

So check, in this order:

1. What your certifying body or training agency accepts.
2. What your employer or client asks for.
3. What the regulator for the site expects.

Then use the digital logbook for everything they don't cover: a second copy, search, totals, backups and a tidy record to show a new employer.

What a good digital dive logbook records

The same fields you would write by hand, entered once and kept consistent:

• Date, site and location, including the vessel, platform or dive centre.
• Maximum depth and times: left surface, reached bottom, left bottom, reached surface.
• Breathing gas: air, nitrox, heliox or trimix with its oxygen and helium fractions, cylinder pressures, or the rebreather details.
• Decompression and surface intervals, as they were actually done.
• Equipment: suit, cylinders or umbilical, helmet or mask, computer.
• People: buddy, team, supervisor or instructor.
• Conditions: water temperature, visibility, current.
• Notes: the task, anything unusual, any incident.

DIVEOPS PRO has fields for scuba, technical (mixed gas and rebreather) and commercial dives, so one logbook covers a holiday reef dive and a working dive from a vessel.

Five things to check before you choose one

1. It works with no signal. Each dive should save on the device first and sync later. Dive sites, boats and offshore worksites often have no internet. Read our guide to offline dive logging.
2. It shows who signed what. A supervisor's or instructor's signature should be tied to the exact content of the dive, so a change after signing is visible. In DIVEOPS PRO a supervisor can sign a dive by QR code, phone to phone, with no connection, once the dive has synced and the supervisor's access was set up while you were both online.
3. Finished dives are locked. Once you finalise an entry it should not change quietly. In DIVEOPS PRO finalised dives are locked, and corrections go through support.
4. You can take your data out. Look for open formats. DIVEOPS PRO exports your logbook as UDDF or a full JSON backup, and any dive as a PDF.
5. You can bring your history in. UDDF is an open format that most dive software can write. DIVEOPS PRO imports UDDF, CSV and Subsurface files, and each imported dive arrives as a draft for you to check. Dives already in your logbook are flagged and left out unless you choose them. See moving your dive history.

Phone, tablet or computer

A digital logbook is most useful when it is on the device you have with you at the dive site.

• Android: DIVEOPS PRO is on Google Play.
• iPhone: use the web app in Safari and add it to your Home Screen (how to install). An iPhone app is coming.
• Computer: open diveopspro.com in any modern browser.

Your logbook syncs between them when you are signed in.

For professional divers and supervisors

Working divers have extra needs: the client and task on every dive, a supervisor's signature, a dive history to show a new employer, and records that survive a lost phone on a vessel. DIVEOPS PRO adds a commercial dive record, a supervisor console and company tools for dive companies. Read how to keep a commercial diving logbook for the field-by-field detail.

Keep your paper logbook too

If your scheme uses a paper logbook, keep filling it in and getting it signed. Photograph the signed pages now and then, and keep the digital logbook as your searchable, backed-up copy. That way a lost book or a lost phone never costs you your dive history.

Start your digital logbook

Create your account, log your last dive, and import the rest of your history from your old software. See plans and prices for the professional tools.