After 100 Days of Daily Updates, These Are the 10 Apps I Kept

Introduction

After 100 days of daily updates on useful tools, I wanted to pause instead of adding more things to the list.

I installed a lot of apps during those 100 days. Some were good for solving a one-off problem, while others never got opened again after I finished writing about them. This article keeps only the 10 I genuinely liked: Zen Browser, Mos, Handy, Kando, Recordly, Zed, MarkText, Syncthing, MOLE, and LuLu.

The first eight are already part of my daily workflow. MOLE and LuLu do not need to be opened manually every day, but they become extremely useful whenever my Mac runs low on storage or a new app tries to access the internet. This list answers one question: after 100 days of updates, which apps will I personally keep using?

All 10 Apps at a Glance

Zen Browser: My primary browser. Vertical tabs, an auto-collapsing sidebar, and Firefox extensions mean I now open Chrome only when I need to play DRM-protected video.
Mos: Turns the notchy scrolling of an external mouse on Mac into something much closer to the smooth scrolling of a trackpad.
Handy: Hold a shortcut to speak, then release it to send the text into the currently focused input field. Speech recognition can run locally and offline.
Kando: Opens a radial menu beside the pointer, letting me launch apps, websites, files, or shortcuts with directional gestures.
Recordly: My main tool for recording demos. After recording, I can handle zooms, pointer movement, backgrounds, and exports directly inside the app.
Zed: Opening projects, editing code, and bringing up an Agent all feel responsive. It is now one of the code editors I open most often.
MarkText: Lets me write Markdown in a view close to the finished result, without constantly switching between source and preview.
Syncthing: Keeps my work folders synchronized between Mac and Windows without uploading the files to cloud storage first.
MOLE: Analyze first, preview next, and clean only after confirming. In my test, it freed 15.29GB on my Mac.
LuLu: When a new program first tries to connect out, it shows me the destination and signature so I can decide whether to allow it.

1. Zen Browser: My Primary Browser

Zen is the easiest choice among these 10 apps. I have used it as my primary browser for four months. Vertical tabs combined with an auto-collapsing sidebar keep the top of the page uncluttered, even when I have a lot of tabs open. It is built on Firefox, so I can install uBlock Origin and my existing Firefox extensions directly.

Its biggest limitation right now is Widevine DRM on macOS and Windows. Services such as Netflix and Disney+ still need another browser, which is the main reason Chrome remains installed on my computer.

2. Mos: Once You Use It with an External Mouse, It Is Hard to Go Back

Scrolling on a Mac trackpad is smooth, but an external mouse wheel often moves in abrupt steps. Mos does one simple thing: it adds smoothness and momentum to the scroll wheel. It can also configure separate scrolling directions for the mouse and trackpad.

It does not have many features, and that is exactly why I keep it running every day. Once installed and adjusted to feel right, it stays in the background and fixes one of the most common annoyances.

3. Handy: Offline Voice Input for Any Text Field

The biggest difference between Handy and a typical speech transcription tool is that it behaves more like a voice input method. Hold a shortcut and speak, then release it. The recognized text is pasted directly at the current cursor position in a browser, document, LINE, or terminal.

It can run speech models locally and offline. I use Breeze ASR 25 for Traditional Chinese and mixed Chinese-English speech, so every sentence does not need to be sent to the cloud. Keep in mind that larger models usually consume more resources. Starting with a model that runs smoothly is more practical than choosing the largest one immediately.

4. Kando: Turn Keyboard Shortcuts into Visible Gestures

Kando opens a radial menu beside the mouse pointer. I place frequently used apps, websites, and actions on the first level, then trigger them by sliding in a fixed direction instead of recalling a keyboard combination.

What I like about it is that the menu can start with something as simple as “open a website,” then gradually expand to include files, hotkeys, text, and macros. Keeping the first level uncluttered allows each direction to become muscle memory, which works better than turning it into another oversized launcher.

5. Recordly: I Used It for Nearly Every Demo During These 100 Days

Recordly is my main tool for recording hands-on demos. In addition to the screen, it retains mouse movement data. After recording, I can adjust zooms, smooth the pointer movement, add a background and rounded corners, and crop the result without opening a separate editor to set keyframes.

Many of the product demos in articles from these 100 days were made with it. It still has some of the minor rough edges common to open-source projects, but its ability to turn a recording directly into a presentable product demo still fits my workflow best.

6. Zed: The Code Editor I Have Been Opening Often Lately

I used VS Code for a long time. Once I actually loaded a project into Zed, I stopped thinking about the specifications. Simply opening files, switching panels, and bringing up the terminal felt responsive. It is written in Rust, while its interface uses the project’s own GPUI framework.

Zed can also connect to ChatGPT, Codex, external Agents, and MCP. I did not delete VS Code just because I changed editors, though. I still switch back when I need a specific extension or an existing development environment. Zed is now another option I am happy to open every day.

7. MarkText: Write Markdown Without Constantly Switching to Preview

MarkText uses a WYSIWYG approach. Headings, lists, and code blocks appear directly in the same editing view, so I can keep writing without switching back and forth between the source and a preview panel.

It works well for READMEs, notes, and article drafts. The macOS version may currently show a “damaged” warning because it is unsigned, so check the release notes before installing it. That minor inconvenience has not changed my view that it is currently the Markdown editor that feels most natural to use.

Syncthing handles continuous synchronization. I can add a Markdown file or image on my Mac, edit it directly once it arrives on Windows, and sync the result back to the Mac. There is no account to register, and the files do not need to pass through cloud storage first. When I only need to send a single file occasionally, I use LocalSend.

The initial setup requires adding both devices to each other and explicitly sharing the folder. I also ran into a case where the encryption modes did not match on the two sides, causing both devices to appear offline. After switching back to standard two-way synchronization, they reconnected without needing to be paired again.

9. MOLE: A Highly Practical Mac Cleanup Tool

I do not run MOLE every day, but it is one of the first tools I think of when my Mac starts running out of space. mo analyze shows where the storage is going, while mo clean --dry-run only lists files without deleting them. The actual cleanup happens only after I confirm the results. That time, it freed 15.29GB.

I also let an Agent read its JSON output and organize the largest categories, but I do not allow the Agent to run the cleanup automatically. I leave the analysis to the tool and the Agent while confirming deletions myself. That saves effort and reduces the chance of regret.

10. LuLu: Quiet Most of the Time, Watching Outbound Connections When Needed

LuLu is an outbound firewall for macOS. The first time a new program establishes an external connection, it shows the program name, destination, and signature, then lets me choose Allow or Block. Since I often download tools from GitHub, DMG files, and beta releases, this extra warning is useful.

LuLu is not antivirus software, and there is no need to block every unfamiliar domain. After installation, keep the default allowances for Apple programs, installed apps, DNS, and localhost. Then make a decision only when a genuinely new alert appears.

After 100 Days, This Is the Workflow I Kept

These 10 apps cover very different jobs, but they happen to connect into the same sequence I follow when using my computer each day: Zen for research, Mos for the mouse, Handy for text input, Kando for frequently used actions, Zed and MarkText for code and articles, Recordly for demos, and Syncthing for synchronizing work files to another computer.

MOLE and LuLu sit around the edges of that workflow. I bring out the former when my Mac needs cleanup, while the latter stays in the background and alerts me only when a new program tries to connect out. After reaching day 100, I did not keep all 100 apps. I ended up with these 10 tools, each filling exactly the right spot.