mood

a tiny journal. cream-colored, mostly text, hard to feel bad in. macOS and Android today — iOS on the way.

Website · Download for macOS · Download for Android

I wanted somewhere small to type into about how I was feeling. Not a tracker. Not a daily prompt. Not a calendar with a streak that yells at me. A blinking cursor and a Return key. So I built one. mood is what I made.

Platforms

mood started on macOS and is growing into your pocket. macOS is the polished, auto-updating release; Android has a first sideload build; iOS builds from source. All three share the same idea and the same plain-JSON storage, but each fits its platform.

Platform	Status	How to get it
macOS 26.5+	Released	Download
Android 8.0+ (API 26)	Beta (sideload)	Download the APK · release notes
iOS 26.5+	In development	Build from source (Xcode)

Installing the Android APK: download it, tap the file, and when Android warns about installing from an unknown source, allow that source and tap Install (one-time, like macOS Gatekeeper). It's signed but not distributed through the Play Store.

• macOS has the full kit — the ⌃⌥M global quick-entry bar, menu-bar extra, and Sparkle in-app updates.
• iOS keeps the writing, mood, trends, voice, and on-device Chat, in a Daylio-style mood-first composer. No global hotkey (the OS has none); updates come from the App Store.
• Android (Kotlin + Jetpack Compose) has the mood-first composer, entries, and trends, with voice and tags landing next. Chat is omitted for now — Android's on-device LLM story isn't there yet, and mood won't ship your journal to a cloud model.

What it does

• Just types. Write something, hit Return. Date and time get attached. That's an entry. No required fields, no scoring.
• ⌃⌥M from anywhere. Spotlight-style bar pops up. Type, hit Return, it disappears. The thought is logged before you've broken stride.
• #hashtags are filters. Mention #work somewhere in an entry → the sidebar grows a #work row that filters to those entries. No tag UI. No fuss.
• Trends, gently. Line chart of mood over time. Rhythm of the day. Consistency heatmap. Read like the weather — no diagnoses, no "you're trending sad."
• Voice in. Click the mic, or hold ⌥Space and talk. Apple's on-device Speech framework. Nothing leaves your Mac.
• Chat with your past. Ask the on-device LLM things like "what's been bothering me at work?" It reads your recent entries and answers. Apple Intelligence, all on-device.
• In-app updates. New version? You get a prompt next time you launch. Click Install. Done.
• A vent pad. A small "burn it" sheet next to the composer for things you don't want to keep. The words rise off the screen as flames and disappear. Nothing is saved.

What it isn't

• A streak app. No flame counter. No "you broke your streak" guilt.
• A mood-as-a-number app. Rate entries 1–5 if it helps you; ignore it if it doesn't.
• A vault. Your entries live as plaintext JSON. Encrypt your Mac; don't store sensitive secrets here.
• A note-taking app. Use Notes or Bear for plans. mood is for the moment.

Install

1. Download mood.zip from the latest release.
2. Unzip, drag mood.app into /Applications.
3. Double-click mood.app. macOS will block it with "Apple could not verify mood is free of malware that may harm your Mac" — click Done to dismiss.
4. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → scroll to the Security section.
5. You'll see a line about "mood was blocked to protect your Mac." Click Open Anyway.
6. A new dialog asks you to confirm; enter your Mac password if prompted, then click Open Anyway again.
7. mood launches. From now on, double-clicking the app just opens it normally — the warning is one-time.

macOS does this dance because mood isn't signed with an Apple Developer ID (I haven't sent Apple their $99/yr). Apple removed the older right-click → Open shortcut in macOS Sequoia, so the System Settings route is the only path. macOS will also ask for Microphone + Speech Recognition the first time you use dictation.

Keyboard (macOS)

Shortcut	What it does
Return	Log the entry
⌃⌥M	Toggle the floating quick-entry panel from anywhere on your Mac
Esc	Close the quick-entry panel without saving
⌥Space	Hold to dictate (push-to-talk)

Privacy

Everything is local. Your entries live as plain JSON at:

~/Library/Application Support/com.tapasya.mood/

You can read them with cat. They don't sync to a server because there's no server. The Chat feature reads your recent entries and replies via Apple Intelligence — running on your Mac, not in the cloud. The model never sees a network.

Want to stop? Your data doesn't disappear with the app — it just sits where it is. To wipe: in-app Settings → Clear all entries, or rm -rf the folder above.

Updates

Sparkle. The app checks GitHub for new releases when you launch it. If there's one, you get a small in-app dialog: "A new version is available." Install or skip. That's the whole loop. No background telemetry, no analytics. The feed it checks is appcast.xml — block it if you'd rather not check. (iOS and Android get updates through their own app stores; no Sparkle there.)

Building from source

• Apple (macOS + iOS): open mood.xcodeproj in Xcode. It's a single multiplatform target — pick a Mac or an iPhone/Simulator destination and run. Building for a physical iPhone needs an Apple Developer account for signing.
• Android: open the android/ folder in Android Studio, let it Gradle-sync, create an emulator in Device Manager, then Run. Min SDK 26 (Android 8.0); the project uses Jetpack Compose and has no external charting dependencies.

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Built with care by Madhupprasad, mostly at night. Issues, PRs, and "hey I added a theme" forks all welcome.