To build your own menu bar app, I would recommend trying out xbar[1].
You can write "apps" in any language. The output of your program is used to construct the menu bar app, so if your program outputs this:
Hello
---
Open HN | href=https://news.ycombinator.com/
Then it will create a menu bar entry titled "Hello" with a single element in its drop-down menu, which will open Hacker News when clicked. You place your program in a specific directory for xbar to run, and it can be configured to run at a given frequency, e.g. once a minute to report the results of an API call or some measurement from your system, etc. Up to you to build the menu bar app you want.
If you use Hammerspoon, you can build your own menubar icons in Lua using the hs.menubar[1] API. I've built a clipboard history tool using that, for instance.
If you don't use Hammerspoon, you should check it out. :)
Hammerspoon is awesome. I have an `hs_message` alias that basically calls `hs.alert`. Super handy. The good thing about xbar is that you can quickly write small shells scripts. But I definitely love HS for global shortcuts/automation.
One of the more impressive things I've seen is stack line [0] a visualization tool that works with tiling window manager, yabai.
If it is not a hassle, could you please share some of these scripts? I always find rearranging apps/windows (I use multiple desktops) after a reboot quit painful.
You'll be disappointed because my use case is pretty simple - move the dock, remaximize all windows on the main screen and move chrome to my secondary screen.
The first GMail app App for Gmail is poorly reviewed and the second Aura doesn't seem to exist. The link to another one Mailtab is broken and I can't find it.
The problem with the menu bar that unless you are using Bartender to minimize the spacing between the icons, it is clattered with only a few apps running, especially if you are "blessed" with the notch.
It is baffling that Bartender has not been Sherlocked. I think Apple’s current theory is that people will suddenly start using the new “control center” and widgets on the Mac for this kind of functionality (they probably won’t).
Right now the control center for me is just this annoying icon I never look at/touch and can't disable, much like Docker Desktop's. So it just adds to the problem.
Now that you mention it, in concept it seems appropriate for widgets I want ready access to but don't need to see all the time. But...
* there aren't that many things that fall into that category. I want to see at least my CPU graph, memory usage, network status (bandwidth, default route: wired vs wireless vs missing), datetime without any clicks.
* it doesn't seem as customizable as I'd want, e.g. I don't need a "Now Playing" thing that shows Apple Music. I never use Apple Music.
* isn't it redundant with the widgets that pop up when I click the date? I think that's the notification center, though I don't know why there are widgets like calendar and news in there.
* third-party stuff doesn't seem to use it. I suspect they can't or haven't bothered because of issues similar to those above, but I haven't looked into it.
I believe it's not possible for third-party developers to create their own items in Control Center. The widgets in Notification Center, though, can be third-party.
Incidentally the "now playing" section of Control Center does work with apps other than Apple Music, including Spotify and all major web browsers, just like the media keys.
>It is baffling that Bartender has not been Sherlocked.
I don’t think so. It’s a niche feature; it’s not a tent pole thing that would make users “ooh and ah” when watching a WWDC keynote or something that users would upgrade their version of macOS to get.
Even if Apple did something, it would be pretty basic and not have many of Bartender’s features.
Actually, I do have started hiding most possible ones under Control Center. I have been using Bartender for a very long time and have upgraded multiple times. It is such a beauty.
I don't need to see the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or the Audio icons.
For those looking for a simpler, yet functioning and free alternative, try Hidden Bar - https://superbits.co/hidden/
Plus control center is just a dumpster fire for accessibility. Go on, try to navigate any macOS control center widget with your keyboard in any way. Try to switch between widgets.
Does anyone have recommendations for a system monitor that works on Apple silicon? I just want to see ethernet activity, RAM usage, and processor usage.
Another vote for iStat Menus. It costs money, but it's my favorite and a bit superior to the open source alternatives like Stats, IMHO, which is somewhat influenced by iStat Menus' design. (though I like Stats's graph view more). iStat has a very flexible customization system and pulls in more data then all the alternatives I've found. Stats for example doesn't show you the per-process disk activity like iStat Menus.
I split a family license with a friend to save some $$.
Yes, this is the one I used for many years! I just tried Stat but am not thrilled with the scaling options (or am doing it wrong). Basically, it always appears like there is lots of network activity, even if it is just a few KB. I tried logarithmic, cube, and square scaling, but none of them fixed it. With MenuMeters, it scaled based on prior down/up transmissions, which was very handy.
Alternatively, you can program Tip (https://github.com/tanin47/tip, disclaimer: I'm the creator) to popup relevant menu items based on the text you currently select.
I've been using this at work hundreds of times every day for years now. I'd love anyone to try it out.
I'd much prefer apps use Dock menus, like the HIG suggests. [1] There are very few apps that need to be permanently in the menubar. Plus, the Dock offers a much more high fidelity icon to represent your app. Seems like a win-win for users and app developers, but this bad pattern keeps getting copied.
I agree that many applications don't need menu bar extras. However, the option is always nice to have. Regardless of the HIG, it might not be good to restrict functionality to Dock given that many people turn it off.
I think my new arm-based Macbook is pretty awesome in all aspects but the notch is almost as stupid as the old touchbar. I'm a bit surprised it hasn't caused more criticism.
As a "pro" i don't need a freaking menu bar, i access stuff via hotkeys or look them up. I need that extra space for doing actual pro work, but now i have a big fat line of dead pixels at the top of my screen if i don't wan't permanent menus creating visual noise.
If i could somehow use the space for tabs, or for some other actually useful elements..
We want compactness in a laptop, not "bonus" screen space that's only usable for some useless part of the OS when we have to actually carry it around everyday for multiple years and it makes the screen have a huge top border.
Also why does it even have to be this wide in the first place?
As long as you want a laptop with a camera above the screen, you have the choice of filling extra space around the camera with a screen or a bezel.
I'd prefer the screen and in my opinion it's strictly an improvement over a bezel with no downsides.
If you don't want a camera above the screen then you can go for something like a 2018 Dell XPS, but I think the consumer market has spoken and voted for cameras above screens.
I don't really buy that it's not possible to move the cam up a bit into the notch that's still there, but even if it is an engineering problem why not make it possible to actually customise the menu bar?
Right now icons disappears under the notch on the right side, and you need 3. party software to customise the right side, and even then there's problems with icons "disappearing" under the notch, along with the mouse.
Why do i have to look at 10+ menus on the left side of the notch forever now after upgrading my macbook, that constantly changes with every app im in - i never use them and they just create visual noise?
They made the bezels thinner on those. That’s why the notch is there. They basically moved the menu bar into the old bezel area to give you more useful screen space.
You’re gaining 24 pt real estate (compared to a notchless screen running the latest macOS versions). Those 24 extra points don’t amount to much (maybe one or two lines of text), but the menu bar real estate is less, and your screen has a pointless gimmick forever embedded into it.
I'm a "pro" and I really love to have resource usage graphs continuously visible, so I can know at a glance what my computer is doing, why it's taking a while, if something is doing something it shouldn't in the background, or if there's a glaring bug with code I'm writing.
As someone who I'd think constitutes as a "pro" I also like the menubar, simply because it's a searchable index of all the functionality an application offers that can't be IKEA'd away by designers bent on functionality-deleting minimalism. In fact one of my biggest frustrations with Windows and Linux is that a global menubar isn't an option and so one has to live with hamburger menus and convoluted paths to certain dialogs whether they like them or not.
KDE on Linux is the exception here, but its global menubar is half useless thanks to all of the hamburger menu afflicted Linux apps, as well as apps that don't surface their menu items to dbus.
On the fanless macs I find it essential to have some kind of cpu indicator in the menu bar. I’ve had it happen multiple times that some rogue process is using a core or two at full burn and the only way I could tell was the SoC temperature spiking.
It's nice to see aggregation and curation efforts like this!
It would be useful if the site offered a more compact view and an option for more items per page or "infinite scrolling" (the loading of more results after scrolling past a threshold). Within experiences like these where browsing is the primary mechanism of discovery, it's a positive UX feature to decrease the need for repeatedly clicking/tapping/etc. in order to continue to browse.
[0] touch bar - I think it's a screen in F-row on macbook keyboards, whereas menu bar is a bar at the top of the desktop that shows current application menus on the left and clock, battery, etc. on the right.
It hasn't AFAIK. Most macOS apps are considerate enough to let you choose whether to show an icon in the menu bar, but even so, Bartender (macbartender.com) is a must-have menu bar clutter tamer for me.
To build your own menu bar app, I would recommend trying out xbar[1].
You can write "apps" in any language. The output of your program is used to construct the menu bar app, so if your program outputs this:
Then it will create a menu bar entry titled "Hello" with a single element in its drop-down menu, which will open Hacker News when clicked. You place your program in a specific directory for xbar to run, and it can be configured to run at a given frequency, e.g. once a minute to report the results of an API call or some measurement from your system, etc. Up to you to build the menu bar app you want.[1] https://xbarapp.com/
Use SwiftBar instead, xbar is stalled...
https://github.com/swiftbar/SwiftBar
If you use Hammerspoon, you can build your own menubar icons in Lua using the hs.menubar[1] API. I've built a clipboard history tool using that, for instance.
If you don't use Hammerspoon, you should check it out. :)
[1]: https://www.hammerspoon.org/docs/hs.menubar.html
Hammerspoon is awesome. I have an `hs_message` alias that basically calls `hs.alert`. Super handy. The good thing about xbar is that you can quickly write small shells scripts. But I definitely love HS for global shortcuts/automation.
One of the more impressive things I've seen is stack line [0] a visualization tool that works with tiling window manager, yabai.
[0]: https://github.com/AdamWagner/stackline
Yeah Hammerspoon is great. I've written scripts to rearrange things correctly when I plug/unplug my laptop into external monitors.
If it is not a hassle, could you please share some of these scripts? I always find rearranging apps/windows (I use multiple desktops) after a reboot quit painful.
You'll be disappointed because my use case is pretty simple - move the dock, remaximize all windows on the main screen and move chrome to my secondary screen.
https://github.com/jemmyw/hammerspoon/blob/main/init.lua
Doesn't seem that well curated.
The first GMail app App for Gmail is poorly reviewed and the second Aura doesn't seem to exist. The link to another one Mailtab is broken and I can't find it.
https://macmenubar.com/email-contacts/
The problem with the menu bar that unless you are using Bartender to minimize the spacing between the icons, it is clattered with only a few apps running, especially if you are "blessed" with the notch.
But oh boy, that site is a small treasure :)
It is baffling that Bartender has not been Sherlocked. I think Apple’s current theory is that people will suddenly start using the new “control center” and widgets on the Mac for this kind of functionality (they probably won’t).
Right now the control center for me is just this annoying icon I never look at/touch and can't disable, much like Docker Desktop's. So it just adds to the problem.
Now that you mention it, in concept it seems appropriate for widgets I want ready access to but don't need to see all the time. But...
* there aren't that many things that fall into that category. I want to see at least my CPU graph, memory usage, network status (bandwidth, default route: wired vs wireless vs missing), datetime without any clicks.
* it doesn't seem as customizable as I'd want, e.g. I don't need a "Now Playing" thing that shows Apple Music. I never use Apple Music.
* isn't it redundant with the widgets that pop up when I click the date? I think that's the notification center, though I don't know why there are widgets like calendar and news in there.
* third-party stuff doesn't seem to use it. I suspect they can't or haven't bothered because of issues similar to those above, but I haven't looked into it.
I believe it's not possible for third-party developers to create their own items in Control Center. The widgets in Notification Center, though, can be third-party.
Incidentally the "now playing" section of Control Center does work with apps other than Apple Music, including Spotify and all major web browsers, just like the media keys.
"I don't need a "Now Playing" thing that shows Apple Music."
Mine is showing media controls for a Streamable video buried many tabs deep in another browser window that isn't even active. Not too helpful.
Was that the last stream playing? That control should be connected to that stream, if so.
>It is baffling that Bartender has not been Sherlocked.
I don’t think so. It’s a niche feature; it’s not a tent pole thing that would make users “ooh and ah” when watching a WWDC keynote or something that users would upgrade their version of macOS to get.
Even if Apple did something, it would be pretty basic and not have many of Bartender’s features.
Well, it’s not like Bartender has that many features. It is pretty basic. Super helpful, but basic.
Actually, I do have started hiding most possible ones under Control Center. I have been using Bartender for a very long time and have upgraded multiple times. It is such a beauty.
I don't need to see the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or the Audio icons.
For those looking for a simpler, yet functioning and free alternative, try Hidden Bar - https://superbits.co/hidden/
Plus control center is just a dumpster fire for accessibility. Go on, try to navigate any macOS control center widget with your keyboard in any way. Try to switch between widgets.
Sigh.
Does anyone have recommendations for a system monitor that works on Apple silicon? I just want to see ethernet activity, RAM usage, and processor usage.
Stats is open source & free: https://github.com/exelban/stats
Works on Apple Silicon with no issues. I used to pay for iStat Menus but Stats is totally fine for my needs, so I do not use iStat Menus anymore.
Why don't you use iStat Menus as you paid it?
For me iStat Menus is looking much better than Exelban Stats.
As far as I understand stats is reporting more stuff to it's servers than iStat Menu is doing (or saying it does)
For Exelban Stats it's: https://github.com/exelban/stats/issues/714
I’ve been using this for almost a decade https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/
iStat Menus is the venerable favorite: https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/
Another vote for iStat Menus. It costs money, but it's my favorite and a bit superior to the open source alternatives like Stats, IMHO, which is somewhat influenced by iStat Menus' design. (though I like Stats's graph view more). iStat has a very flexible customization system and pulls in more data then all the alternatives I've found. Stats for example doesn't show you the per-process disk activity like iStat Menus.
I split a family license with a friend to save some $$.
My favourite one, Menu Meters, stopped working with 10.11 El Cap.
RIP my first favourite mac software.
https://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/
Take a look here: https://github.com/yujitach/MenuMeters/releases
I'm using this on my M1 Mac.
Wow, amazing! This is the one I had been using (for maybe 15 years?), and I'm thrilled to have it running again on my new MBA!
Thank you for posting this :D
Yes, this is the one I used for many years! I just tried Stat but am not thrilled with the scaling options (or am doing it wrong). Basically, it always appears like there is lots of network activity, even if it is just a few KB. I tried logarithmic, cube, and square scaling, but none of them fixed it. With MenuMeters, it scaled based on prior down/up transmissions, which was very handy.
Oh noe! You’re not motivating me much to try stat! Haha I kind of gave up of stat monitoring after menu meters which is sad.
I don’t remember it scaling, but I do remember setting mine to cubic for network speed.
Wonder if it’s possible to get menu meters up to modern working order
See @ramg's reply above — MenuMeters lives!
I had no idea that the torch had been carried for so many years.
Probably because I only started reading HN about 2020 or so. Never would have found out otherwise!
The most popular one for many years is https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/, have you tried that? It says it's compatible with Apple Silicon.
Have used iStat Menus in the past and it's been good, but recently have been using Cindori's Sensei[0].
[0]: https://cindori.com/sensei
RunCat! https://kyome.io/runcat/index.html?lang=en
There is also https://github.com/gao-sun/eul
Now we only need a hero who will run all 700 of them at once and post the results!
Alternatively, you can program Tip (https://github.com/tanin47/tip, disclaimer: I'm the creator) to popup relevant menu items based on the text you currently select.
I've been using this at work hundreds of times every day for years now. I'd love anyone to try it out.
I'd much prefer apps use Dock menus, like the HIG suggests. [1] There are very few apps that need to be permanently in the menubar. Plus, the Dock offers a much more high fidelity icon to represent your app. Seems like a win-win for users and app developers, but this bad pattern keeps getting copied.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
I agree that many applications don't need menu bar extras. However, the option is always nice to have. Regardless of the HIG, it might not be good to restrict functionality to Dock given that many people turn it off.
I think my new arm-based Macbook is pretty awesome in all aspects but the notch is almost as stupid as the old touchbar. I'm a bit surprised it hasn't caused more criticism.
As a "pro" i don't need a freaking menu bar, i access stuff via hotkeys or look them up. I need that extra space for doing actual pro work, but now i have a big fat line of dead pixels at the top of my screen if i don't wan't permanent menus creating visual noise.
If i could somehow use the space for tabs, or for some other actually useful elements..
It's literally extra screen real estate. The non-notch screen rectangle is the same size as the pre-notch screen.
We want compactness in a laptop, not "bonus" screen space that's only usable for some useless part of the OS when we have to actually carry it around everyday for multiple years and it makes the screen have a huge top border.
Also why does it even have to be this wide in the first place?
As long as you want a laptop with a camera above the screen, you have the choice of filling extra space around the camera with a screen or a bezel.
I'd prefer the screen and in my opinion it's strictly an improvement over a bezel with no downsides.
If you don't want a camera above the screen then you can go for something like a 2018 Dell XPS, but I think the consumer market has spoken and voted for cameras above screens.
I don't really buy that it's not possible to move the cam up a bit into the notch that's still there, but even if it is an engineering problem why not make it possible to actually customise the menu bar?
Right now icons disappears under the notch on the right side, and you need 3. party software to customise the right side, and even then there's problems with icons "disappearing" under the notch, along with the mouse. Why do i have to look at 10+ menus on the left side of the notch forever now after upgrading my macbook, that constantly changes with every app im in - i never use them and they just create visual noise?
They made the bezels thinner on those. That’s why the notch is there. They basically moved the menu bar into the old bezel area to give you more useful screen space.
You’re gaining 24 pt real estate (compared to a notchless screen running the latest macOS versions). Those 24 extra points don’t amount to much (maybe one or two lines of text), but the menu bar real estate is less, and your screen has a pointless gimmick forever embedded into it.
It's a downgrade from my previous 16:10 laptop, and a huge downgrade from 3:2.
It’s taller than 16:10. How is that a downgrade?
I'm a "pro" and I really love to have resource usage graphs continuously visible, so I can know at a glance what my computer is doing, why it's taking a while, if something is doing something it shouldn't in the background, or if there's a glaring bug with code I'm writing.
As someone who I'd think constitutes as a "pro" I also like the menubar, simply because it's a searchable index of all the functionality an application offers that can't be IKEA'd away by designers bent on functionality-deleting minimalism. In fact one of my biggest frustrations with Windows and Linux is that a global menubar isn't an option and so one has to live with hamburger menus and convoluted paths to certain dialogs whether they like them or not.
KDE on Linux is the exception here, but its global menubar is half useless thanks to all of the hamburger menu afflicted Linux apps, as well as apps that don't surface their menu items to dbus.
On the fanless macs I find it essential to have some kind of cpu indicator in the menu bar. I’ve had it happen multiple times that some rogue process is using a core or two at full burn and the only way I could tell was the SoC temperature spiking.
I hate that notch also. I use https://topnotch.app/ to play some eye trickery so i don’t have to stare at that thing.
I also use https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden to try and clean up that menu bar bs.
It's nice to see aggregation and curation efforts like this!
It would be useful if the site offered a more compact view and an option for more items per page or "infinite scrolling" (the loading of more results after scrolling past a threshold). Within experiences like these where browsing is the primary mechanism of discovery, it's a positive UX feature to decrease the need for repeatedly clicking/tapping/etc. in order to continue to browse.
Hug of death.
https://web.archive.org/web/20221101192452/https://macmenuba...
Mine is constantly disabled. Waste of battery life. Way easier to put whatever indicators in the screen where I'm actually looking at.
Do you have any sources to show changes in battery life? I'm a bit skeptical based on the complexity of menu bar widgets.
Not sure why the downvotes, same here. I disabled mine in favour of sketchy bar [0]. I hide most things except for bandwidth and clock. Super handy.
0: https://github.com/FelixKratz/SketchyBar
Probably because this article is about the menu bar, not the touch bar.
Aren't you mixing touch bar with menu bar [0]?
[0] touch bar - I think it's a screen in F-row on macbook keyboards, whereas menu bar is a bar at the top of the desktop that shows current application menus on the left and clock, battery, etc. on the right.
And yet no Sound Flower; le sigh.
If you’re willing to pay, I believe Loopback and SoundSource by rogue amoeba offer the same functionality
Thank you for the lead.
https://github.com/ExistentialAudio/BlackHole
Has not the menu-bar been deprecated?
It hasn't AFAIK. Most macOS apps are considerate enough to let you choose whether to show an icon in the menu bar, but even so, Bartender (macbartender.com) is a must-have menu bar clutter tamer for me.
Quite the opposite, it's now necessary to hide the notch by underlaying it with a black background.
Yep. That’s what i do. Topnotch.app
and as has been revealed with the phones they will remove the notch as a future feature