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A curated directory of 700 Mac menu bar apps

178 points| Amorymeltzer | 3 years ago |macmenubar.com | reply

70 comments

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[+] thamer|3 years ago|reply
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.

[1] https://xbarapp.com/

[+] duskwuff|3 years ago|reply
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

[+] crystaln|3 years ago|reply
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/

[+] gbil|3 years ago|reply
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 :)

[+] jxdxbx|3 years ago|reply
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).
[+] gnicholas|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] andrewmunsell|3 years ago|reply
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.

[+] m000|3 years ago|reply
Now we only need a hero who will run all 700 of them at once and post the results!
[+] tanin|3 years ago|reply
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.

[+] programmarchy|3 years ago|reply
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...

[+] vehemenz|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] kossTKR|3 years ago|reply
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..

[+] lalaithion|3 years ago|reply
It's literally extra screen real estate. The non-notch screen rectangle is the same size as the pre-notch screen.
[+] AYBABTME|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] jsejcksn|3 years ago|reply
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.

[+] vasco|3 years ago|reply
Mine is constantly disabled. Waste of battery life. Way easier to put whatever indicators in the screen where I'm actually looking at.
[+] ladberg|3 years ago|reply
Do you have any sources to show changes in battery life? I'm a bit skeptical based on the complexity of menu bar widgets.
[+] trymas|3 years ago|reply
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.

[+] Overtonwindow|3 years ago|reply
Has not the menu-bar been deprecated?
[+] CharlesW|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] ics|3 years ago|reply
Quite the opposite, it's now necessary to hide the notch by underlaying it with a black background.