Files menu bar apps

What files menu bar apps do

File apps in the menu bar are for files in motion: something being dragged somewhere, uploaded, renamed, compressed, cleared out, or parked for a moment while you find the window it is going to.

A file being moved is a file between two windows, and the menu bar is the one place that is always visible no matter which two. That is why a drop target up there works where a folder does not.

1 listed: 1 paid.

What to compare

• Where it puts things. Your own disk, your own cloud account, or the developer's service. All three exist and they are different promises about who holds the file.
• What happens to the original. Moved, copied, or linked. Anything that tidies or compresses should say plainly what it does with what it started from.
• Whether it undoes. For anything deleting, renaming in bulk or reclaiming space, the question is not whether it works but what happens on the day it does the wrong thing.
• What it needs to see. These ask for access to folders, sometimes to the whole disk. The narrower the request, the easier it is to say yes to.

Questions

Is a menu bar shelf better than a Finder window?

For moving something between two apps, usually: you can start the drag, change windows, and drop. For anything else a Finder window is still the better tool, and most people use both.

Are the cleaning tools safe?

They are deleting files, so the thing to read is what they consider safe to delete and whether anything is recoverable afterwards. A tool that shows you what it found before removing it is a different proposition from one that does it for you.

What is a menu bar app?

An app that lives in the strip along the top of the screen instead of the Dock. It has an icon there, and clicking it drops down a small window. Most have no main window at all, so they stay out of the way until you want them and never appear when you switch apps.

Do menu bar apps slow a Mac down?

Each one is a running process, so a dozen of them is a dozen processes. Most sit idle and cost close to nothing. The ones worth watching are those doing work when you are not looking: reading the screen, polling a server, or watching every file you save. Activity Monitor will tell you which is which on your own machine.

My menu bar is full. What then?

macOS drops icons that no longer fit, and on a Mac with a notch there is less room than there looks. Holding Command and dragging rearranges them, so the ones you use can be kept to the left of the crowd. There are also apps whose whole job is hiding and grouping the rest, listed here under Utilities.