Utilities category
Utilities menu bar apps
Utilities menu bar apps for macOS. 31 listed: 10 free, 6 free with a paid upgrade and 15 paid. Of those, 3 open source and 4 with a free trial. Prices and trials as the developers state them.
31 apps
- About WhatCable
WhatCable, opens the developer's site in a new tab Know What Your USB-C Cable Can Really Do
Reads the e-marker chip inside your USB-C cables and tells you in plain English what each one can actually do, and names the weak link when charging or data speed is limited.
Freemium - About Fonti: Font Finder AI
Fonti: Font Finder AI , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab AI-Powered Font Identifier for Mac Menu Bar
Font Identifier for Mac menu bar, quickly detect fonts from images or screenshots, explore alternatives, and streamline typography design.
Free - About Sundown
Sundown, opens the developer's site in a new tab Warmer Than Night Shift Can Go
Takes the display down to 500K, far warmer than Night Shift's 2700K floor, on a schedule tied to sunset and sunrise, with six presets and gamma-curve dimming. Native Swift, about 6 MB, macOS 14+.
Paid - About Lid Keeper
Lid Keeper, opens the developer's site in a new tab Keep a MacBook awake with the lid closed—one menu-bar switch, session telemetry, and a fail-safe return to normal sleep.
Keeps long downloads, builds and local jobs running after a MacBook lid closes, with battery, thermal and watchdog fail-safes that restore normal sleep.
Free - About sketchetc
sketchetc, opens the developer's site in a new tab Themeable SketchyBar Menu Bar for macOS
A themeable, fully interactive macOS menu bar built on SketchyBar. Vice City and four more themes, 20+ toggleable widgets, Option+V clipboard history, aura points, and a tamper-evident journal.
Free - About MenuCopy
MenuCopy , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Powerful Clipboard Manager for macOS
A powerful and intuitive clipboard manager that seamlessly integrates with your workflow on macOS.
$4.99 - About Ese
Ese, opens the developer's site in a new tab A Battery Menu Bar That Predicts, Not Just Reports
A menu bar battery manager with predicted empty time, a 60-95% charge limit, a forecast for Apple's 80% health mark, 7/30/90-day insights, configurable alerts, and AirPods and iPhone levels, all from this Mac's own data.
Paid - About Mole
Mole, opens the developer's site in a new tab Mac Maintenance With a Menu Bar HUD
A native Mac maintenance app, cleanup, app management, disk maps and live status, with an optional menu bar HUD for system metrics, privacy activity, top processes, Keep Screen On and Clean Screen. $19 once for two Macs.
$19 - About Horizon
Horizon , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Adaptive Wallpapers for Mac Menu Bar
A native macOS menu bar wallpaper app that changes your desktop by time, weather, Focus Mode, and mood. Free to download with a one-time $7.99 Premium unlock.
Freemium - About Nox
Nox, opens the developer's site in a new tab Display Filter for Light-Sensitive Mac Users
A native macOS menu bar display filter for light-sensitive users: 12 presets plus tint, software dimming, black point, contrast, grayscale, temperature, and individual color channels.
$9.99 14-day trial - About Dropshare
Dropshare , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Upload to Your Own Storage, Share a Link
Uploads screenshots, files and folders to your own server or one of 36+ supported providers and hands you a link to share, so the file lands somewhere you chose.
Free - About Posturio
Posturio , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Smart Desk Wellness for macOS Menu Bar
A native macOS menu bar app that helps desk workers build healthier work habits with active-time reminders for posture, eye breaks, eye exercises, movement, hydration, and guided stretching.
Freemium - About SpeakUp
SpeakUp, opens the developer's site in a new tab On-Device Dictation for Mac Menu Bar
A macOS menu bar dictation app powered by on-device whisper.cpp with Metal GPU acceleration. Press a hotkey, speak, press again, your words are typed into any app. 100% private, no cloud, no subscription.
€29 14-day trial - About Pointer Cue
Pointer Cue , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Visual Pointer Cue for Presentations and Demos
Pointer Cue is a lightweight macOS menu bar utility that helps audiences follow on-screen actions during presentations, software demos, training sessions, tutorials, and screen sharing.
$3.99 - About MirAIe AC Bar
MirAIe AC Bar, opens the developer's site in a new tab Panasonic MirAIe AC Controller for the Mac Menu Bar
A fast, lightweight menu bar controller for Panasonic MirAIe ACs. Control your AC from your Mac instead of reopening the phone app, with optional Siri Shortcuts.
Free - About Wallset
Wallset , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Keyboard-First Wallpaper Switcher for Mac
Wallset is a native, keyboard-first wallpaper switcher for macOS inspired by Rofi-style workflows. It lives entirely in the menu bar: press a global hotkey, browse your wallpaper collections in a visual grid or list, and apply a new wallpaper instantly with smooth transitions.
Freemium - About Hotspot Guard
Hotspot Guard, opens the developer's site in a new tab Per-App Data Limits for Metered Connections
Tracks how much data each app uses on a metered connection like an iPhone hotspot, with per-app limits over 1-minute and 1-hour windows, a budget with overspend forecast, and a four-step escalation.
Free - About Solace
Solace, opens the developer's site in a new tab Appearance, Wallpaper and Warmth That Follow the Day
Adapts your Mac's appearance to the world outside, light and dark mode, wallpapers, and screen warmth driven by time of day, solar position, and live weather conditions.
$4.99 - About Sonant
Sonant, opens the developer's site in a new tab Glass-Style Music Controller for Mac Menu Bar
A glass-style music controller for your Mac menu bar. Album art, playback controls, and a live visualizer for Apple Music and Spotify, always one glance away.
$4.99 7-day trial - About DeskCommit
DeskCommit, opens the developer's site in a new tab Keyboard-First Display Manager for the Mac Menu Bar
DeskCommit is a keyboard-first macOS menu bar app for arranging displays, changing resolution and refresh rate, choosing the main display, and manually restoring saved setups.
$4.99 - About Mini Stopwatch
Mini Stopwatch , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Ultra-Minimalist macOS Menu Bar Stopwatch
The most minimalist Stopwatch. One click to start, one click to stop, double click to reset. That's it!
Free - About Holeberry
Holeberry, opens the developer's site in a new tab Your Pi-hole, From the Menu Bar
Controls up to two Pi-hole instances from the menu bar: status and query stats, timed or indefinite disabling, one-click unblocking of the domain in your current browser tab, and allowlisting recent blocks. Open source under MIT, macOS 14+.
Free - About Screen Break
Screen Break, opens the developer's site in a new tab Guided Break Reminders for Your Mac
A gentle but firm macOS menu bar break reminder with guided full-screen rests, smart idle reset, busy auto-defer, a multilingual UI, and friendly limits on skipping.
Free - About The Surf Hero
The Surf Hero , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Change Your Default Browser from the Mac Menu Bar
A small macOS status bar application that allows you to change your default browser in a few clicks.
$2.99 - About Scroll the Mic
Scroll the Mic , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Effortless Microphone Volume Control
Adjust your microphone volume effortlessly with a smooth scroll gesture. Perfect for meetings, podcasts, and streaming. Beautifully designed for intuitive control, it helps maintain professional audio levels without distractions, enhancing your workflow instantly.
$3.99 - About DynamicHorizon
DynamicHorizon, opens the developer's site in a new tab Reimagine your macOS notch with Dynamic Horizon. Responsive animations meet powerful features for the ultimate Mac experience.
DynamicHorizon turns the Mac notch into an interactive Dynamic Island for media controls, downloads, notifications, timers, weather, clipboard history and system activity.
$11.99 - About WattMate
WattMate , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab Watts per app, not a nameless score. Then a receipt: promised 24 min, got 28 min.
Power by app in real watts, the minutes you would get back by quitting one, and a measured receipt two minutes later. Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later.
$29 - About App Trust Preview
App Trust Preview , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab App Trust Preview helps you understand Mac software before opening or installing it.
Understand Mac software before you open it. App Trust Preview inspects .app bundles, .pkg installers, .dmg disk images, binary executables, and executable scripts locally, then turns macOS security metadata, potential network connections found through static analysis, executable hashes, and VirusTotal report links into a readable trust report.
$2.99 - About App Archiver for macOS
App Archiver for macOS , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab I like keeping useful apps around.
Save lasting disk space with lossless compression that keeps app code, resources, signatures, and integrity intact.
$9.99 - About DuoBar
DuoBar , also on the App Store , opens the developer's site in a new tab DuoBar is a clean menu bar companion for macOS. Battery, Wi-Fi, network activity, CPU, memory and disk — all in one compact dropdown.
DuoBar is an iPhone Duo like clean menu bar companion for macOS. Battery, Wi-Fi, memory and more — all in one compact dropdown.
$2.99 - About SnapApp for Mac
SnapApp for Mac, opens the developer's site in a new tab
Native Mac screenshot app with menu-bar capture and a custom shortcut. Add arrows, text, shapes, solid redaction and on-device OCR. The canvas expands beyond the captured area. Copy or save PNG locally. Also uses Dock and editor windows. Current 0.3.8 is free, proprietary, macOS 14+, Apple silicon and Intel. No account required.
Free
What utilities menu bar apps do
Utilities are the small tools that do one job to the Mac itself rather than to your work: showing something the system keeps hidden, changing a setting that is four clicks deep, or adding a control macOS does not have. They are the largest group here because the menu bar suits them: the job is usually a glance or a single click.
A utility you have to open an app to use is a utility you stop using. Living in the menu bar is what makes the difference between checking something in a second and not bothering.
31 listed: 10 free, 6 free with a paid upgrade and 15 paid. Of those, 3 open source and 4 with a free trial.
What to compare
- What it needs permission to do. Anything that reads the screen, watches the keyboard, or sees what you copy needs a permission macOS asks for once. Worth knowing what it wants before you grant it, and worth preferring the app that asks for less.
- What it costs while idle. A utility that polls something every second is doing that all day. The ones that wake on an event rather than a timer are kinder to a battery.
- Whether it survives a restart. Most of these are only useful if they are always there. Check that it opens at login, and that it says so rather than adding itself quietly.
- What happens when you stop paying. Freemium and trial are not the same shape. A trial ends and the app stops; a free tier keeps working with less. The listings say which each one is, where the developer states it.
Questions
- Are these safe to install?
- The ones distributed through the Mac App Store are sandboxed and reviewed by Apple. The ones distributed directly are not, though most are notarised, which means Apple has scanned them for malware without reviewing what they do. Every listing links to where the developer publishes it, so you can see which route an app takes before installing.
- Do I need to pay for a menu bar utility?
- No. A good part of this list is free, and some of it is open source, which means the code is public and anyone can read what the app does. The paid ones are mostly one payment rather than a subscription. Each listing says what it costs where the developer states it.
- 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.