! Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! The Ultimate List of Mac Menu Bar Apps Written by Akshata Shanbhag Published January 2018. Read the original article here: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ultimate-list-mac-menu- bar-apps/ This ebook is the intellectual property of MakeUseOf. It must only be published in its original form. Using parts or republishing altered parts of this ebook is prohibited without permission from MakeUseOf.com. Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Table of contents Timesavers 5 Ejector 5 Clocker 6 Resolutionator ($3) 6 Gestimer ($3.99) 7 XMenu 7 Monosnap 8 Screenie ($9.99) 8 Mia for Gmail 9 Focus 9 Hocus Focus 9 HazeOver ($8.99) 10 Quitter 10 Focus ($19.99) 10 Productivity 12 Tomato One (aka Pomodoro One) 12 Be Focused and Be Focused Pro ($4.99) 12 Workspaces ($7.99) 14 Tyke 14 FiveNotes ($4.99) 15 Itsycal 15 Fantastical ($39.99) 16 TimeOut 16 Awareness 17 System Tools 18 iStat Menus ($11.79) 18 Hazel ($32) 18 Battery Health 19 BetterSnapTool ($2.99) 19 Spectacle 19 f.lux 21 Amphetamine 21 Dropzone ($10) 22 Vanilla 23 Bartender ($15) 23 Others 24 Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Vox 24 AppLocker Pro (Free, $9.99) 25 Weatherbug 25 Bumpr ($5.99) 26 Bitdock 26 Fastlane 27 Tripmode ($7.99) 27 Fluid (Free, $4.99) 28 A Note About Clipboard Managers 28 Our List Ends Here 29 Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Menu bar apps live in the top-right corner of your Mac’s screen, and bring some amazing benefits to your desktop. We love that these tiny, smart utilities don’t get in our way like the dock apps do. Instead, they sit in a corner and swing into action only when we summon them. But which are the best menu bar apps out there? That’s the question we’re here to answer with our curated list. Before we get to it, here are three important points for you to take note of: • Free apps get priority on our list, but not at the cost of quality or effectiveness. • All premium apps on the list come with a free trial unless mentioned otherwise. You can even try some of them through the app subscription service Setapp. (Look for the Available on Setapp label right below the app name.) • Technically speaking, a few apps on the list are not menu bar apps, but regular applications that you can limit to the menu bar by hiding their dock icon. Timesavers Ejector This tiny utility seems to have been around forever. It’s useful for ejecting drives from the menu bar, one at a time or all at once. Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Clocker Install Clocker to stay up-to-date on time zone information. You can even add notes and create reminders with the app. Resolutionator ($3) The makers of the popular window management app Moom have a few other useful apps for you. Resolutionator is one of them. It makes switching screen resolutions effortless. You’ll see a list of all your displays with nested menus showing the resolutions available to each of them. Don’t forget to try the app before you buy! QuickRes ($14.99) is another popular app that does something similar. It has some advanced features such as custom profiles and Touch Bar support. Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Gestimer ($3.99) Let’s say you need to pick up something on your way to work or call someone before they leave for the airport. With Gestimer, you can create quick reminders for such short-term daily tasks right from the menu bar. Drag and drop the app’s menu bar icon onto your Mac’s screen to start creating a reminder. Click on the icon to view all your reminders as a list. Watch the Youtube video here: Gestimer - For those little reminders during the day XMenu If you rely more on mouse clicks than keyboard shortcuts, you’ll appreciate the convenience of an app launcher that lives in the menu bar. XMenu gives you access to all your folders, applications, music, movies, and even text snippets. It’s been quite a while since the app saw an update, but it seems to work without a glitch even on High Sierra. Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Monosnap Some of the best Mac apps come pre-installed. Grab and Preview fall into that category for sure, but using them in tandem to take, edit, and annotate screenshots makes for a tedious workflow. Try Monosnap instead. It’s an underrated app that I wish I had discovered sooner. As soon as you take a screenshot with its menu bar options or keyboard shortcuts, Monosnap opens the file right there. It allows you to add text and visual elements, blur sensitive data, and highlight specific sections with minimal effort. Dig into Monosnap’s preferences to find more useful features. Screenie ($9.99) Screenie makes all your images super easy to access by putting them in the menu bar. From the app’s icon you can view detailed information about your images, drag images into various apps, and search through them. Customization is the keyword with this app. Its developers call it “the image manager Apple forgot.” Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Mia for Gmail The lightweight and efficient Mia for Gmail puts the contents of your Gmail inbox in the menu bar. You don’t have to switch to a desktop client or webmail to read, compose, delete, label, or move emails. If you would prefer a menu bar app that’s a Gmail lookalike, try Go for Gmail or MailTab for Gmail. These haven’t been updated for quite some time though. Do you know of any up-to-date menu bar apps for checking non-Gmail inboxes? Focus Hocus Focus Multi-tasking can kill your mental energy. Switch to automated single-tasking with Hocus Focus. You can set the app to hide your inactive windows after a preset time or every time you switch to a different app. Hocus Focus allows you to set custom timers for each open application. Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! HazeOver ($8.99) Available on Setapp If you’d rather have inactive apps fade away into the background instead of disappearing from the screen altogether, try HazeOver. It puts the spotlight on the active app and acts as a dimmer switch for the inactive ones. Quitter Wish you could quit applications after a certain interval instead of hiding them? Quitter can take care of that for you. It’s one of those lesser-known apps that work wonders for your productivity. You can also hide apps with Quitter if you want to. Focus ($19.99) Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Available on Setapp If you need rescuing from Facebook and co or distracting desktop applications during your workday, check out Focus. It allows you to block distractions with a single click or a keystroke. While we’re on the subject, you might want to consider making a few changes to get a distraction-free computer. Use the timer built into Focus to schedule distraction-free sessions. They’re perfect for making inroads into your work and digging yourself out of task backlogs. If you’re worried your evil twin will find a way to cheat the system, the app has a couple of tricks to stop her. Focus comes with a free trial and a 60-day money back guarantee. Mac has some nice third-party distraction-blocking apps such as SelfControl and Cold Turkey. It’s a pity that the menu-bar-based solutions (i.e. competitors to Focus) seem to be in short supply. Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Productivity Tomato One (aka Pomodoro One) You don’t need a special app to work the Pomodoro way. Any old kitchen timer will do, but a menu bar app makes it easier, and the beautiful Tomato One is one of our top choices. It’s been a while since its developers updated the app, but it works fine, even in modern macOS versions. You can trigger a Pomodoro, a short break, or a long break from the app’s menu bar icon. If you want to tweak any of these intervals or turn off the Autostart feature, visit the app’s settings section via the Show option in the menu. Be Focused and Be Focused Pro ($4.99) Available on Setapp Be Focused combines a super simple to-do list feature with a Pomodoro timer. As with Tomato One, you get daily/weekly maps to chart your progress and the option to customize the time intervals for Pomodoros and breaks. Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! The app limits you to 10 to-do items. Of course, it’s best to stick to a handful of tasks to make your to-do list appear manageable instead of overwhelming. Be Focused adds a widget in the Notification Center and is also available as an iOS app. Copyright © 2018 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Workspaces ($7.99) Available on Setapp With Workspaces, you can summon up everything you need to work on a particular project with a snap of your fingers… er… with the click of a button. The app allows you to bundle the resources linked with a project (files, websites, emails, apps, and so on) into one set. You can see and open the contents of each project or “workspace” from the app’s menu bar icon. Watch the Youtube video here: Workspaces - how to use it Tyke Keep a scratch pad ready in your menu bar for typing in ideas, reminders, and other bits and pieces of information.