Zach Hamed takes a look at menu bar apps and compares 15 of the most popular ones.
Ask any Mac power user about their menubar and you’ll get a different list of 5-10 must-have applications and utilities that boost productivity. The menubar is the mission control of a user’s computer, giving them an at-a-glance view of stats and apps that are important to them.
I suppose I’m the exception to the rule, I prefer applications that don’t have a presence in the menu bar and refuse to use an app that doesn’t allow me to turn the menu bar icon off.
On the MacBook Air that I’m using to type this, my menu bar icons are as follows:
- Volume
- Wi-Fi
- Battery, with percentage indicator
- Clock
- Spotlight
- Notification Center
I don’t have any third-party menu bar icons and have even removed some of the system-defaults — Time Machine and Bluetooth. If I want quick access to an application or setting I’d rather use Alfred than access it with my mouse in the menu bar.
