What’s in your Menu Bar?
Having not seen the question posed in a few months, I think it’s time once again. What’s in your Menu Bar? I think there are enough of us out there with some little app or utility that we take for granted. Lets post em so everyone can find a new gem or two. I’ll start.
From left to right:
Synergy (iTunes control)
Desktop Manager (Virtual Desktop Manager)
GmailStatus (gmail, um, status)
Textpander (Typing aid/magic)
Slim Battery Monitor (Takes up less space)
Menu Meters (RAM and CPU)
Airport
Clock (customize the format in System Prefs\International)
Spotlight
Alright, let’s see them people. My first suggestion would be to post to flickr – where you can annotate your screen shots – and tag them with ‘tabmenubar’. Then post a comment with a link to your flickr page. But do it however you like – even if it’s just a list in the comments. I just happen to like pictures…Shiny and colorful things hold my attention longer.
Ryan on February 21st, 2006 at 12:05 am
Well… Apparently my flickr account is still “pending”, so here’s a link to my menubar this way instead…
http://flickr.com/photos/85252178@N00/102481603/
Scott Rose on February 21st, 2006 at 12:22 am
Here’s a listing of what I’ve got in my menubar:
1. URLWell — great for earmarking websites you want to visit later.
2. iSeek — from Ambrosia Software, the most useful Internet Search tool ever. Set it with a keyboard shortcut and you’ve reached new levels of productivity!
3. Timbuktu Pro
4. GMail Status
5. iChat
6. QuickDay (part of Now Up-To-Date)
7. iSync
8. Volume
9. Date/Time
10. Spotlight
Chase on February 21st, 2006 at 12:45 am
heres mine
Adium
Quicksilver
Meteorologist
Slimbattery Monitor
MenuCalendarClock
High Priority (Easier ToDo lists)
MenuMeters (Memory, and CPU)
Airport
Bluetooth
Modem (for getting online through my RAZR)
Volume
Displays(with a custom icon)
Clock
Sync (with a custom icon i made)
Spotlight
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25659945@N00/102499171/
Michael on February 21st, 2006 at 12:49 am
I’ve got a 12″ powerbook, so menubar real-esate is tight. I like the simplicity anyways. From Left to right:
1. Blue Phone Elite: shows the battery and signal status of my bluetooth cellphone
2. SlimBatteryMonitor: More customizable than the apple one and takes up less space
3. airport
4. clock: in HH:MM format, no date, no day to save space and be simpler
5. Spotlight: I never use the menu, just the window and quicksliver wish I could get rid of it.
Jeff Clark on February 21st, 2006 at 1:35 am
17″ Intel iMac (one sexy machine, seriously)
Skype
iBiz *get this now if you freelance
Adium
Synergy
Quicksilver
Volume
Time
Airport
Bluetooth
Spotlight
Jeff Clark on February 21st, 2006 at 1:36 am
And apparently this site doesn’t want to show my picture! (feel free to merge)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffclark/102513607/
Chase on February 21st, 2006 at 1:46 am
wouldnt show mine either
mathie on February 21st, 2006 at 3:26 am
All the menu bar utilities I’m running on my menu bar. From left to right:
* Adium
* Skype
* Quicksilver
* Path Finder
* iScrobbler
* Adobe Version Cue CS2
* SSHKeychain
* Textpander
* Mark/space Missing Sync
* Menumeters
* iSync
* Applescript
* Time
* Switch users
* Spotlight
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31634770@N00/102538680/
Fabien de Serres on February 21st, 2006 at 4:52 am
Here is mine:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nanocactus/102552587/
I recently removed some… my eyes were blurry…
;-)
Sam Aaron on February 21st, 2006 at 7:15 am
From left to right I have:
Slim Battery Monitor: Saves space (every little helps when you have a 12″ screen!
Adium Everyone’s favourite messenger client
Path Finder Cocoatech’s fantastic Finder app
Quicksilver Probably the most used app on my machine
iScrobbler for automatic last.fm updates.
Romeo Old and looks to be unmaintained, but does the job of connecting address book to my phone via bluetooth when it’s in range perfectly
Bluetooth
Airport
Volume
MenuCalendarClock: Much more control over the display of the time (yey, full stops rather than colons), I just wish I could get lower case am and pm. Spotlight
(http://sam.aaron.name/blog/?p=69)
Sam Aaron on February 21st, 2006 at 7:20 am
Let’s try that again with a simpler approach ;-)
* Slim Battery Monitor
* Adium
* Path Finder
* Quicksilver
* iScrobbler
* Romeo
* Bluetooth
* Airport
* Volume
* MenuCalendarClock
* Spotlight
http://sam.aaron.name/blog/?p=69
Robert Nicholson on February 21st, 2006 at 7:34 am
Just exactly how did you get that date time format? Apparently it’s not straight forward to get both date and time in the menu bar. I only get the time.
Nick Santilli on February 21st, 2006 at 8:32 am
Robert -
Go to System Preferences
International
Formats tab
Choose to customize DATES
Play with the Short/Medium/Long formats from the drop down
You can drag and drop the Elements into the main text field, as well as add your own characters for the formatting look you desire. (mine has the pipe | between the time and date)
hope that helps – I couldn’t for the life of me find where I first saw this tip, otherwise I would have linked to it.
Arsen on February 21st, 2006 at 10:08 am
Here is the tips post, http://creativebits.org/mac_os_x/date_and_time_in_the_menubar
Nick Santilli on February 21st, 2006 at 10:09 am
Arsen – that’s it. Thanks!!
Chuck Cheeze on February 21st, 2006 at 10:44 am
I have a 20″ Intel iMac, my first Mac, which I am addicted to. Still learning about Macs, so here is my menubar:
Synergy (iTunes control)
Adium X
QS
Airport
Clock
Spotlight
And here is my question: Does more menubar icons use more memory? I like having quick access to things up there, but I am picky about the productivity gains vs. memory loss. On my PCs I have always been super mindful of icons that get put in the tray.
Thanks!
Nick Santilli on February 21st, 2006 at 10:48 am
Chuck -
yes, there’s going to be some draw on the memory/cpu, but it’ll largely depend on what they’re doing (and how well they’re coded too)
Textpander for instance, monitors all your keystrokes (tho not in a big brother sort of way) watching for certain text combinations and replaces them according to your settings. It doesn’t seem to affect performance on my system though.
So as you may add items to the menubar, if you notice a performance hit, try removing it and see if that helps matters.
Mine is actually ‘cluttered’ for my liking, but I use each of those items enough, that they’ve earned their spaces.
Michael May on February 21st, 2006 at 12:42 pm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54485674@N00/102681899/
The two I marked as get out I have now removed, so thanks for helping me clear my menu bar real estate :D
MaxL on February 21st, 2006 at 3:52 pm
1. iBiz timer – timer for invoicing & project mgmt app for freelancers
2. ChronoSync scheduler – automated backups to external drives
3. Slimbattery monitor
4. High Priority – task management integrated with iCal tasks
5. Audio volume
5. Day, date, & time
6. Winswitch – free, gives more granular control over fast user switching menubar item
7. ASM – Fast application switching between currently running apps a la OS 9 and before
8. Spotlight – wish I could get rid of it; I use Quicksilver instead
Jason Terhorst on February 21st, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Using downloaded menu bar items?! Pah! I make my own!
Actually, you really can. There are some topics about it on http://www.cocoadev.com and http://www.cocoadevcentral.com
tim on February 21st, 2006 at 10:57 pm
how to get rid of the spotlight icon:
in terminal, type “sudo mv Search.bundle Search_SAFE.bundle”
itll ask for the admin password, then go into Activity Monitor and force quit SystemUIServer. and ka-flam, the icon is gone, but you can still use it in mail, and other programs that use spotlight.
if you have problems, dont kill me, im just the messenger, im quite happy with spotlight for my searching needs.
-tim
tim on February 21st, 2006 at 11:01 pm
whoops, i forgot to mention to first do “cd /System/Library/CoreServices/” first…
sorry about that.
-tim
Lee Bennett on February 22nd, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Adium menubar widget
IP
Timbuktu
SlimBatteryMonitor
WeatherMenu
SharingMenu
YouControl item for following National Hurricane Center feeds
Menu Meters’ TCP monitor
the usual Apple Volume, Displays, and Int’l access
YouControl’s user switching replacement
YouControl’s clock/calendar replacement
Spotlight
(this is office. similar setup at home but lacking the NHC syndication icon and adding Apple’s Airport, Modem, and Bluetooth menu icons)
John Man on February 22nd, 2006 at 8:10 pm
I have on my menubar:
QuicKeys – http://www.startly.com – macros for OS X
Path Finder – http://www.cocoatech.com – Finder replacement
Adium – http://www.adiumx.com – instant messenger
Synergy – http://www.wincent.com – iTunes controller
You Control: Desktops – http://www.yousoftware.com – virtual desktop
You Control (clock module) – http://www.yousoftware.com – clock/date display
You Control (user switching module) – http://www.yousoftware.com – improved fast user switching interface
Spotlight
For the sake of completeness, I also have the following on my desktop:
Dock (left hand side; hidden) – out of the way as I never use the Dock (being a LaunchBar user – http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar )
Dragthing tabs (bottom) – http://www.dragthing.com – a Dock on steroids
Trash can (bottom right) – provided by Path Finder (see above)
iClip (right; hidden) – inventive.us/iClip/ – multiple clipboards
Yojimbo drop dock (right) – http://www.barebones.com – info organiser
Lee Webb on February 23rd, 2006 at 4:25 am
Hi,
Here’s what’s in my menubar:
Skype
Adium
YouControl iTunes
Textpander
Applescripts
Bluetooth
Volume
Date and time in this format Thu 10:22 Feb 23
Username (I don’t switch users but I just like the username there)
And of course Spotlight (although I too use QS)
Matthias on February 26th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
GimmeSomeTune
Monitors
iChat
Audio-Thingy
Date&Time
Spotlight
Rick on February 28th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Help, please. How do I go about removing some items from my menu bar?
Nick Santilli on February 28th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Rick – you can either select the preference to not show it in the menubar, or you can hold APPLE (cmd) and click and drag the item out of the menubar
Scott on March 1st, 2006 at 11:02 am
I’ve lost spotlight from my menubar and I’d like to get it back. Any ideas on how I can do that? I’ve tried a few remedies I’ve found on the net, but none have worked.
Dual 2 GHz G5
OS 10.4.5
Oyvind on March 8th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I have started a new menubar group on Flickr. Post your screenshots, and join the discussion.
Felicia Saathoff on May 21st, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Does anyone have any ideas on how to keep the ibiz timer in the menu bar when you don’t have ibiz running, like you can do with ichat…
Emily S S on May 26th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Quicksilver, Volume, Airport, Battery, Time, U.S.A. Flag for charter plate, and Spotlight.
ki99 on August 18th, 2008 at 1:36 am
mainmenu ->various system tasks
mail unread menu ->a menu for unread mail in apple mail
adium
insomniax ->to shut my notebook, and keep it running
menuprefs ->instant access to sys prefs
smcfancontrol ->to monitor my comps temp
slimbatterymonitor ->smaller then apples
ejector ->for ejecting servers, ipods, flash drives, cds, etc…
memorycell ->shows ram used by current app
input source ->(apples) for changing keyboard layouts
airpot ->(apples)
fuzzyclock ->shows time as “nearly four”, “shortly after nine”, “quarter to eight” etc..
and spotlight, just ’cause i’m too lazy to get rid of it.
Lee on June 6th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Yeah, I had way too many icons in my menu bar. I had the hardest time trying to get rid of the iSync icon until I found these instructions – http://blog.gingergeek.com/2009/06/how-to-remove-the-isync-mobileme-icon-from-menu-bar/