Since folks seem to be interested in home screens, desktops, and the like, I thought I’d throw out the things I let live in my menubar.
Left to right:
Workspaces - doesn’t play well with MATLAB, so probably will be removed
Copied - syncs clipboard material between macOS and iOS, allows saving clips as e.g. templates
CleanMyDrive2 - can remove junk from external drives, allows quickly ejecting all drives
iStat Menus - overview of system activity etc. Probably overkill for most people.
Location Services - Calendar needs to know where I am for some reason
iStat Menus battery status
Carbon Copy Cloner - just hanging out waiting to back something up when I connect an external drive I’ve set up. Backs up my research data, cloud data (some of it anyway), and dropbox data to an external SSD.
Clean My Mac - waiting to clean some disc space, also keeping an eye out for hung applications. Also waiting to help clean up any files left behind when I delete an app.
Sharing preferences (blacked out, as everything is off)
Hazel - waiting to move PDFs from Downloads to my Bookends import folder. Also keeping an eye on the trash.
Magnet - a really awesome window manager. Shortcut keys allow you to move a window to the left half of the screen, left 1/3, lower half, etc. Also creates shortcut places at screen edges to resize windows.
Rescue Time - monitors what I’m doing on the computer. Pops up a window asking what I’ve been doing if I’ve been away. Helps me not fritter away my time. Weekly reports, and goals for categories, like ‘less than two hours per day on social media’.
Keyboard Maestro - I’ve created a lot of shortcuts and tool palettes to help me use applications more efficiently. For example, the ‘butterfly’ key on my keyboard opens Agenda, or hides the window if it’s already open - that is, it acts like a toggle. Shift+Butterfly for Bear, Ctrl+Butterfly for Ulysses. It’s really nice having them a keystroke away, and that they will go away with the same keystroke.
1Password - the old standalone version
Dropbar - great place to stick stuff temporarily. I also use their app installer just about every time, as it does a lot of the menial work of installing automatically.
Time Machine - Dropbox and iCloud are copies, not backups. So I do backups. Drives at home (4T, lots of history), and school (1T, less history).
Sound
Date and time
The ellipsis (three dots) is for Bartender. I have my menu bar divided into two pages, the second to follow.
Notifications - those things that make you less productive and break your train of thought. My most precious resource is my attention, so I’m very selective about who gets any.
Second Page
Less-used things, or things that don’t need fiddling with:
Dropbox - because other people want to use it
HazeOver - dims screen areas that aren’t actively being used, to minimize distraction and eye strain.
Bluetooth
WiFi / Ethernet
BackBlaze - if there is a catastrophe, I have a backup here, and thus a means to recover. Well worth $5/mo.
AutoMounter - hangs out and waits for my wired ethernet connection at school. When it sees it, it mounts a drive that I use all the time. It just works, and the drive is just there.
VPN
Currently using a Dvorak layout on my keyboard, so this is set to US English. If I switch to the builtin keyboard, I switch this to Dvorak. Completely makes sense, right?
My moniker
Default Folder X - remembers where you last opened / saved files, and their names, and conveniently goes to the folder and highlights the file. Amazingly helpful.
Spotlight - I always use the shortcut keys, so this doesn’t need to be here.
iVI Pro - currently ripping my DVD collection.
Plex - the reason why I’m ripping my DVD collection.
Magnet - My current solution for managing windows on macOS.
Fantastical - Best quick entry system for calendar events.
Keyboard Maestro - Do a fair amount of automation with this, especially using a Brett Terpstra style hyper key.
Screens - In case I need to access my Mac from my iPad.
1Password - First thing I install on any new Mac.
Dropbox - My main file syncing solution.
Better Touch Tool - I have a few customizations for my Magic Trackpad 2, but I should probably be making better use of this.
iStatMenus - CPU, memory, SSD, network, and sensors.
Interact Scratchpad - For quickly entering contact info. No longer being developed, but still working for me for the time being.
Tooth Fairy - For managing bluetooth headphones.
Haze Over - Great for distraction-free writing and watching videos.
TextExpander - Second thing I install on a new Mac. MacOS is basically broken for me without TextExpander.
OmniPresence - Syncing for my OmniFocus apps.
Karabiner-elements - Sets up that hyper-key I mentioned earlier.
Backblaze - Gotta have an offsite backup.
Mountain - Managing external hard drives for my on-site backup.
Alfred - My launcher app of choice.
Drobo - Stores my less frequently used files (and more backups!).
Carbon Copy Cloner - This is what does all those backups.
Hazel - A vital part of my paperless workflow.
Time Machine - More backups.
Scripts - Another feature of macOS I’m not using as much as I should.
Bluetooth
WiFi
Airplay
Eject
Volume
Time
Spotlight - Still occasionally need this rather than Alfred.
Notifications
I’m a big Bartender user on my laptops, but I’ve held off putting it on my iMac. The 27" display has enough real estate across the top that even with all those menu bar apps I don’t really have issues with an app’s menus covering them up. That said, I’m thinking of resorting to Bartender to hide some of the less important stuff just to make other stuff easier to find.
Almost nothing there (iStat Menus, time, battery).
The reasoning: what benefit do the icons in the menu bar have? One example: Backblaze. It does backups in the background, why do I need an icon? If I ever need Backblaze, I launch it via Alfred. Same for Dropbox: syncs in the background, no need for an icon. This applies to most stuff in the menu bar, the items are just there. So I just kept this that give me immediate, visual information and got rid of the rest. Everything can be launched or triggered via keyboard, which is way faster that moving the mouse pointer to those little icons.
How do you manage to keep them out of your menu bar?
When I am offered the choice of the app placing its icon in the Dock, or Menu bar, I always opt for the latter, since Barkeeper hides them in any event. Granted, my Dock is hidden as well, but I occasionally still activate it up to fetch ‘hidden’ windows, and prefer to have it as empty as possible.
Never used it. 99% of the time I am on fast internet connections, so no issues. In the rare occasions where I am on wonky WLAN, I just open the folder in Finder and I see the sync status of every file.
I used Bartender 2 to manage dozens of items, now I use it mainly to hide the resilient ones.
