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I only keep stuff in my menu bar that I really need. Over the years I’ve discovered that all I need is the clock…
Here are some things I don’t need to see: Wifi, always on. Bluetooth, always on and it warns me when stuff needs a new battery. Spotlight, I use Quicksilver instead. I also hate to have stuff like Dropbox (the icon is still there but made transparent) and Hazel showing up there – I mean it’s always running, no need to tell me all the time… I’ve even thought about getting rid of the clock and just using reminders from Quicksilver to keep track of time…
Note: This is my iMac, my MacBook Pro also has the Battery indicator.
(From David Pedersen, master of menu bar minimalism)
- I just love the streaming feature, and it is nice and smooth too.
- Insanely useful, I pause my music so often to watch a YouTube video or whatever and forget to put it back on.
- Great tool for my webdesign.
CloudApp - Great for quickly sharing screenshots and files, more convenient than Dropbox in my opinion.
- Again, webdesign.
- I use it to check the time in the US when needed, great utility.
- So I never have to use the website again, I use the chat with iChat.
iChat - Used for Facebook IM and AIM.
AirPort, Battery, Clock and Spotlight - I remove every default menubar item I don’t need, and these are the ones I use all the time.
Hidden:
BetterTouchTool - Great for browsing the web, I have a ton of custom gestures, I can literally browse almost without the mouse or keyboard.
Bowtie - Attractive and sleek way to view your currently playing music on your desktop.
(From )
Boom - Allows you to substantially increase your Mac’s volume beyond normal levels
Skitch - Überawesome screenshot capture, annotation, and sharing tool. It’s free. Get it. Now.
Dropbox - No explanation necessary.
Caffeine - When activated, prevents your Mac from going to sleep, dimming the display, going to screensaver, or doing any of those annoying things that seem to happen right at the best part of that movie you’re trying to watch
The next three: iStat Menus - Mac monitoring and reporting tools, living right up in the menubar. I use it for Temperature, CPU usage, Battery status (takes up less room and is more customizable than built in battery indicator), along with the clock display further down (again, more functional than built in clock item). There are all sorts of other options, like memory usage, network traffic, and lots of others.
Stock Airport menu, Time Machine, and Spotlight. The only time Spotlight is used is when I need to quit Launchbar for some reason; a rare occurrence.
(From Connor P, contributor to the International Mac Podcast)
Dropbox - You know why. I guess even if Apple releases its own clone, I’d keep it because of my Windows and Linux friends.
DoThings - My menubar companion to Things.app. Shows me the top item on today’s list (anti-procrastination tool) and allows me to mark it as done and ask for the next one. Also allows itself to be paused.
- When I’m screen sharing on a meeting or talk, I like to be able to quickly shut down all my Adium notifications.
ShiftIt - Resize windows to take halves or quarters of screens. A must if you work with multiple apps on the same task.
Native VPN - Sometimes I need to connect to universities network in order to download papers or connect to some servers.
Time Machine, Airport, Sound, Battery, Date, Spotlight - All the basics, but I should mention that having the day of the week next to time is really important to me since I usually get all mixed up with dates. I should really start having weekends, so I can track days.
(From )
Alfred - Spotlight who?
PhotoSync - No cables recquired! Sync your photos to your iOS devices with ease.
Pastebot Sync - Another great Tapbots app.
Dropbox - I don’t how I could live without this. I use it to sync up all my iDevices & when I’m on the go.
Droplr - A simple drop will do… (see explanation below)
CloudApp - To the Cloud! I share so many links, images, videos, etc. with this it’s second nature.
Bowtie - Simple way to navigate your iTunes music on your desktop in a clean & beautiful way.
Sparrow - My go-to email client on the Mac.
- I’ve tried others but always come back to this because of its many features.
- The best way to get your facebook notifications on your Mac.
(From )
Sophos Anti-Virus - Awesome Anti-virus client for the Mac.
TunesArt - Scrobbling mini remote iTunes controller.
Sparrow - Mini email client. I am diggin’ it.
Dropbox - Cloud sync client.
Boxcar - Beta of the Boxcar client app. Great on iOS and nice to have access to Boxcar notifications while I am on the Mac as well.
Evernote - Cloud based notes and clippings. Awesome!
Quicksilver - Best. Launcher. Ever. Newly resurrected. Someone write me a Twitter plugin, OK?
Wifi - Apple’s Wifi Manager. Yeah…
iStat Menus - Shown here are the battery, date and time widgets.
Spotlight - Apple’s indexed search utility. Handy.
(From Chris Buckland, IT expert and Audio Systems Analyst at Greater Media Detroit)
QuickCal – Allows me to add appointments to iCal in a pop up window using natural language.
– I should remove this but my ego and fear of missing out won’t allow it. ;-)
Dropbox – This should be built in.
FastScripts – Allows me to execute a few Applescripts I have come to rely on with keyboard commands.
DisplayPad – Lets me use my iPad as a second display over WiFi (Seems like magic. Likely is.)
The rest are built in stuff. Sync, Bluetooth, Airport, Battery, Clock, Spotlight.
(From Patrick Rhone, Writer, Editor, and Curator; of Minimal Mac, , The Random Post, PatrickRhone.com and Keeping It Straight)
Twitterrific, F.lux, Dropbox, Droplr, Battery, and Spotlight.
I like to keep my menu bar simple. I keep track of time and date with Widgets in Safari. F.lux is my favorite app to keep my eyes comfortable late at night. Dropbox lets me know the recently changed files while Droplr lets me have an easier upload process.
(From Sayz Lim)
smcFanControl - To make sure that my old Macbook is not gonna stop brutally due to those annoying Websites still using Flash.
Dropbox - A must have.
TextExpander - I mostly use Markdown, HTML and date replacement snippets.
Cloud App - Very neat tool to easily upload screenshots and files.
Hazel - Great tool to rename and sort files in my Downloads folder but also to sort my Dropbox files when they get automatically on my computer thanks to services such as SendtoDropbox or DropItTo.
SlimBatteryMonitor - A neat app to replace the default Mac Battery icon, I only need to know the percentage of remaining battery, not the logo. Besides I am usually already aware of the fact that my battery is charging thanks to the red light on the charger.
- To keep a log of my copied items.
Caffeine - Very convenient when Skyping or watching videos in a browser.
Sound, Bluetooth, Wi-fi, Clock and Spotlight - The basics. I have the Bluetooth there only because I use a Bluetooth earset.
(From Louis)
Alfred - Launch/do almost anything.
Caffeine - Keep your Mac awake. Pretty menubar replacement found here.
Bowtie - Controls iTunes.
- Add events to iCal quickly without opening up the app.
Skitch - Fast screenshots, use it mostly for the notation feature.
Droplr - Short URL sharing/screenshots tool.
Dropbox - Sync your files.
Divvy - Window management.
Evernote - Notes, save anything.
Transmit - Best FTP client ever.
Littlesnapper - Snaps, mostly used for saving inspiration.
- Notifies you of Facebook activity.
(From Adelle Charles, Founder of Fuel Brand Inc., Carbon Ads & Tinder. You can catch me .)