Why I Build macOS Menu Bar Apps

Building software has always been about solving problems for me. Not big, world-changing problems necessarily, but the small frustrations that add up throughout the day. The kind of friction that makes you think, “There has to be a better way.”

That’s how I got into building macOS menu bar apps.

The Appeal of Menu Bar Apps

Menu bar apps occupy this unique space in the macOS ecosystem. They’re always accessible, yet unobtrusive. They live in the background, ready when you need them, invisible when you don’t. This constraint—having to be useful while taking up minimal screen real estate—forces you to focus on what truly matters.

I love that challenge.

Each app I build is designed around a single purpose. Battery Vitals monitors your battery health. Storage Peek shows you what’s eating your disk space. SignalPeek keeps tabs on your network. One tool, one job, done well.

Why Minimal Matters

We live in an age of feature creep. Apps that start simple inevitably accumulate buttons, settings, and capabilities until they become bloated and confusing. I’ve fallen into that trap before, adding features because I could, not because I should.

With menu bar apps, there’s a natural pressure to stay minimal. You simply don’t have the real estate to add unnecessary complexity. This constraint is liberating. It forces me to make hard choices about what stays and what goes.

The result? Apps that are easier to build, easier to maintain, and—most importantly—easier to use.

Building for Myself (And Others Like Me)

Every app I’ve built started as a tool I needed for myself. I got tired of diving into System Preferences to check my battery health. I wanted a quick way to visualize my storage without waiting for Finder to analyze my drives. I needed network stats at a glance.

Building for my own needs keeps me honest. I can’t hide behind market research or user personas. If I wouldn’t use it daily, why would anyone else?

But here’s the beautiful part: when you build something genuinely useful for yourself, you often discover there are thousands of other people with the same problem. That’s when an indie project becomes something bigger.

The Joy of Shipping

There’s something deeply satisfying about shipping a complete product. Not a feature, not a component, but a whole thing that someone can download and use immediately. Menu bar apps, by their nature, are small enough to ship regularly.

This rapid feedback loop—build, ship, iterate—keeps me motivated. I’m not working on something for months before users see it. I can release an MVP in weeks, get real feedback, and improve from there.

What’s Next

I’m continuing to explore this space. There are so many small problems worth solving, so many opportunities to build something minimal and useful. Each app teaches me something new about design, development, and what people actually need versus what they think they want.

If you’re thinking about building your own macOS apps, my advice is simple: start small, solve your own problems, and don’t be afraid to ship something minimal. The world doesn’t need another bloated feature-rich app. It needs more tools that do one thing exceptionally well.

That’s what I’m building. One menu bar app at a time.