Recent posts by ldstephens and The Art Of Not Asking Why listing the contents of their Mac’s menu bar reminded me that it can be an insight into one’s usage and the evolution of apps. I listed mine in 2020, 2012 and 2010. So here is the 2024 update – will retirement have made any difference?
From left to right:
The first three are from Sound Source for shunting audio around your Mac.
Then Apple’s new Passwords app and then their Time Machine backups.
I keep trying clipboard managers such as ClipBook but none have yet replaced Clipy (far right).
With a gazillion terabytes of external storage hanging off the back of my Mac Jettison helps mange their mounting and ejections.
Likewise Cookie ejects all the crud that developers like to load into my browsers.
Apparently Focus is there but I never use it/have a need for it.
Alas I have never really got to grips with Keyboard Maestro and all it can do – will add it to the list of retirement projects.
The Bluetooth lets me check when the keyboard and trackpad are running out of juice etc.
The trackpad is greatly enhanced by BetterTouchTool and its almost daily updates with ever expanding features.
Quick switching of Sound output/volume for when you blast sound from the speakers at midnight thinking it was going to your headphones.
The Mac is kept awake/put to sleep with Amphetamine – It is on the Mac’s App Store but the developer does not seem to have an actual website.
The venerable 1Password will probably be usurped by the Passwords app one day but it is still here for now.
The Hazel app does background stuff moving downloads to the right place and collecting files associated with apps you moved to the bin etc.
Replacing TextExpander, when they introduced some silly subscription thing (since reversed I think) Typinator does an excellent job of automatically filling in oft repeated text.
Of course there is PopClip. A Mac without PopClip is barely a Mac at all. How it avoided being Sherlocked remains a mystery.
WiFi and Spotlight although I just Command+Space for the latter.
A new arrival is RunCat which runs faster or slower depending on the drain on your CPU. Mostly I just wanted to play around with adding my own animation.
To save the bread from burning (again!) Gestimer works well.
Replacing ClipMenu (see 2012 and 2020 editions) which was seemingly abandoned by the developer Clipy resumed development. I have not found anything as useful for clipboard management.
The final star icon is for Bartender which hides all the above when not required. There was a bit of a kerfuffle on the Interwebs recently with people getting upset (imagine such a thing!) but their explanation seems reasonable so it is still here.
Then there is the immovable Apple stuff which means I no longer have Fuzzy Time .
