MenuSprite
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A little something, just for your Mac.
Your tools. Your style. A little personality.
Start with live system monitoring and keep-awake tools.
The native Mac app is ready to try.
Free public preview · Apple Silicon · macOS 26+
Star on GitHub Free & open source. A little star helps.
a tiny operator.0.5.9 Preview 1
For Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 26 Tahoe or later.
Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple.
One Terminal command. Updates come with brew upgrade.
The command is on the next step, after a short form you can skip. Paste it into Terminal, press Return, then open MenuSprite from Applications. Uses Prerak’s Homebrew tap. New to Homebrew? Get Homebrew, or use the DMG installer.
No Terminal needed.
Download for Mac DMG installerChoose your readings and appearance in Monitoring & Sprites. CPU, RAM, power, network, and available fan/temperature readings live in your menu bar. Click CPU, RAM, or Power for a closer look at app usage.
Add Claude and Codex usage readings from Quick start, with day-by-day pace colors and editable labels. Icons and text can use separate colors, and readouts have a little breathing room. Click the MenuSprite icon for one panel with every page, quit apps straight from the CPU, RAM and Power lists, and try the Dynamic Island (off until you switch it on). Design sprites in the Sprite studio from text, icons, level bars and your own shell commands, or start from the gallery. New in 0.5.8: ask an AI agent such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor to build a sprite for you through the bundled menusprite command, and turn on power controls for a charge limit, fan control and closed-lid keep-awake.
Go on. Make a few changes.
The best menu bar?
The one that feels like you.
Interactive concept with example data. This page doesn’t read your Mac. Updates paused.
A clock here. A system monitor there. Another app to keep it all tidy. We’re imagining one place to bring your menu bar together—and make something entirely yours.
Choose what appears, arrange your items, and keep the things you actually use within reach. Organization is part of the playground.
Icons or your own images. Text, color, font weight, style, and size. A quiet indicator or a little animation. You choose the personality.
Connect the system information, metrics, and logs you choose to enable. Set refresh timing around what matters to you, with access guided by macOS permissions.
Inspired by the joy of building in Scratch. Pick the pieces, connect a little behavior, and watch your menu bar take shape.
Start in the GUI. Add a basic script when you want to go further.
The visual builder we’re working towardMeet a few of the sprites imagined for your menu bar.
Pick a companion. See it in the preview.
Character concepts for the future sprite library. Your own icons and images belong here, too.
Built around native macOS technology. This is a menu bar app, through and through.
Low idle CPU, a small memory footprint, and careful background work are core design goals.
Free to use and open source under MIT. Make it your own, or help shape what comes next.
Small beginnings. Plenty of possibility.
MenuSprite started with a simple wish: one lightweight place to organize my menu bar and build the little tools I want to use.
The public preview brings system monitoring, Claude/Codex usage, configurable readouts, permissions, and keep-awake tools to your Mac. The visual builder and sprite library shown here are concepts for what comes next.
Prerak Gada Creator of MenuSprite ↗Yes. Version 0.5.9 Preview 1 is available for Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 26 Tahoe or later. Install with Homebrew or download the DMG. It is Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple. Intel Macs and older macOS versions aren’t supported by this build.
System monitoring, configurable menu-bar readouts, CPU/RAM/Power app-usage panels with quit buttons, the hub panel, the Dynamic Island (off by default), Permissions & Access, keep-awake rules, the Sprite studio and gallery, agent-built sprites, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth sprites, and power controls: charge limit, discharge, fan control and closed-lid keep-awake, through a helper that stays off until you turn it on and allow it in System Settings. Sensor availability varies by Mac; CPU-temperature mapping currently targets the tested M5 family. Per-app Power is derived from CPU energy and does not include GPU, display, or other component power. Work & Clients, capture, clipboard history and the marketplace are not in this preview.
For a Homebrew installation, run brew update, then brew upgrade --cask menusprite. For a manual installation, quit MenuSprite, open the new DMG, and drag MenuSprite onto Applications. Choose Replace when Finder asks, then open the app from Applications and eject the installer disk. Your saved settings stay in place.
Yes. The public preview is free to download and use. The complete source is available on GitHub under the MIT license.
Menu bar organization and custom items are both part of the vision. The exact control available over other apps’ items still needs to be validated against macOS capabilities. We’re not promising unrestricted control of every app.
It counts page views and downloads with its own cookieless counter: no cookies, no IP addresses stored, nothing shared. Page views are skipped when your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track. When you download or ask for the Homebrew command, it asks for your name, email, what you do and a referral code. Every field is optional and you can skip it. What you give is used only to understand who uses MenuSprite, and is never shared or sold.
The native preview reads system metrics for the monitoring sprites you enable. Permissions & Access shows MenuSprite’s own access and supported settings actions; opening that page does not request permissions. Custom log sources, scripts, and visual building blocks are future work. The app sends something of its own only when you write in: Report a Problem… and Send Feedback… (in the hub’s Tools) send what you type, plus the app version, macOS version and Mac model, and only when you press Send. The server notes a rough location (country, region and city) from your connection and stores no IP address. This browser concept uses example readings and never accesses your Mac’s system logs.
No. Choose your readings and change their appearance in the native app’s Monitoring & Sprites window. The DMG installer also lets you install without Terminal. The more flexible visual builder shown on this page is still a concept.
No. MenuSprite is specifically for the macOS menu bar. Native Mac integration and a small resource footprint are the focus.
The Arranger pose. A slim rail. A mint item made yours.
