explaingit

matryer/xbar

★ 18,014GoAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5StaleLicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

A macOS menu bar app that runs scripts and displays their output in the top menu bar, letting you create custom status indicators for anything.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((xbar))
    What it does
      Run scripts on schedule
      Display output in menu bar
      Custom status indicators
    How to use
      Write any script
      xbar runs it periodically
      Browse community plugins
    Use cases
      Server uptime monitoring
      Stock price tracking
      Weather display
      Build status alerts
    Tech stack
      Go language
      macOS Catalina+
      Shell scripts supported

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Monitor server uptime and display status in your menu bar without opening a terminal.

USE CASE 2

Track stock prices or cryptocurrency values and see them update automatically in the menu bar.

USE CASE 3

Show weather, unread email counts, or build pipeline status at a glance from the menu bar.

USE CASE 4

Create custom alerts for anything you can query with a script, no coding experience needed to use plugins.

Tech stack

GomacOSShell scripts

Getting it running

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires macOS and building from source; may need code signing for menu bar app installation.

Use freely for any purpose including commercial, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

xbar (previously known as BitBar) is a macOS application that lets you display the output of any script or program in the menu bar, the strip at the top of the screen that normally shows things like the clock, battery level, and Wi-Fi status. The idea is simple: you write a script in any language that prints text, and xbar runs it on a schedule and shows that text in your menu bar. This makes it easy to create custom status indicators for anything you can query from a script, server uptime, stock prices, weather, unread email counts, build status, and so on. A plugin repository at xbarapp.com hosts a large collection of ready-made plugins contributed by the community. You can browse and install plugins directly from within the app through Preferences. xbar is a complete rewrite of the original BitBar project, built in Go. It requires macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or newer. The app is free and open source. Plugin development is handled in a separate repository at xbar-plugins.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I write a simple xbar plugin that shows the current time in a different timezone?
Prompt 2
Show me an example xbar plugin that fetches and displays data from a REST API.
Prompt 3
How do I set up xbar to run a script every 5 minutes and display the output in my menu bar?
Prompt 4
What's the easiest way to install and use community plugins from xbarapp.com in xbar?
Prompt 5
Can I create an xbar plugin that runs a shell command and shows the result with color formatting?
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.