Adding things
Every way in: dragging from the Finder or a browser, the Finder's own Services menu, the clipboard, and the Add menu.
Nothing has to be typed twice. GreatBar takes what the Mac already gives it: a file dragged out of the Finder, an address dragged out of a browser, an app from the Applications folder, a link copied inside Slack. This page is every way in.
Drag it in
Pick the thing up and drop it on GreatBar’s own icon in the menu bar, or into the list of shortcuts in its window. It takes:
- an app, a file or a folder from the Finder;
- an address from a browser’s address bar, or a link from a page;
- several at once, and it keeps taking them while you drag more in.
A drop opens a small panel that asks the two things a drop cannot answer for itself:
| The question | What it means |
|---|---|
| Bar | Which bar the shortcut goes on. The bar showing is offered first. |
| Show in menu bar | On, the shortcut gets an icon of its own. Off, it lives in GreatBar’s own menu instead, and can be moved into a group later. |
Everything waiting is listed, each row with a way to leave it out. Nothing is added until you press Add, and Cancel throws the lot away.
From the Finder
Right-click a file or a folder in the Finder and Add to GreatBar is under Services. It does exactly what a drop does, panel and all. If you do not see it, the Services menu hides entries it thinks you do not use: System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts › Services has the switch.
From the Add menu
In GreatBar’s window, the Add button in the toolbar names what you get, in the words the app uses everywhere:
- A Link. Any address: a web page, or a deep link like
figma://file/…. See Websites in a panel. - An App… opens a picker on your Applications folder.
- A File or a Folder… opens the Mac’s own picker. Picking is what gives a sandboxed app the right to open that file again later, which is why there is no field to type a path into.
- Into an App ▸ lists the apps whose links GreatBar knows the shape of, with what each one can open. See Links into apps.
- A Group makes an empty group to fill. See Groups.
- A Divider is a line between icons, or a heading inside a group’s menu.
A link you copied in an app
Some links are only ever copied, never typed: a Slack channel, a Figma file, a WhatsApp chat. Open Add › Into an App, choose the app and what you want to open, and the editor says where that link is in that app, step by step. Paste it and the fields fill in from the link itself. If the link is already on your clipboard, the editor offers it as a row you can press rather than making you paste.
A whole bar or group somebody sent you
A bar or a group can be exported as a .greatbar document from its right-click menu. Open
one and it arrives as a review: every entry with a verdict beside it, and nothing lands
until you press Apply. It is always a copy to add, never a change to what you have.
Or ask an assistant
An assistant connected over MCP can propose whole bars at once, which is worth it when you are setting up rather than adding one thing. It proposes; you apply or decline. See MCP and assistants.
What a new shortcut arrives with
- A name. A web link takes the page’s own title, fetched once the address stops changing. A name you typed is never replaced; clearing the field asks the page again.
- An icon. A web link with no icon of its own shows the site’s favicon, fetched once and kept. An app or a file wears its own. See Icons.
- Somewhere to open. A link follows your default (the panel, unless you changed it in Settings) until it says otherwise.