Getting started
Install GreatBar, find it in the menu bar, and put the first thing you open every day on it.
Install it
Download the disk image, open it, and drag GreatBar into Applications. Open it from there. It is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens on the first double click without anything to allow.
It needs macOS 14 or later, and it is free for now.
Find it
GreatBar has no Dock icon and no window that stays open. The mark it puts at the right of the menu bar is the whole app: click it for your bars, your shortcuts and Settings.
On the first run it says so from there, in three short screens: where it lives, how the number keys work, and what can go in the bar. Anything you add while reading is yours to keep. Settings has the introduction again under The introduction.
What it starts with
A Mac that has never run GreatBar starts with two bars and seven shortcuts between them, each showing one thing the app does:
- Work. A New group of pages that make something (a document, a sheet, a Figma file, a meeting), Translate in a panel, and the Mail app.
- Personal. A radio that keeps playing after its panel closes, ChatGPT in a panel, Gmail handed to your browser, and five social sites behind one Social icon.
They are yours from the first moment: rename them, prune them, or delete the lot. A Mac that already has a library, however empty, is left exactly as it is.
Add the first thing
Add it the way you already move things around the Mac:
- Drag it in. An app, a file or a folder from the Finder, or an address from a browser, dropped on GreatBar’s icon in the menu bar or into the list of shortcuts.
- From the Finder’s own menu. Right-click a file or a folder, and Add to GreatBar is under Services.
- From the Add menu. In the window where the shortcuts are, the + button offers A Link, An App, A File or a Folder, Into an App, A Group and A Divider. A link on the clipboard is offered first.
A drop asks the two things it cannot answer for itself: which bar it goes on, and whether it wants an icon of its own or belongs in a group. Nothing is added until you say so.
Where a link opens
Every link decides for itself, and the choice is remembered:
- In a panel under its own icon. The page stays as you left it between opens, logins included. It starts phone-sized and an edge drags it larger.
- In a window of its own, which a click elsewhere does not close, and which can stay above every other window.
- In your browser, the one this Mac already uses, or another you name.
Right-click any icon in the menu bar and all three are there. Choosing one opens it there and keeps the choice.
The keys
The menu bar answers to the keyboard, from wherever you are:
| Keys | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌃⌘1 to ⌃⌘9 | Press the first nine icons, counting from the left |
| ⌥⌃⌘1 to ⌥⌃⌘9 | The nine after them |
| Hold ⌃⌘ | Every icon says which number it is |
| ⌃⌘G | Open GreatBar’s own menu |
| ⌃⌘A | Open this bar’s shortcuts as a menu |
| ⌃⌘← ⌃⌘→ | Move to the bar before or after |
The pair of modifiers can be changed, or turned off, in Settings under Number keys.
Updates
GreatBar checks this site for a new version once a day and updates itself. Settings has Check for Updates… for the impatient. Nothing else leaves your Mac: there is no account, and no telemetry.
Next
Groups is where a bar stops being a row of icons and starts being a short one: several shortcuts behind a single icon, as a menu.