Settings
Every switch in Settings and what it changes: launch, theme, keys and gestures, pages, updates, and the assistants under Advanced.
Settings is reached from GreatBar’s own menu (⌃⌘G, then Settings…, or ⌘,), and from the top of the sidebar in GreatBar’s window. Every row says what it does underneath its own name; this page is the same thing, in one place, with what the row cannot fit.
Almost everything here is a default: a link that says nothing of its own follows it, and a link that says something ignores it. Changing a default changes every link that never made up its own mind, including the ones you add tomorrow.
Launch and appearance
Launch at login. GreatBar is there the moment you log in, so its icon is where you left it. macOS may ask you to approve it under System Settings › General › Login Items, and the row offers a button that goes there.
Theme. System, Light or Dark, for GreatBar’s own window and for pages opened in GreatBar, which follow it unless a link says otherwise. The menu bar icons follow the menu bar itself, as everything up there does.
Keys and gestures
Open the menu. The global key for GreatBar’s own menu. ⌃⌘G to start with, and it can be recorded or cleared.
Open this bar’s shortcuts. The global key for a flat menu of what is in the menu bar right now. ⌃⌘A to start with.
Number keys. Which pair of modifiers the digits and the arrows are on: ⌃⌘, ⌥⌘, ⇧⌃, a custom pair, or Off. The row spells out what the current choice does in the keys it is actually on. See Keyboard.
Scroll to switch bars. Roll the wheel or swipe over any icon in the menu bar, GreatBar’s own included, and the bar before or after takes its place. Down or right is the bar after. It answers only over GreatBar’s icons, so it takes nothing from anything else.
Pages opened in GreatBar
Block ads and trackers. On by default, from the EasyList and EasyPrivacy lists (CC BY-SA 3.0) that ship with the app. A link can say otherwise in its own settings; a link that opens in your browser is your browser’s business. If a list cannot be compiled, the row says so in red and browsing carries on unblocked rather than breaking.
Links that open a new window. Where a link marked for a new window goes when you click it in a page opened in GreatBar: in the same page, in a new window, or in your browser. A window a page opens by itself, to sign you in, always gets one.
Ask where to save downloads. A save panel for every file a page in GreatBar downloads. Off, files go straight to your Downloads folder.
The rest of the page settings (appearance, zoom, browser agent, sizes) live on the link rather than here, because they are almost never the same answer for every site. See Websites in a panel.
Updates and help
Check for updates automatically. On, GreatBar asks this site once a day and updates itself. The row says which version you are on.
Check now. For the impatient. Updates are signed with a key only this app accepts.
The introduction. Shows the three screens from the first run again.
Advanced
A room of its own, because a person looking for where a link opens should not have to read about MCP on the way. Everything in it is off until you turn it on.
Let an assistant connect. GreatBar has an MCP server built in; this is the door. Off, nothing listens.
Let it propose changes and act. Off, an assistant can still read the bars but nothing it asks for is offered to you, and it cannot switch bars or open a shortcut.
The MCP server and As configuration. The exact command and JSON to give an assistant, taken from where the app really is, each with a Copy button. GreatBar cannot add itself to an assistant: their configuration files live outside the folders a sandboxed app may write.
Folders GreatBar may reach. The one place the sandbox is widened on purpose. A file or folder you add by picking it needs nothing here; a document you open or an assistant cannot pick, so it names a path, and the path has to be inside a folder granted here. Access to a folder is access to everything inside it. Taking a grant back leaves shortcuts already made working.
See MCP and assistants for the whole picture.
About
What the app is, which version you are on, and three ways to reach us:
- Send Feedback opens a form in your browser with the app’s version and this Mac’s macOS already filled in, so the only thing left to type is what went wrong.
- Read the Docs opens these pages.
- Contact Us writes to support.
Where the settings live
In macOS user defaults, under GreatBar’s own domain, on this Mac. Your shortcuts, bars and account names are a file in the app’s container. Nothing is sent anywhere: there is no account and nowhere to send it.