A small taskbar pill that shows your Claude subscription utilization, a live countdown to your next reset, and your weekly quota — color-coded so you know at a glance whether to keep going or ease up.
- Taskbar pill — current utilization %, reset countdown, weekly usage. Green/yellow/red at a glance.
- Detail popup — click the pill for 5-hour rolling, 7-day Opus, 7-day Sonnet, and extra usage ($) with progress bars and reset timers.
- Settings — right-click the tray icon to adjust polling speed (15s–2min), auto-start with Windows, or test your connection.
Run from source (recommended):
git clone https://github.com/CandyFlex/pinch.git
cd pinch
pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m pinchOr install via pip:
pip install pinch-monitor
pinchOr download the exe
Grab Pinch.exe from Releases. Requires Windows 10/11 and Claude Code authenticated.
This binary is built by GitHub Actions from the public source code — not on anyone's personal machine. Every release includes a SHA256 checksum for verification.
Note: Windows SmartScreen may warn about an unrecognized app. This is normal for new open-source tools. Click "More info" → "Run anyway", or build from source instead.
Pinch reads your existing Claude Code OAuth session automatically. No API keys to paste, no config files, no accounts to create.
macOS already has half a dozen native Claude usage trackers. Windows had almost nothing — one Electron-based widget at 150MB+.
Pinch is the lightweight alternative: ~2,500 lines of Python, 30MB exe (no Electron), zero dependencies beyond the standard library and three small packages.
Pinch touches your OAuth token, so you should understand exactly what it does:
- The only network call is to
api.anthropic.com/v1/organizations/{org}/usage— the same endpoint Claude Code uses. Nothing else. No analytics, no tracking, no phone-home. - Your token is read live from
~/.claude/.credentials.jsoneach poll cycle and immediately discarded. It is never written to disk, cached, or sent anywhere except Anthropic's API. - No backend. There is no Pinch server. Everything runs on your machine.
- Fully auditable. The entire codebase is ~2,500 lines of Python across 17 files. The auth logic is in
auth.py(67 lines). The API call is inusage_api.py(97 lines). Read them yourself.
| Source | ~2,500 lines of Python |
| Exe size | ~30 MB |
| RAM usage | ~15 MB |
| Dependencies | 3 (pystray, Pillow, certifi) |
| Network | api.anthropic.com only |
| Data stored | Display preferences in %LOCALAPPDATA%/Pinch/ |
Troubleshooting
The pill turned red / shows an error Your OAuth token probably expired. Claude Code tokens last ~24 hours. Pinch will automatically retry a few times, but if it can't recover:
- Open Claude Code (or run any
claudecommand in your terminal) — this refreshes the token - Right-click the Pinch tray icon → Reconnect
That's it. Pinch re-reads the credentials file and picks up the fresh token immediately.
"No OAuth token — is Claude Code installed?"
Pinch reads ~/.claude/.credentials.json, which Claude Code creates when you authenticate. If this file doesn't exist, install Claude Code and sign in first.
The pill disappeared from my taskbar
It may have been moved to the system tray overflow (the ^ arrow). Look for the Pinch icon there. You can drag it back to the taskbar.
Common Questions
Does this work without Claude Code? Not yet. Pinch reads the OAuth session that Claude Code creates. If Claude Code isn't installed, the setup wizard tells you what to do.
Will this slow down my computer? No. ~15 MB of RAM, one API call every 30 seconds (configurable). You won't notice it.
Can I change the polling interval? Yes. Right-click the tray icon → Settings → pick 15s, 30s, 60s, or 2 minutes.
Why is the exe 30MB?
PyInstaller bundles the entire Python runtime. The actual source code is ~50KB. If you have Python installed, pip install pinch-monitor avoids the bundled runtime entirely.
Why is it called Pinch? Know your limits before they know you.
See CONTRIBUTING.md. PRs welcome — especially for Linux/macOS support.
MIT License · Built by CandyFlex