A free, open-source macOS menu bar app that shows your Claude Code usage limits at a glance.
Instead of hunting through the Claude UI, just glance at your menu bar. ClawdBar shows your 5-hour session and 7-day weekly usage percentages, color-coded so you know at a glance how close you are to hitting your limits.
- Menu bar — always-visible
48% · 23%indicator, green → orange → red as you approach your limit - Popover — progress bars, exact percentages, and time until each limit resets
- Notifications — optional alerts when you hit a configurable threshold
- Auto-refresh — configurable polling (30s / 1 min / 5 min)
- Auto-update — Homebrew-based update checks
- Launch at login — runs silently from startup
- 100% native SwiftUI · no Electron · no telemetry · Liquid Glass UI on macOS 26 Tahoe
Requires a Claude subscription with usage limits (Pro or Max). The unified rate-limit headers that ClawdBar reads are returned for plans that have token-based rate limits.
brew tap RossNicholson/tap
brew install --cask clawdbarRequirements: macOS 13 Ventura or later · Claude Code installed and signed in (desktop app or CLI)
On first launch ClawdBar explains what it needs and asks you to approve. Here's the full picture:
-
Credentials — ClawdBar reads your Claude Code session token from the
Claude Code-credentialsentry in your macOS Keychain. This is written by the Claude Code desktop app and CLI — ClawdBar never creates, modifies, or stores credentials itself. -
Usage check — At the configured interval (default: every 60 seconds) it makes a minimal API call to
api.anthropic.com/v1/messages(1 token of Haiku) and reads theanthropic-ratelimit-unified-*response headers. No conversation data is sent or stored. -
Keychain access — On signed/notarized builds, macOS shows its standard Keychain access dialog on first use. You can revoke this at any time in Keychain Access → File → Lock Keychains.
Click the gear icon in the popover to open Settings:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Check for updates | Manually check for a new version via Homebrew |
| Launch at login | Start ClawdBar silently at system login |
| Notifications | Enable usage alerts with a configurable threshold (50–95%) |
| Refresh interval | How often to poll the API: 30 seconds, 1 minute (default), or 5 minutes |
git clone https://github.com/RossNicholson/clawdbar
cd clawdbar
make setup # installs xcodegen if needed, generates the .xcodeproj
make run # builds and launchesNo .xcodeproj is checked in — regenerate it any time with xcodegen generate.
For a signed release build, pass your Apple Developer Team ID:
make release TEAM_ID=XXXXXXXXXX- No analytics, no telemetry, no external services beyond
api.anthropic.com - Credentials are read-only from your existing Keychain entry and never transmitted
- All data stays on-device
Bug reports, feature requests, and PRs are welcome — open an issue or start a discussion.
If you find ClawdBar useful, consider buying me a coffee ☕
MIT — see LICENSE for details.