CC Usage Bar

A minimal macOS menu bar app that shows your Claude Code usage at a glance.

Why

Claude Code doesn't expose a persistent usage indicator. The only way to check is to open a session and type /usage. When you're running multiple Claude Code sessions across different terminal windows, checking your usage means either interrupting a running agent mid-task or opening a new terminal just to see a number. Both are disruptive.

Many community tools solve this by reading the OAuth token from the macOS Keychain and calling Anthropic's usage API directly. But macOS will prompt you every time a third-party app tries to access that Keychain item — not a smooth experience, and handing your OAuth token to another process is a legitimate security concern.

This project was entirely vibe-coded using Claude Code itself — which is also how I ran into the problem in the first place.

CC Usage Bar takes a different approach. It doesn't touch your Keychain or make any network calls itself. It simply runs claude the same way you would, captures the /usage output, and displays it in your menu bar — one click away, always accurate.

How it works

When you click the menu bar icon, CC Usage Bar opens a popover containing an embedded terminal. Behind the scenes it:

1. Spawns a real Claude Code session in a pseudo-terminal (PTY)
2. Sends the /usage command automatically
3. Captures the output and renders it with full ANSI color fidelity — exactly as it appears in your terminal
4. Terminates the session immediately after

There is no API scraping, no token parsing, no reverse engineering. The data comes straight from Claude Code itself, so it is always 100% accurate and reflects the latest state.

Features

• 🪶 Minimal — a single menu bar icon, one popover, no windows
• 🎯 Accurate — reads directly from Claude Code's own /usage output
• 🔒 Safe — no API calls, no credentials stored, no hacks; just runs claude the same way you would
• ⚡ Zero setup — install, open, click the icon (requires Claude Code already configured on your machine)
• 🍎 Native — built in Swift with SwiftUI, runs as a lightweight menu bar agent

Requirements

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later
• Claude Code installed and logged in (claude must be on your PATH)

Install

Download (recommended)

1. Download the latest CCUsageBar.zip from the Releases page
2. Unzip and move CCUsageBar.app to your /Applications folder

Note: Since this app is not notarized, macOS Gatekeeper will block it on first launch. To open it, either:

• Right-click the app → Open → Open
• Or run in Terminal: xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/CCUsageBar.app

Build from source

1. Clone the repository
2. Open CCUsageBar/CCUsageBar.xcodeproj in Xcode
3. Build and run (Cmd+R)

The app runs as a menu bar agent — there is no Dock icon. Look for the chart icon in your menu bar.

Usage

• Left-click the menu bar icon to open the usage popover
• Click anywhere outside the popover to dismiss it
• Right-click the menu bar icon to quit

Each time you open the popover, it fetches fresh usage data.

License

MIT

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⭐ If this tool helps you avoid hitting Claude limits, consider giving it a star!