Introducing Pearbar.
The menu bar, moved to
where you actually work.
Pearbar takes your app’s menus (File, Edit, View, all of them) out of the far corner of the screen and puts them in a small bar right on top of the window you’re using.
In early testing · Apple silicon · macOS 14 or later
Try it: the black bar up top is Pearbar. Drag this window by its title bar and it slides along to stay above it. In the way? Double-click an empty bit of the bar and it rolls up like a window shade.
Drawn to scale
Screens grew. The menus stayed in the corner.
It's the same pair (pear) as always, the window and its menus. Now they sit together.
The tour
Everything it does fits in one menu.
The commute
Your hand has a commute.
Every trip to the File menu is a little walk up and to the left. Pick your screen and see how far it adds up.
From the middle of a 49-inch screen, the File menu is 23.9 inches away. Each way.
1 Which screen is yours?
2 How often do you reach for a menu?
times an hour. About average.
miles a year your hand doesn’t walk,
with Pearbar
Counts every trip there and back, 8 hours a day, 250 days a year. With Pearbar the trip is about half an inch.
Real estate
One menu bar. Several screens. A notch.
The corner gets farther away the more screen you buy. Pearbar has been to all of them.
Ultrawide. On a 49-inch screen the corner is a zip code away. Pearbar rides with the window, wherever on the acre it lands.
Two displays. macOS gives one display the menu bar. Pearbar follows your window to the other one anyway, menus in tow. Want the first screen to look like a normal Mac while you’re away? Gear › Menu Bar › Show Real Menus When Pearbar Is on Another Display. Turn on “Displays have separate Spaces” and every display gets its own bar, and its own band.
The notch. MacBooks with a camera notch get the black band on both sides of it, and Pearbar never parks under the camera. It knows better.
The icon
Pears are not apples.
Pearbar puts a pear where the Apple menu used to be. Not a pear person? Pick a skull, a goat, a pentagram or a poop, any emoji on your Mac, or your own artwork: drop in an SVG or PNG, your logo, your cat, your band, and that’s the menu now. The app has a secret stash on top of that. We’re not saying where.
Press a cap. The pear up top changes too.
The commute, cancelled
Zero miles. Your hand can stay parked.
Half an inch was the Pearbar commute. The keyboard crowd gets it down to none. Every menu of the app in front is searchable: type three letters, press Return, and Pearbar fetches the command from wherever it was hiding. Three submenus deep. Behind “Other.” We looked.
Try “pdf”, “zoom” or “checklist”. ↑ ↓ to pick, Return to do the thing.
The search box in your Help menu? Pearbar swaps it for Search Menus… so it’s one habit, not two.
Hand Parking Permit
The bearer’s hand is permitted to remain parked on the keyboard. Valid at every menu, in every app, for as long as the Mac is on.
- Vehicle
- Right hand. Left hand also honored.
- Zone
- Keyboard, all rows
- Rate
- Nothing
- Expires
- Never
Keep this stub
The three keys the permit covers.
System requirements
Will it run on your Mac?
If it has Apple silicon and a recent macOS, yes. Here’s the whole checklist, including a couple of things it doesn’t need.
Apple silicon. M1 or newer. Intel Macs, we had a good run.
macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Sonoma, Sequoia, and whatever they name the next one.
Accessibility permission. One switch in System Settings so it can read and click your menus. It asks nicely.
At least one window. Something for Pearbar to sit above. Most people have plenty.
Other apps behaving normally. Stage Manager, save panels and alerts carry on. Pearbar steps aside.
Light or dark mode. Wears whatever your Mac is wearing.
An internet connection. Pearbar goes online for one thing, checking for updates, and only once you’ve said yes. Nothing else leaves your Mac.
Not neededA 49-inch screen. Handy on a laptop. Shows off on an ultrawide.
Not neededWindows. We tried once. Someone had to call the glass guy.
Not needed
Not sure? Choose Apple menu › About This Mac. It lists your chip and your macOS.
Not affiliated with Apple Inc. Made for big screens.