VoidBar

VoidBar turns the unused space around the MacBook notch into a focused set of everyday tools: an Overview of what matters to you, media controls, a temporary file shelf, clipboard history, notes, translation, a focus timer, meetings, weather, and the limits of Claude Code and Codex. It opens on hover, closes when you leave, and never asks you to organize another window.

It is a productivity hub, not only a media widget. No Electron, no account, no VoidBar backend: just SwiftUI, AppKit, and macOS.

Install

1. Download VoidBar-<version>-arm64.dmg from the latest release.
2. Open the disk image and drag VoidBar to Applications.
3. Open VoidBar from Applications. Its icon appears in the menu bar, and the panel opens when you hover over the notch.

Requirements: macOS 15 Sequoia or later on an Apple Silicon Mac. Release builds are arm64 only; Intel Macs can build from source, although that configuration is untested. On a Mac without a notch, the panel opens from the top center of the screen or from the menu bar icon.

First launch: the build is not notarized

Releases are ad-hoc signed but not signed with an Apple Developer ID or notarized, so macOS warns that it cannot verify the app. To open it anyway:

1. Open VoidBar once and choose Done in the warning. Do not choose Move to Trash.
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security, and choose Open Anyway next to the VoidBar message.
3. Confirm with your password. Later launches open normally.

The same warning can appear once more when VoidBar starts its Now Playing helper, the small component that reads system and browser playback. Choose Done; if macOS keeps it blocked, VoidBar falls back to controlling Apple Music and Spotify directly, and every other feature works as usual.

To check that your download matches the published build, compare its checksum with the .sha256 file attached to the release:

shasum -a 256 -c VoidBar-<version>-arm64.dmg.sha256

Release images are built from the tagged source by GitHub Actions, which also publishes a build provenance attestation.

What lives inside

See everything at once

• Overview — the first thing the panel shows, built from the tabs you use: the player takes a large card while something plays, and widgets for your coding agents' limits, the latest clipboard entries and snippets (copied with one click), the focus timer, the latest note, shelf files, tasks, meetings, weather, and system load fill a grid around it. A widget only appears while its tab is on and it has something to show; choose and order them in Preferences → Overview. Every widget opens its full tab.
• Live island — while music plays or a timer runs, the notch grows a wing on each side, like a Dynamic Island: the cover or a timer ring on the left, a live equalizer or countdown on the right.

Move things

• Media — system Now Playing, Apple Music, Spotify, and browser sessions with artwork, progress, seeking, and transport controls.
• Shelf — park files in the notch, switch apps, then drag them out where they belong.
• Clipboard — the latest 40 texts, links, and files, kept in memory while VoidBar runs. Copied images and screenshots land on the Shelf instead.

Keep focus

• Pomodoro — 5, 10, 25, and 50 minute sessions with a daily completion count.
• Notes — a persistent scratchpad for thoughts that do not deserve a document yet.
• Snippets — searchable reusable text stored in a human-editable JSON file.
• Teleprompter — scrolling reference text without another window covering your work.

Stay oriented

• Calendar — upcoming meetings and safe one-click links for Meet, Zoom, Teams, and more.
• Translation — Apple's native Translation framework instead of a custom cloud service.
• Weather — current conditions, the day's range, and the next hours through Open-Meteo.
• TickTick — tasks from your private TickTick iCal subscription.
• System monitor — CPU, memory, upload, and download activity at a glance.
• Usage — how much of the five-hour and weekly plan limits of Claude Code and Codex is left, and when each resets. Off by default; turn it on in Preferences. See Coding agent limits.

Coding agent limits

The Usage tab reads numbers the tools already produce, on this Mac, without any network request or sign-in:

• Codex writes its current limits into its own session logs after each response. VoidBar reads the newest one from ~/.codex/sessions; nothing to set up.
• Claude Code reports Pro and Max limits only to its status line command. In the Usage tab, choose Copy setup and paste the statusLine entry into ~/.claude/settings.json. VoidBar then acts as that command: it prints a short line such as Opus · 5h 24% · 7d 41% for Claude Code, and keeps only the two limit windows in ~/Library/Application Support/VoidBar/claude-code-usage.json. Claude Code runs status line commands in its terminal interface, so sessions started with the claude CLI keep the card current. If you already use a custom status line, keep yours; the Claude Code card simply stays empty.

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗