I have an always-on Mac Mini on my desk with four external drives connected to it. Two are Time Machine backups, one is a photo archive I access maybe twice a week, and one is a working project drive I use daily. For a long time, all four stayed mounted constantly. The result was a Finder sidebar cluttered with volumes, macOS waking sleeping drives whenever I opened Spotlight, and a general sluggishness on system startup while everything got checked. I had been putting up with this for months before I decided to fix it.
That search led me to a small collection of menu bar apps that genuinely changed how I interact with files every day.
MountMate (free, open-source) was the obvious first solution. The app displays all connected drives with their mount status and available space directly from the menu bar. I can mount and unmount individual drives with a single click rather than dragging to the trash or navigating Disk Utility. My photo archive drive now stays unmounted until I need it, my Time Machine drives spin up only during scheduled backups, and startup noticeably improved.
The simplicity is the point. No subscription, no preferences screen worth mentioning, just a small Swift app that does one thing well. MountMate is free and open-source under the GPL license, available via Homebrew or GitHub. Resource impact is essentially zero.
For users with network-attached storage or shared drives on a home server, AutoMounter addresses a more complex version of the same problem. The app manages network share connections automatically, with intelligent reconnection logic that handles intermittent connections, wake-on-LAN for sleeping NAS devices, and protocol support spanning SMB, WebDAV, AFP, and NFS. I set it up for my home server shares once and have not touched the configuration since.
The distinction between AutoMounter and simply connecting via the Finder’s “Connect to Server” dialog is persistence and automation. AutoMounter monitors connection state and remounts shares when they become available again after a network hiccup. The Pro version adds the ability to trigger scripts or open applications when a share mounts, which creates useful automation possibilities for workflows tied to specific network resources.
Where these two apps address drive management, OpenFolder handles the recurring friction of navigating to frequently used locations. The app provides a glass-style floating panel from the menu bar where you pin projects, folders, external drive mount points, and applications through drag-and-drop. I pinned my current project folder, the Downloads folder, and a shared drive shortcut, and found that I was spending less time in Finder entirely.
The freemium model is worth noting: the free version limits favorites, while the Pro tier at $7.99 lifetime or $3.99 per year removes that limit. Users who downloaded before version 1.3.0 received free Pro access. For most people, the question is whether their frequently accessed folder count fits the free tier.
For sending files between devices, Menu Drop (free) reduces AirDrop from a multi-step process to a single drag. Instead of right-clicking a file, finding Share, selecting AirDrop, and then choosing a device, you drag the file onto the Menu Drop icon in the menu bar and the native AirDrop picker appears immediately. The app has zero network entitlements by design, meaning it cannot access the internet under any circumstances. It triggers the system AirDrop functionality and nothing else.
This is exactly the kind of focused utility I appreciate. The developer is Sindre Sorhus, whose macOS apps consistently demonstrate that single-purpose tools with no excess surface area are worth having.
Menuist ($2.99) rounds out the set with a different approach. Rather than a separate menu bar panel, it extends Finder’s right-click context menu with useful operations that macOS inexplicably omits. Creating new files in specific formats, quick preview of code files with syntax highlighting, folder access history, QR code sharing, and folder color customization all appear in the right-click menu rather than requiring a separate application window.
The requirement for a Finder extension permission deserves mention. Setup involves allowing the extension through System Settings during initial installation. Users who prefer minimal system modifications should consider whether the added functionality justifies that permission. For those who manage files professionally and find themselves repeating the same Finder operations dozens of times a day, it does.
These five apps address distinct friction points in the same general area. MountMate handles physical drives. AutoMounter handles network shares. OpenFolder provides quick navigation. Menu Drop accelerates AirDrop. Menuist extends Finder’s built-in capabilities. They work independently and none conflicts with the others. The total cost for paid options is $3.99 to $7.99 depending on OpenFolder tier selection, with MountMate, Menu Drop, and Menuist’s free tier carrying zero cost.
The pattern I notice across all of them is a focus on reducing repetition in workflows that macOS handles clumsily. Apple’s file management tools are functional but not optimized for the kind of repeated, specific operations that power users perform constantly. These apps fill the gaps without adding the overhead of a comprehensive file manager.