I used to keep a folder in my Dock called “Daily” stuffed with aliases to my most-visited folders, recurring meeting links, and scripts I ran constantly. It worked until the Dock got crowded, then the aliases got buried under real apps, and eventually I just started re-navigating every time. The problem was never finding an app to launch — it was getting to specific content inside apps: the Monday standup in Zoom, the design system file in Figma, the main project folder. Spotlight and Alfred open applications well but don’t help when you need to jump to a particular bookmark two layers deep.
Menu bar launcher apps solve a narrower problem than general-purpose launchers, and that narrowness is the point. They keep a small set of exactly the actions you perform ten times a day exactly one click away.
ExtraBar was the app that made me rethink this category entirely. Instead of launching apps, it stores deep links — special URLs that jump directly to specific content inside apps. My recurring team sync, a Slack channel for a client, a particular Figma frame, a Spotify playlist for focus work: each one appears as a clickable icon right in my menu bar. Setting it up involved finding the deep link URL for each destination, which took some research for a couple of apps, but the payoff is that joining my standup now takes one click instead of opening Zoom, navigating to meetings, and finding the right one. ExtraBar offers two modes: an inline bar that sits alongside other menu bar icons, and a floating bar triggered by keyboard shortcut for users with crowded menus. It runs locally with no analytics. (€24.99 lifetime)
For files and folders, OpenFolder fills a gap that Finder navigation and even Spotlight leave open. I dragged my main project folder, an external archive drive, and three frequently-edited files straight into its floating glass panel, and now opening any of them takes a single click from the menu bar. The drag-and-drop setup is genuinely fast — no configuration screens, no manual path entry. A recent launches section tracks what I opened last without requiring me to pin everything. OpenFolder does one thing and keeps it simple, which I appreciate compared to more ambitious launchers that add features I never use. The free version covers a few pinned items; unlimited capacity costs a one-time fee. (Free, $7.99 Pro)
Short Run from Sindre Sorhus addresses a different problem: macOS Shortcuts is a genuinely powerful automation system that becomes unwieldy as your collection grows. The default Shortcuts menu bar item dumps everything into a flat list. Short Run replaces it with nested sections, automatic keyboard shortcuts for individual automations, and context-aware filtering that surfaces development shortcuts only when Xcode is frontmost and writing tools only in iA Writer. I ran the same set of export and cleanup scripts for months before realizing I was clicking through a list of forty-something shortcuts each time. With Short Run, those scripts appear as a small submenu I can navigate by number without touching the mouse. ($4.99)
LinkNotch takes a more opinionated approach by living in the MacBook notch rather than the menu bar proper. Hovering the notch opens a panel of saved links sorted into Work and General categories, plus a small app dock at the bottom. If you own a notched MacBook — 14-inch or 16-inch Pro, M2 Air or newer — it reclaims hardware space that normally just hides menu bar icons. Manual link entry with no browser import is a real limitation, and users with extensive bookmarks will hit organizational ceilings quickly. But for five or ten daily sites, it adds a persistent bookmark panel without consuming menu bar space. (Free with in-app purchases)
The honest tradeoff across all these apps is scope versus flexibility. General-purpose launchers like Raycast or Alfred can do everything these tools do and more. If you already have Alfred’s Powerpack or live inside Raycast, adding another launcher app probably creates duplicate friction. These dedicated menu bar tools earn their place when you want something that’s always visible, requires zero thought to activate, and stays focused on a small curated set of actions rather than searching through thousands of possibilities. After a few weeks of running ExtraBar and OpenFolder together, the total click count to reach my most-used content dropped enough that both earned permanent spots.