A menu extra, menu item, menulet, or status item is a

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. It is a small indicator that appears at the right of the

menu bar A menu bar is a graphical control element which contains drop-down menus. The menu bar's purpose is to supply a common housing for window- or application-specific menus which provide access to such functions as opening files, interacting wi ...

. They often provide quick ways to use applications (e.g.

iChat iChat (previously iChat AV) is a discontinued instant messaging software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It supported instant text messaging over XMPP/Jingle or OSCAR ( AIM) protocol, audio and video ...

) or display information (for example the system clock), or control system-level variables (for example audio volume). There are a number of third-party menu items available. Menu extras are similar to items in the

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notification area A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running. The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally a ...

but are less common. There are many menu extras supplied with macOS, many independent third-party menu extra applications, and many more supplied with 3rd-party products, most of which are installed from their parent application or system preferences pane, and may remain dormant until they are notified of an event (for example,

Inkwell An inkwell is a small jar or container, often made of glass, porcelain, silver, brass, or pewter, used for holding ink in a place convenient for the person who is writing. The artist or writer dips the brush, quill, or dip pen into the inkwell ...

's menu extra will come and go when a

graphics tablet A graphics tablet (also known as a digitizer, digital graphic tablet, pen tablet, drawing tablet, external drawing pad or digital art board) is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images, animations and graphics, with a spec ...

is connected and disconnected). While macOS provided no centralized tool to enable or configure menu extras, some of them can be rearranged and dragged off the menubar while depressing the ⌘ key. Also, all Apple-supplied menu extras can be found in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras. Yet, a centralized tool is in the "Dock and menu bar" preference pane of the System Preferences. Menu extras were introduced with

Mac OS X v10.1 Mac OS X 10.1 ( code named Puma) is the second major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X 10.0 and preceded Mac OS X Jaguar. Mac OS X 10.1 was released on September 25, 2001, as a free update ...

to replace

Dock A dock (from Dutch language, Dutch ''dok'') is the area of water between or next to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore) or such structures themselves. The ex ...

extras (docklings), and may thus be viewed as another attempt to bring the

Control Strip The Control Strip is a user interface component introduced in the "classic" System 7 Macintosh operating system. It currently exists as part of the Touch Bar interface in macOS. History The Control Strip was initially released in 1994 with ...

to OS X. There was some controversy when they were originally introduced due to Apple providing an API for third-party developers to use to create menu extras using the NSStatusItem class, while Apple used another private class called NSMenuExtra to develop their own menu extras. Menu extras based on NSMenuExtra automatically included a number of extra features not available to NSStatusItem-based extras, such as drag and drop install/uninstall and the ability to rearrange the extras by depressing the ⌘ key and dragging. The given reason for this is that NSMenuExtra-based menu extras operate within the address space of the SystemUIServer so faulty code in a menu extra could cause instability in a core part of the operating system. In

Mac OS X 10.4 Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4) is the 5th major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29, 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Som ...

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was introduced with a different icon, that is not technically a menu extra, locked to the right corner of the menu bar.

OS X 10.8 OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8) is the ninth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mountain Lion was released on July 25, 2012, for purchase and download through Apple's Mac App ...

introduced

Notification Center Notification Center is a feature in iOS and macOS that provides an overview of alerts from applications. It displays notifications until the user completes an associated action, rather than requiring instant resolution. Users may choose what a ...

in a similar fashion, and

macOS 10.12 macOS Sierra (version 10.12) is the thirteenth major release of macOS (formerly known as and ), Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. The name "macOS" stems from the intention to uniform the operating syst ...

similarly introduced

Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questio ...

References

External links

Building NSMenuExtra - A Small Tutorial
- article written by Rustam Muginov for Cocoa Dev Central

- Apple developer documentation for NSStatusItem
MacMenuBar
- list of menu extras, currently updated
Menulets
- list of menu extras (last updated 2013)
OS X menubar items
- extensive list of menu extras (last updated 2009)
Managing OS X Menu Extras
- tutorial and video demonstration that shows you how to add/delete and rearrange OS X menu extras {{Mac OS X MacOS user interface Graphical control elements