RAMBar

A lightweight macOS menu bar app that shows live RAM usage at a glance.

Features

• Live RAM display in the menu bar — see used or available memory instantly
• Toggle display mode between "Used RAM" and "Available RAM"
• Configurable refresh rate — 1, 3, 5, 10, or 30 seconds
• Launch at Login — enable auto-start from the menu, no configuration needed
• Zero Dock presence — runs exclusively in the menu bar

Screenshot

[8.2G used] ▾
─────────────────
Display
  ✓ Used RAM
    Available RAM
─────────────────
Refresh Rate
    Every 1 second
  ✓ Every 5 seconds
    Every 10 seconds
    Every 30 seconds
─────────────────
✓ Launch at Login
─────────────────
Quit RAMBar

Installation

Option A — DMG (recommended for sharing)

1. Download the latest RAMBar-x.x.x.dmg from Releases
2. Open the DMG and drag RAMBar.app to Applications
3. Launch from Applications — it will appear in your menu bar

First launch note: macOS may show a security warning for apps from the internet. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.

Option B — Run from source

# 1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/rutvik106/mac-ram-usage.git
cd mac-ram-usage

# 2. Install dependencies and run
make run

Build from source

Prerequisites

• macOS 11+
• Python 3.9+
• pip3

Build the .app bundle

make build
# Output: dist/RAMBar.app

Create a distributable DMG

make dmg
# Output: dist/RAMBar-1.0.0.dmg

Other make targets

Command	Description
make install	Install Python dependencies only
make run	Run the app directly (dev mode)
make build	Build dist/RAMBar.app
make dmg	Build app and create DMG
make clean	Remove build/ and dist/

Project structure

mac-ram-usage/
├── app.py          # Main application
├── setup.py        # py2app build configuration
├── requirements.txt
├── Makefile
└── scripts/
    ├── build.sh        # Builds the .app bundle
    └── create_dmg.sh   # Packages the .app into a DMG

Auto-start on login

Click Launch at Login in the menu to toggle auto-start. The app installs (or removes) a LaunchAgent plist at:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.rambar.menubar.plist

No admin password required.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.