Show CPU and memory in your Mac menu bar

Updated 2026 · a 4-minute read

A menu bar system monitor lets you see how hard your Mac is working at a glance — handy when the fans spin up, a video export drags, or you want to know what's eating your battery. The catch: most monitors add several icons to an already-crowded bar. Here's how to get the readouts without the clutter.

What's worth monitoring

CPU — the clearest sign of what's making your Mac hot or slow.
Memory — how much RAM is in use; high memory pressure causes slowdowns.
Network — upload and download speed, useful during big transfers.
Disk & battery — free space, and battery health and cycle count.

The built-in option: Activity Monitor

macOS includes Activity Monitor (in Applications → Utilities). It's thorough, and you can even keep its Dock icon showing a live CPU graph (Activity Monitor → Dock Icon menu). But it's a full window, not an at-a-glance menu bar readout.

One slot instead of five

Dedicated monitors like iStat Menus are powerful but typically spend a separate menu bar slot on each metric — which is the opposite of what you want if you're trying to tidy the bar.

Barkeep takes a different approach: a single menu bar slot shows a live CPU graph and network rates, and clicking it opens a full dashboard with per-core load, memory breakdown, disk, battery health, and the top processes by CPU or memory. One slot, the whole picture — and Barkeep hides your other icons too, so you come out ahead on space.

It reads everything from macOS's own public system APIs, so it needs no special permission to show these numbers.

Not included: temperatures and fans

One honest limit: on Apple Silicon, reading sensor temperatures and fan speeds needs private APIs that a lightweight free app avoids. If those specific readouts matter to you, a paid tool like iStat Menus is still the reference. For CPU, memory, network, disk and battery, a free one-slot monitor covers the everyday need.

Get Barkeep — free