System Status Monitor

WashBear can stay in the menu bar and show live CPU, memory, disk and network readings. Click a reading to open a detailed status panel, or show the readings in a floating window on your desktop instead.

#Turn it on and choose where it appears

In Settings → General, find System status and turn on the switch (it is on by default), then click Configure… to adjust what it shows. Under Display mode, choose:

• Menu bar: readings appear in the menu bar at the top of the screen. This is the default.
• Floating window: readings appear in a small window on your desktop, and the menu bar keeps only the WashBear icon.
• Both: readings appear in both places.

While System status is on, closing the main window leaves WashBear running in the menu bar. Turn on Launch at login in Settings → General to have it appear after you sign in. To quit completely, right-click the menu bar icon and choose Quit.

#Choose display items

In Display items, select the metrics to show and drag them to change their order. CPU, memory, disk usage and network are shown by default. Depending on your Mac's hardware, you can also add GPU, temperatures, fan speed, charging power, battery power, system power and CPU core frequencies. Some metrics let you choose a specific network interface, disk or fan.

Click Colors next to a metric to set colors for value ranges, for example red when CPU utilization reaches 90%. Logo controls whether the WashBear icon appears in the menu bar.

#Adjust the appearance

Under Appearance, turn on Color indicators to color readings by your rules, or turn on Compact mode for the menu bar to tighten spacing and shorten network units to K, M and G. For the floating window you can set Layout, Font size, Bold text, Show dividers, Background and Background opacity.

Restore defaults resets display items, their order and appearance, and keeps the enabled state, display mode and window position.

#Status panel

Click the readings in the menu bar to open the status panel. It has Overview, CPU, GPU, Memory, Disk and Network pages, plus Power on Macs with a battery. There you can see last-minute trends, temperatures, disk reads and writes, network interface details and battery health.

The CPU and Memory pages list apps by usage. Expand an app to Open location or quit it normally, just like choosing Quit in the app, so it can ask you to save first.

At the bottom of the panel are Settings, Open WashBear and Quit.

#Release memory

On the Memory page, click Release. WashBear reclaims memory that apps have marked as discardable. It does not close apps or need an administrator password, and it shows the change it observed when it finishes. When memory shows Normal pressure, releasing is usually unnecessary.

Open the menu next to Release and choose Release settings to turn on Automatic release, set Check every and Memory usage at least, and add Excluded apps. Both manual and automatic release skip excluded apps. You can also click Exclude in the app list.

#Floating window

Drag the floating window anywhere. It appears on all desktops but not over full-screen apps. For details, click the readings in the menu bar to open the status panel. Right-click the window to switch between Horizontal and Vertical, adjust Appearance or open Configure…. If you can't find the window, choose Reset position.

#About the readings

All readings are collected on your Mac and are not uploaded. They are sent, encrypted, to your paired phone only if you turn on Phone Remote Access. If a reading can't update for a while, the panel keeps showing the last successful value. Metrics your Mac can't provide show the reason in Display items.