Add XMenu to the Apple Mac menu bar for faster file access

The Mac has many fantastic features and the ability to customise the menu bar by adding extra items is one of them. XMenu is a useful addition that provides some much needed features.

XMenu is the sort of macOS utility that you will either find indispensable or you will not see the point of it. For some people it is a useful extra, but for others it isn’t. It is free in the Mac App Store and it can be downloaded directly from the DEVONtechnologies website, so it is worth trying to see if it fits in with the way that you work.

After installing it and running it for the first time, it adds a button to the right side of the menu bar. To avoid being asked permission for every little thing, it is best to open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy and then select Full Disk Access in the list. Click the plus button and then select XMenu in the Applications folder. Quit XMenu and start it again.

XMenu on the menu

A single icon appears in the menu bar on the right when it is first run and clicking it lists the apps in the Applications folder, but this is just a fraction of what it can do. The preferences is the first place to visit after installing XMenu and it is accessed by Ctrl+clicking the menu bar icon.

In the Menus section you can choose the items to appear on the menu bar and these are Applications, Developer, Home, Documents, User Defined and Sippets. In the Menu Title section you can choose to show text, icon or both in the menu bar. I like the text option.

Add the Applications menu and clicking the icon or text displays all the apps in the Applications folder, which makes it easy to start apps that are not in the Dock at the bottom of the screen.

Add the Documents menu and a Docs button is added to the menu bar. When it is clicked, it shows all the files and folders in your Documents folder. Selecting an item is like clicking it in a Finder window. Add the Home menu and clicking the icon or text in the menu bar shows the files and folders in your home folder on the disk.

Many of the options are concerned with how XMenu displays the menus, icons, files and folders. For example, there are big, small and no icons next to apps and files in the menus, unique folder icons or generic ones, the sort order for items and so on. There is an option to automatically start XMenu at login, so you do not need to manually run it every time

Create your own menu

The User Defined option in the preferences enables you to create your own menu. After enabling it, add files or folders to the ~/Library/Application Support/XMenu/Custom folder. To access this in Finder, click Go, hold down Options and click Library. Open Aplication Support, then XMenu and finally Custom.

Instead of moving files or folders here, create aliases. Right click any file or folder in a Finder window and select Make Alias on the menu. It can then be moved to the XMenu Custom folder and it appears on the menu in the menu bar. You could add aliases to all your most used folders or files.

Add and use snippets

Snippets are small text files and they can be anything, such as a standard letter, a common email reply, some code for a web page or app, and so on. To create snippets you must save the text as a plain text file in a special folder.

Hold down the Option key and click Go, Library to open a Finder window. Open Application Support, then Xmenu and finally Snippets. Save your text files here and they appear on the Snippets menu - Go to XMenu preferences and tick the Snippets option.

When a snippet is selected on the XMenu menu, the text is copied to the clipboard. It can then be pasted into a document or anywhere you can type with Cmd+V. Create a new document or email for example, click the Snippet icon in the menu bar and select a snippet. Press Cmd+V and it is entered into the document or email. You could build up a library of useful snippets.

Other files can be placed in the Snippets folder, but non-text files are inserted as the path rather than the file.

Final thoughts

XMenu is a simple utility, but some people will find it very useful. It provides access to common folders like Applications and Documents, and you can add your own favorite folders to your own custom menu. I tried the latest version on macOS Catalina and it worked fine.

Title: XMenu
Price: Free
Developer: DEVONtechnologies
Size: 1.7 MB
Version: 1.9.10
macOS: Yosemite or later