SpeedBar

A lightweight macOS menu bar app for live network speed and connection latency.

Features

• Live download and upload activity from the active network interface
• Clear online, connecting, offline, and paused states
• One-second TCP latency samples with a rolling five-minute history
• Adaptive chart scale, missed-probe markers, average latency, and packet-loss summary
• Cancellable download and upload capacity estimate with validated HTTP responses
• A locally saved last result and timestamp, so old readings are never presented as current
• Launch at Login, pause monitoring, About, and Quit controls in the app

Download

For most users, download the latest release—no development tools are required. The release is a universal app that runs natively on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 12 or later.

1. Go to Releases
2. Download SpeedBar.zip
3. Unzip it and drag SpeedBar.app into Applications
4. Open SpeedBar.app

Release builds are ad-hoc signed for bundle integrity, but they are not Developer ID signed or notarized. macOS may therefore block the first launch. Right-click the app and choose Open. If macOS still reports that the app is damaged, run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/SpeedBar.app"

Then open the app again.

Updating

1. Quit the currently running copy of SpeedBar
2. Download SpeedBar.zip from the latest release
3. Unzip the download
4. Drag SpeedBar.app into Applications
5. Choose Replace when Finder asks
6. Open SpeedBar.app again

SpeedBar does not have accounts. It stores only the last successful speed-test result, its timestamp, and small local preferences.

Usage

The menu bar displays current traffic, for example: ↓1.2M/s ↑318K/s.

• ↓ is the current download rate
• ↑ is the current upload rate
• Left-click opens live latency history and the speed test
• Right-click opens controls for testing, pausing, launching at login, About, and Quit

The popover separates live traffic (bytes per second) from tested connection capacity (bits per second). It also distinguishes an idle connection from an offline one.

The latency chart samples once per second and shows the latest five minutes. Its vertical scale adapts to normal conditions so small changes remain visible. Amber triangles identify spikes beyond the visible scale, red crosses identify probes that timed out, and muted dots represent periods when the Mac was offline. A failed probe is not treated as proof that the whole connection is offline.

Speed Test

The speed test is a quick capacity estimate rather than a laboratory-grade benchmark. It warms up the connection, downloads about 20 MB, and uploads about 5 MB using Cloudflare's speed-test service. Both directions must return successful HTTP responses before SpeedBar saves the result. The test can be cancelled at any time.

Launch at Login

On macOS 13 or later, use Launch at login in the SpeedBar popover. On macOS 12, add SpeedBar.app manually in System Settings → General → Login Items.

Network and Privacy

• Latency monitoring opens a short TCP connection to 1.1.1.1:443 once per second while monitoring is active.
• Speed tests use speed.cloudflare.com and transfer random upload data.
• SpeedBar does not inspect traffic contents, keep browsing history, or send analytics.
• Results and preferences stay in the current macOS user account.

Build from Source

Requirements

• macOS 12.0 or later
• Xcode Command Line Tools

Build

# Install Xcode Command Line Tools if needed
xcode-select --install

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/nishantkumar1292/speedbar.git
cd speedbar
./build.sh

# Run
open SpeedBar.app

# Run the unit and render-level layout tests
swift test

The build creates a universal SpeedBar.app containing both Apple silicon and Intel code and targets macOS 12 or later. The internal SwiftPM executable remains named InternetSpeed.

The default app version is 0.2.0. To build another version, set VERSION:

VERSION=0.2.1 ./build.sh

Creating a Release

# Build and verify the app
VERSION=0.2.0 ./build.sh
codesign --verify --deep --strict --verbose=2 SpeedBar.app

# Package it
ditto -c -k --norsrc --keepParent SpeedBar.app SpeedBar.zip

# Create a release
gh release create v0.2.0 SpeedBar.zip \
  --title "SpeedBar v0.2.0" \
  --notes-file RELEASE_NOTES.md