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What is macjuice?

aakarsh-goyal/macjuice — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

1SwiftAudience · generalComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

In one sentence

A free, local macOS menu bar app that shows detailed battery stats, health, and history charts, similar to paid tools like coconutBattery.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((MacJuice))
    What it does
      Live menu bar battery readout
      Detailed panel with charts
      Runs fully local, no cloud
    Stats shown
      Charge percent and time remaining
      Battery health and temperature
      Cycle count and power draw
    Extra features
      Toggle Low Power Mode
      Plug-in notch notifications
      Export history as CSV
    Requirements
      macOS 15 or newer
      Apple Silicon Mac
      Homebrew or build from source

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Install MacJuice to see live battery wattage and charge history right from your Mac's menu bar without paying for a similar app.

USE CASE 2

Check long-term battery health trends over weeks or months to decide if your MacBook's battery is degrading.

USE CASE 3

Use the menu bar toggle to switch Low Power Mode on or off without typing your admin password every time.

What is it built with?

SwiftmacOSSQLiteIOKit

How does it compare?

aakarsh-goyal/macjuicealtuzar/sonicflowaonez/videotogif
Stars111
LanguageSwiftSwiftSwift
Last pushed2016-09-27
MaintenanceDormant
Setup difficultyeasyeasyeasy
Complexity1/52/52/5
Audiencegeneralgeneralgeneral

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Requires macOS 15 or newer and an Apple Silicon Mac, the Liquid Glass panel needs macOS 26+.

So what is it?

MacJuice is a free Mac app that lives in your menu bar and shows detailed information about your laptop's battery, similar to what paid apps like coconutBattery offer, but running entirely on your own machine with no cloud account needed. It shows a live number next to a bolt icon in the menu bar, either battery percentage, power draw in watts, or both, depending on how you set it up. Clicking that menu bar icon opens a small floating panel with much more detail: your current charge percentage, how long until the battery is empty or full, the temperature of the battery, its health as both Apple's official percentage and a raw capacity number, how many charge cycles it has been through, and how much power is currently flowing in or out. It also draws history charts of your charge level, power draw, and battery health over the last day, week, month, or all time, so you can see trends rather than just a single snapshot. The app also keeps track of individual charging and discharging sessions, showing things like how long a charge took and what percentage it went from and to, and can estimate your remaining battery runtime based on how you have actually been using the laptop recently. A small popup notification briefly appears near the notch when you plug in, when Low Power Mode turns on, or when the battery gets low, then disappears after a few seconds. MacJuice can also toggle macOS's Low Power Mode directly from its menu, using either a passwordless method through the Shortcuts app or, as a fallback, the normal admin password prompt. All battery data is read directly from the operating system and stored locally in a small SQLite database rather than sent anywhere, and the app is designed to use very little memory and almost no CPU in the background. It requires macOS 15 or newer, runs on Apple Silicon Macs, and can be installed either through Homebrew or by building it from source using Xcode's command line tools.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Walk me through installing MacJuice on my Mac using Homebrew.
Prompt 2
Explain what the different battery health numbers shown in MacJuice mean.
Prompt 3
Show me how to set up the passwordless Low Power Mode shortcut that MacJuice uses.
Prompt 4
Help me build MacJuice from source using the included build script.

Frequently asked questions

What is macjuice?

A free, local macOS menu bar app that shows detailed battery stats, health, and history charts, similar to paid tools like coconutBattery.

What language is macjuice written in?

Mainly Swift. The stack also includes Swift, macOS, SQLite.

How hard is macjuice to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is macjuice for?

Mainly general.

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