OnlySwitch packs 39 macOS toggles into one menu bar app, with an honest status column
⚙️ All-in-One menu bar app, hide 💻MacBook Pro's notch, dark mode, AirPods, Shortcuts
At a glance
- What is it?
- OnlySwitch aggregates native macOS toggles, imported Shortcuts and desktop widgets behind a single status bar icon. The switch table openly marks the weak spots, including the notch hider, and scope has grown well past toggles.
- Who is it for?
- Mac users who want dark mode, AirPods connection, hidden desktop icons and their own Shortcuts in one sorted menu bar list should install via brew install only-switch and check the switch table against their needs. Skip it if reliable notch hiding is the main draw, since the README marks that switch as having some issues, or if a password prompt for low power mode is unacceptable.
- Can I use it commercially?
- Yes. MIT is a permissive licence: you can use, modify and sell software built on it, as long as you keep its copyright and licence notices.
- Is it still maintained?
- Yes. The repository last received commits 4 days ago.
- What is it written in?
- Mainly Swift, according to GitHub's language statistics.
Answers come from the project's GitHub data, last synced on September 15, 2026, and from our analysis. They are not legal advice.
DEEP OPEN-SOURCE ANALYSIS
Thirty-nine native switches under one status bar icon
OnlySwitch is a menu bar app for macOS, written in Swift with a SwiftUI interface according to the repository badges and topics. The idea is consolidation: instead of one utility per small preference, a single status bar item lists toggles for dark mode, Night Shift, hiding desktop icons, hiding the MacBook Pro notch, connecting AirPods, keeping the machine awake, emptying the pasteboard and trash, showing hidden files, and cleaning the Xcode cache, alongside media controls for Spotify, Apple Music and radio stations. The README counts 39 native switches in its table. For a developer on a MacBook, entries like Xcode cache and Show user library folder are the practical draw. For everyone else it is the preference toggles that Apple spreads across System Settings, Control Center and scattered menus, gathered into one list you can reorder, trim and drive from the keyboard, a capability the README dates to version 2.0.
Three distinct item types, not just one switch list
The app is best understood as three layers. The first is the native switch table, where toggles run the app's own code. The second is Apple Shortcuts integration: since version 1.7, shortcuts from the Shortcuts app can be imported and shown in the same list, and since version 1.3 the list itself is customizable, with items added, removed or sorted. The README's Shortcuts Gallery lists community-contributed examples, from Toggle Scroll Direction and Flush DNS Cache to S-GPT, which it notes needs an OpenAI API key, and points contributors to ShortcutsGalleryContributing.md. The third layer runs the other direction: the app exposes Shortcuts Actions, namely Get wallpaper url, Is dark mode and Set dark mode, all marked finished, plus Get wallpaper image, marked as having some issues. So OnlySwitch both consumes shortcuts and feeds actions back into the Shortcuts app. An Evolution Gallery table adds Stage Manager, Clamshell and Wifi Switch items, which sit somewhere between the two layers.
Install with Homebrew, because auto-update broke at 2.5.6
The install path is either brew install only-switch or a direct download of OnlySwitch.dmg from the releases page. The README carries a warning worth reading before anything else: auto-updating has failed from version 2.5.6 and below, so existing users must update manually or through Homebrew. Anyone already running an older copy should treat this as the first action, not an afterthought. The platform badge in the README says Tahoe, and the homepage at onlyswitch.click carries the marketing presence. Two community channels exist, a Telegram group and a Discord server, both linked from the README, which is where troubleshooting beyond the README's fairly thin prose will likely land. There is no documented uninstall or permission list in the supplied material, so expect to grant the usual macOS accessibility and control permissions by trial when specific switches need them.
The status column is refreshingly honest about weak switches
The switch table has a status column, and it is not decorative. Hide notch, the feature named second in the repository description, is marked as having some issues. Low power mode is marked require password, meaning the toggle apparently needs elevated credentials rather than a clean click. Hide Windows, Top Sticker and Hide Menu Bar Icons are marked partly finished. This transparency is unusual and useful, because it tells you exactly which expectations to lower before installing. It also frames the trade-off the whole app makes: breadth first, polish unevenly distributed later. If your reason for installing is one specific switch, the table is the contract, and two of the most visible features sit in the weak rows. The material does not describe what the Only Agent and Authenticator switches do beyond their names, which is its own signal about documentation depth.
Six years of version notes read as steady scope growth
The README's version annotations sketch the roadmap. Version 1.3 made the list customizable. Version 1.7 imported Shortcuts. Version 2.0 added keyboard control. Version 2.3.6 moved switches availability, including the player and hiding menu bar icons, to the system's menu bar. Version 2.5.0 added Apple Widgets on Sonoma and above, so switches can sit on the desktop, and version 2.5.4 introduced the Only Control appearance. Version 2.7.0 added an optional Desktop Pet, a small always-on-top companion you enable in General settings, drag anywhere, and click to show or dismiss Only Control. The trajectory is clear: what began as a toggle list is now also a widget host, an alternate control surface and a desktop toy. Whether that is enrichment or drift depends on what you installed it for, but every addition widens the surface that the status column has to keep honest.
MIT licensed, shipping this quarter, against free built-in rivals
The project is MIT licensed, so internal distribution and modification are unproblematic on the licensing side, without that being legal advice. Maintenance looks healthy from the supplied facts: the last push was 2026-08-30, and releases 2.7.1, 2.7.2 and 2.7.3 shipped on 2026-07-22, 2026-07-26 and 2026-08-21 respectively. The honest comparison is with tools that cost nothing to install. Apple's own Control Center and the Shortcuts app already toggle dark mode, Night Shift and Do Not Disturb, and Shortcuts can build a menu bar item on its own. The difference is aggregation: OnlySwitch sorts native toggles, imported shortcuts and third-party actions into one keyboard-drivable list and can mirror them as desktop widgets, which the built-in pieces do not do as a single surface. For the narrower job of hiding menu bar icons, dedicated managers, commercial ones like Bartender and open-source alternatives, focus solely on that problem, while in OnlySwitch that switch is only partly finished. Choose it for the aggregated list, not for any single feature.
Editorial conclusion
Mac users who want dark mode, AirPods connection, hidden desktop icons and their own Shortcuts in one sorted menu bar list should install via brew install only-switch and check the switch table against their needs. Skip it if reliable notch hiding is the main draw, since the README marks that switch as having some issues, or if a password prompt for low power mode is unacceptable. Verify three things before rolling it out: the status column for the switches you actually need, whether your macOS version supports the Sonoma-era widgets, and that your copy is above 2.5.6, because auto-update is broken at that version and older ones.
Community notes