How to Put a Countdown in the Mac Menu Bar

The menu bar is the best place on a Mac for a countdown you want to see all day. Windows never cover it, it’s on every desktop, and your eyes pass over it constantly. Here are three ways to put a countdown there, from free and fiddly to one click.

Option 1: A Shortcut pinned to the menu bar (built in)

The Shortcuts app can calculate the days until a date and sit in the menu bar. It won’t show the number until you click it, but it’s free and already on your Mac.

1. Open Shortcuts and click + to create a new shortcut.
2. Add a Date action and type your date, like “December 25, 2026”.
3. Add Get Time Between Dates. Set it to get the time between Current Date and the Date from the previous step, in Days.
4. Add a Show Result action (or Show Notification) with the result.
5. Name the shortcut, for example “Days to Christmas”.
6. Open the shortcut’s details (the ⓘ button in the sidebar on the right) and turn on Pin in Menu Bar.

A Shortcuts icon appears in the menu bar. Click it, choose your shortcut, and it shows the days left.

Good for: no install. Not so good for: the number isn’t visible until you click, and you’ll edit the shortcut whenever the date changes.

Option 2: A small script with SwiftBar or xbar (free, always visible)

SwiftBar and xbar are free, open-source apps that put the output of any script in the menu bar. That means a four-line script gives you a countdown that’s always visible, with no clicking.

1. Install SwiftBar or xbar and open it. The first time, it asks you to choose a plugin folder. Create a folder, for example ~/MenuBar.
2. In that folder, create a file named countdown.1h.sh. The 1h in the name tells the app to rerun it every hour.
3. Paste this in, and change the label and date on the first two lines:

#!/bin/bash
# Days until a date, for SwiftBar or xbar. Edit these two lines.
LABEL="Christmas"
TARGET="2026-12-25"

today=$(date -j -f "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" "$(date +%Y-%m-%d) 00:00:00" +%s)
target=$(date -j -f "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" "$TARGET 00:00:00" +%s)
days=$(( (target - today + 43200) / 86400 ))

if [ "$days" -gt 1 ]; then echo "$LABEL: $days days"
elif [ "$days" -eq 1 ]; then echo "$LABEL: tomorrow"
elif [ "$days" -eq 0 ]; then echo "$LABEL: today!"
else echo "$LABEL: passed"
fi

4. Make it executable. In Terminal, run chmod +x ~/MenuBar/countdown.1h.sh.
5. Refresh the plugins from the SwiftBar or xbar menu. The menu bar now reads “Christmas: 97 days”.

The script counts calendar days, the same way a wall calendar does, so it’s right even across daylight saving changes. For a second countdown, copy the file with a new name and change the two lines.

Good for: free, always visible, fully customizable. Not so good for: you’ll need to be comfortable editing a text file.

Option 3: A menu bar countdown app (easiest)

Search the Mac App Store for “menu bar countdown”. These apps put the days left next to the clock and let you add dates with a normal form. When comparing them, check:

• What shows in the menu bar: just the soonest countdown, or several? Several labels take a lot of room.
• How you add dates, and whether birthdays and anniversaries repeat every year.
• Whether it starts at login, so the countdown is always there.
• Pricing and privacy: one-time or subscription, and whether it needs an account.

Our article on what makes a good countdown app for Mac goes into more detail.

On a MacBook with a notch

The notch splits the menu bar in two, and the right-hand side has limited space. When there are more menu bar items than fit, macOS hides the ones that don’t, and it doesn’t tell you. A countdown label like “Christmas: 97 days” is wider than most icons, so it’s often the first thing to disappear.

Ways around it:

• Keep labels short: “🎄 97” instead of “Christmas: 97 days”. In the script above, change the echo lines.
• Remove menu bar items you don’t use. Hold ⌘ and drag an icon out of the menu bar to remove it (this works for many system icons; for apps, check their settings).
• Use the notch itself. The space on either side of the notch is visible all day and not used by menu bar items.

That last one is why we built Notchiko. Instead of a label in the menu bar, it puts a small animated character by the notch for each countdown, with the days left underneath, and hovering over the notch shows every countdown at once. Notchiko has a small menu bar icon for its settings, but the countdowns themselves don’t use menu bar space. On Macs without a notch, it shows as a floating pill instead.

In full-screen apps

By default, the menu bar hides in full-screen apps and slides back when you move the pointer to the top of the screen. If you want it always visible, open System Settings, search for “Automatically hide and show the menu bar”, and choose Never. Full-screen apps will then keep the menu bar, and your countdown, in view.

Quick comparison

Want to check the number right now? Try the free deadline, event, or Christmas countdowns.