Updated
How to Show a To-Do in the Mac Menu Bar
With One Task
- Open One Task, and add the tasks that you want to do today.
- Open the settings, and in “Show in”, choose “Menu Bar”, or “Dock and Menu Bar”.
- In “Task to show”, choose “Top of the list”, “Bottom of the list”, or “Random”.
- In “Click action”, choose “Complete Task”.
The task is now in the menu bar. Click it when you are done, and the next task takes its place. With “Menu Bar” in “Show in”, the app has no Dock icon: right-click the menu bar item to open the settings or to quit.
One Task is not a full to-do app. It has no folders, tags, or priorities, and it works best with only the tasks for today. The tasks sync with iCloud to One Task on your other devices.
For a fixed text in the menu bar, like a goal, see how to add text to the menu bar.
Get One Task
Conquer one task at a time
$4, one-time purchase for all platforms
- Platforms
- macOS, iOS, watchOS, visionOS
- Requires
- macOS, iOS, watchOS, or visionOS 26 or later
- Category
- Productivity
- Released
- September 2023
- Privacy
- No data collected
- Family Sharing
- Yes
- Updated
- March 2026
- Version
- 2.0.0
- Size
- 9 MB
- US App Store rating
- 4.6/5 (21 ratings)
Without an app
macOS cannot show a reminder in the menu bar, but it can show your reminders in a widget:
- Control-click the desktop, and choose “Edit Widgets…”.
- Click “Reminders”, and drag a widget to the desktop, or to Notification Center.
- Control-click the widget, and choose the edit item to choose the list that it shows.
Click the circle of a reminder in the widget to complete it. The widget shows a list, with due dates, which is better when you plan many tasks. But windows cover the desktop, and Notification Center is closed most of the time, so you do not see the task while you work.