Open Settings three ways: click the gear in the weather panel's footer, right-click the menu bar item and choose Settings..., or press ⌘, while a Forecast Bar window is open.
The sidebar has seven tabs: General, Theme & Visual Style, Data & Layout, Notifications, Forecast Bar AI, Subscription, and About & More. (On Setapp, the Subscription tab doesn't appear.)
On the Mac, subscription tiers are named Pro (Gold on other platforms) and Plus (Silver) — see Plans & Subscriptions.
General
Startup
- Launch at Login — registers Forecast Bar to start automatically when you log in to your Mac. When on, the caption confirms: "Forecast Bar will start automatically when you log in."
- Quit Forecast Bar — a quit button, with ⌘Q shown alongside.
- Ask Before Quitting — on by default. Quitting shows a "Quit Forecast Bar?" confirmation with a "Don't Show Again" checkbox (which turns this setting off). Logging out, restarting, or shutting down your Mac never triggers the dialog.
Update Frequency
How often weather refreshes automatically:
| Frequency | Requires |
|---|---|
| 10 Minutes | Pro |
| 15 Minutes | Pro |
| 30 Minutes | Plus |
| 60 Minutes | Plus — the default |
| Manual | Plus |
Locked options show a small tier capsule; choosing one you're not subscribed for opens the upgrade window.
Note: If you bought a faster update frequency in a legacy (pre-subscription) version of Forecast Bar for Mac, you keep it — a legacy 10- or 15-minute purchase still unlocks those speeds even on a Plus plan.
App Mode
Run Forecast Bar As — Menu Bar (default) or Dock. See Dock Mode.
Menu Bar
Display styles, item count, data points, sizes, and colors — covered in full in Menu Bar Display. Hidden while Dock mode is on.
Window Detach
Menu bar mode only:
- Drag-Down Gesture — what happens when you drag the panel off the menu bar: Floating Window (default), Switch to Dock Mode, or Disabled. See The Weather Panel.
- Reset Window Position — re-centers a detached window that's ended up off-screen (enabled only while detached).
Keyboard Shortcuts
The four recordable shortcuts and the full shortcut reference sheet — see Keyboard Shortcuts.
Theme & Visual Style
Appearance for the whole app:
- App Theme — Light / Dark / Auto.
- Glass Mode (macOS 26 and later) — Glass / Frosted Glass / Disabled.
- Backgrounds — Background Style (Animated Weather Scene, Transparent, Animated Gradients, Map, Solid, System, Image, Video) plus map style, gradient colors, and image options; also the Weather Animation Style and background scene choices.
- City Packs — the same downloadable photo backgrounds of real cities as on iPhone, browsable from the background scene settings and included with Gold. They work the same way here, so the walkthrough in Appearance & Backgrounds applies. Two things differ on the Mac. The automatic-download switch reads Over unmetered connections only rather than naming Wi-Fi, because a Mac downloads over Ethernet perfectly happily; what it skips is Personal Hotspot and other metered links. And Request a City Pack works differently — see below. From 11.4 a pack you already have quietly re-downloads itself when we redraw its artwork, under the same unmetered rule; you no longer have to notice an Update available badge and tap it.
- Request a City Pack — from 11.4 this files a real request rather than opening an email. The city you're already viewing takes one click; anywhere else is one field. Your requests then sit at the top of the pack store and show you where each one got to: Requested — we'll take a look, then In the queue to be created, then Being created now, then Ready with a click to download, and a notification when it lands. Ask for somewhere an existing pack already covers and you skip the queue entirely — the row says which pack covers you and offers it straight away. Right-click a request to Cancel Request while it's still open, or Remove from List once it has settled; a request you cancel can be made again later. Requesting needs Gold.
- Weather Icons — Color / Climacons / Anusha / Flat Color, for icons inside the app.
- Menu Bar Icons — the same four sets, chosen separately for the menu bar. See Menu Bar Display.
- Data Point Icons — colored icons or monochrome symbols.
- Fonts — app font and text size.
- Precipitation Colors — customize the light/dark precipitation chart colors, with a reset.
Data & Layout
What data appears and how it's laid out, organized in collapsible groups (click a group's header to expand it):
Localization · Location List · Main Screen Data Points · Alerts · Weather Change Alerts · Location Compare Button · Precipitation Section · Daily Forecasts · Hourly Forecasts · Radar · Visualize Day
Highlights:
- Localization — Use Feels Like, Units (USA / UK / Metric), Wind Units (MPH, km/h, M/S, Knots), Wind Direction format, Forecast Language.
- Location List — Default Location, list style (Standard / Compact), Show Local Time.
- Main Screen Data Points — show/hide the data point strip, its icons and labels, and pick and reorder which data points appear.
- Precipitation, Daily, and Hourly groups — show/hide each forecast section and tune its style, graphs, and data points, with live previews.
- Radar — the default radar layer (2 Hour Radar, 18 Hour Radar, Global Radar, or any specific layer such as Satellite, Temperature, Wind Speed, Aurora Forecast, and more), weather overlay, Next-Generation Radar (Beta), and a custom radar URL option.
- Visualize Day — whether a condition icon sits beside the temperature while the day plays. The playback itself is described in The Weather Panel.
Tip: On the Mac, showing or hiding a section (Precipitation, Daily, and so on) resizes the weather panel automatically to fit the new content — no manual adjustment needed.
Notifications
Severe weather, precipitation, daily reports, astronomy, tides, custom notifications, temperature comparisons, and Do Not Disturb hours — plus a Mac-only "Send notifications for" picker choosing which location alerts follow (your current location or a saved one). Notifications require a Plus subscription or higher. Full details in Alerts & Notifications.
If macOS notification permission is missing, the tab shows a shortcut straight to System Settings → Notifications → Forecast Bar.
Forecast Bar AI
Smart Weather Stories — AI-written summaries of your day's weather, with optional calendar integration, animation and model choices, and customizable writing styles. Requires Pro and an English forecast language. The Mac tab mirrors the iOS settings; see Smart Weather Stories for the full guide.
Subscription
Your current plan at a glance: Current Subscription, Expires On, and a Manage Subscription button that opens the subscription window. (This tab is absent on Setapp, where everything is already unlocked.)
About & More
- Support — User Guide (opens this guide in your browser), FAQ, and Email Support.
- Sign In With Apple — sign-out row when you're signed in (App Store builds).
- Version — the app version and build number.
- TestFlight — "Join Beta" link to the public beta (App Store builds).
- Debug Options — a collapsible set of troubleshooting tools (test notifications, reload widgets, reset tutorial, sync controls, and your notification/user/device IDs) — handy when working with support.
- Legal — data provider credits, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Remove Cloud Data (with a confirmation — this permanently deletes your synced data).
