The all-in-one Mac battery & power-health app: health, live watts, every Apple device, and Smart Alerts, in one menu-bar icon.
A native macOS menu-bar app that surfaces what macOS hides: true battery health, cycle count, temperature, live charging wattage, and the time-remaining estimate Apple removed in 2016. 100% local, no account, one-time price.
⬇️ Download for macOS · 🌐 Website · 🐞 Report a bug / request a feature
Note
Mac 4 Breakfast is a commercial, closed-source app. This repository hosts its documentation, changelog, and issue tracker, not the source code. Bug reports and feature requests are very welcome, so please open an issue.
macOS knows everything about your battery, and shows you almost none of it. The menu bar gives you a percentage; Settings gives you a vague "Normal" or "Service Recommended." No cycle count, no real capacity, no temperature, no live wattage, and the time-remaining estimate Apple removed in 2016 never came back.
So people end up running three apps: one for health (coconutBattery), one for charge habits (AlDente), one menu-bar monitor. Each has its own window, price, and footprint. Mac 4 Breakfast puts all of it behind one menu-bar icon that stays out of the way until you glance at it.
- 🔋 Real battery health: exact maximum capacity, cycle count, condition, and design-vs-current mAh, not a vague label.
- ⏱️ True time remaining: the live "3h 42m left" / "1h 8m to full" estimate Apple dropped, back in your menu bar.
- ⚡ Live power flow: real-time wattage and voltage the moment you plug in, so you can tell if a charger or cable is actually fast.
- 🌡️ Temperature, done right: battery-cell temperature with a configurable overheating threshold, so it warns you when it's actually hot, not at normal warmth.
- 🔔 Smart Alerts from the notch: an unplug reminder at your charge target, a predictive low-battery warning that names the heaviest app, and overheating alerts that name the cause.
- 📱 Every Apple device: iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch and Magic accessories, their batteries in one place (USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth).
- 🎛️ The most customizable menu bar: show any two of percentage, time, watts, temperature or health, or a Smart adaptive mode; °C or °F; gauge or glyph.
- 📊 Insights nobody else shows: a shareable Battery Report Card, a lifetime analyzer, a heat-event log, and a live "what's using significant energy right now."
An honest look at where each app focuses. All three alternatives are good at what they do; Mac 4 Breakfast's angle is doing the whole job in one place, locally, for a one-time price. This is also a quick reference if you're looking for a coconutBattery alternative, an AlDente alternative, or an iStat Menus alternative.
| Mac 4 Breakfast | coconutBattery | AlDente | iStat Menus | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battery health & cycle count | ✅ | ✅ | ✗ | ✅ |
| Live wattage & voltage | ✅ | ✅ | ✗ | ✅ |
| True time-remaining estimate | ✅ | ✗ | ✗ | ✅ |
| Notch Smart Alerts (unplug / low / heat) | ✅ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| iPhone / iPad / AirPods / Watch batteries | ✅ | iOS only* | ✗ | ✗ |
| Hardware charge limiting (cap at 80%) | reminder, not a cap | ✗ | ✅ | ✗ |
| Full system monitor (CPU / net / sensors) | battery-focused | ✗ | ✗ | ✅ |
| 100% local · no account · no telemetry | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Price | $4.99 one-time + free tier | free / paid | free / Pro one-time | one-time (higher) |
* coconutBattery reads a connected iOS device; Mac 4 Breakfast also covers AirPods, Apple Watch and Magic accessories. AlDente does true hardware charge-limiting via a background helper; Mac 4 Breakfast deliberately ships no privileged helper and instead reminds you to unplug at your target. Comparison reflects each app in mid-2026. Spot something out of date? Open an issue.
Everything stays on your Mac. No account, no telemetry, no analytics SDK. The app makes no network calls except a one-time license activation and the Sparkle update check. It reads battery data through Apple's own IOKit / SMC APIs. Full data-flow and how to report a vulnerability: SECURITY.md.
Requirements: macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later · Apple silicon or Intel.
- Download Mac 4 Breakfast, a notarized
.pkginstaller. - Open the
.pkgand follow the installer; it places the app in Applications. It's notarized by Apple, so there's no "unidentified developer" warning. - Launch Mac 4 Breakfast from Applications. It lives in your menu bar.
Update: the app updates itself automatically (Sparkle), or re-download the latest from the website any time.
Uninstall: quit the app (menu-bar icon → Quit), then drag Mac 4 Breakfast from Applications to the Trash.
Development is active and shaped by users: the overheating-alert overhaul in 0.2.3 came straight from a user pointing out that 35 °C isn't "hot." Got an idea or a bug?
Is it open source? No. Mac 4 Breakfast is a commercial, closed-source app. This repo is its public docs, changelog and issue tracker, so the history and feedback are in the open even though the code isn't.
Why pay when coconutBattery is free? coconutBattery (free) is great for an occasional deep health check, but you have to open it, and it has no Smart Alerts, no customizable menu bar, and no "what's draining it" view. Mac 4 Breakfast is the always-there, glanceable layer with alerts and insights, for a one-time $4.99 (the free tier covers the basics). Different job, not a knock on a good tool.
Why isn't it on the Mac App Store? The App Store sandbox blocks the low-level IOKit/SMC access needed for cycle count, temperature and live wattage, so it's a direct, Apple-notarized download instead.
Does it cap charging at 80% like AlDente? Not as a hardware cap, which needs a privileged background helper we deliberately don't ship. Instead it gives you an unplug reminder when you reach your target.