menucal docs

Installation

menucal is a native macOS app that runs entirely in your menu bar. It requires macOS 13 Ventura or later.

Onboarding

On first launch, menucal walks you through three screens:

• Welcome — overview of what menucal does and your 7-day free trial
• Calendar access — grant permission to read your calendars. menucal won't show any events without this
• How it works — a quick tour of the main features

Click Get Started on the last screen to begin your trial and start using the app.

The menu bar

After launch, menucal adds an item to your menu bar showing a calendar icon and your next upcoming event.

What you see	What it means
📅 Team standup · in 12m	An event is coming up within the hour
📅 Team standup · 14:00	Next event is later today
📅 Team standup · 45m left	An event is happening right now
📅 Mon 16 Mar	No more events today

Left-click

Opens the menucal popover — your calendar grid and event list.

Right-click

Opens a context menu with:

• Settings… — opens the Settings window ⌘,
• Trial: X days left — visible during your trial, click to unlock
• Quit menucal ⌘Q

Calendar view

Click the menu bar icon to open the popover. The top half shows a full month calendar grid.

Navigating months

Use the ‹ and › arrows at the top of the calendar to move between months.

Selecting a day

Single-click any day to filter the event list below to show only that day's events. Click again to deselect.

Creating an event from a day

Double-click any day to open the new event form, pre-filled with that date.

Viewing events

Below the calendar grid, menucal shows two sections:

• Today (or the selected day's name) — events from now until end of day
• Upcoming — events in the next 7 days

Each event row shows the event title, time range, and a relative time label (e.g. "in 2h", "now", "in 3d"). Events happening right now are highlighted with a subtle red background.

Event details

Tap any event to open an inline detail sheet showing:

• Full title, date, and time
• Calendar name and colour
• Relative time ("Happening now" / "in 2h")
• Notes and URL (if set)
• A trash icon to delete (only for editable calendars)
• An Open in Calendar link to jump to Calendar.app

Creating events

There are two ways to create a new event:

• Click the + button in the Today section header
• Double-click any day in the calendar grid

Both open the New Event form as an inline sheet that slides up from the bottom of the popover.

The New Event form

Field	Notes
Title	Auto-focused. Press Return to save quickly.
All day	Toggle to hide the time pickers and create an all-day event.
Start	Date and time picker. Defaults to the next hour.
End	Auto-advances if you push start past it.
Calendar	Dropdown with all your editable calendars.

Click Add (or press Return) to save. The event list refreshes automatically.

Settings → Calendars

Open Settings with ⌘, or right-click the menu bar icon → Settings. The Calendars tab lists all your calendars grouped by source (iCloud, Google, etc.).

Toggle any calendar off to hide its events from the popover and menu bar title. Your hidden calendar preferences are saved and persist across relaunches.

Settings → Integrations

The Integrations tab shows the status of all calendar sources:

• Apple Calendar — always connected via EventKit
• Google Calendar — connect via System Settings → Internet Accounts
• Outlook Calendar — connect via System Settings → Internet Accounts

A green Connected badge confirms each source is active. Click Set up on any disconnected source to be taken to the right place in System Settings.

Settings → Appearance

The Appearance tab currently has one setting:

• Dim weekends — Saturday and Sunday appear muted in the calendar grid and day headers, helping the work week stand out.

License & trial

menucal comes with a 7-day free trial. No account or credit card required — just download and start using it.

Status	What it means
Free trial	Full access for 7 days from first launch. A banner shows days remaining.
Trial expired	The popover is locked. Enter a license key to unlock.
Activated	Permanent access. No expiry, no restrictions.

You can check your license status at any time in Settings → License tab.

Entering a license key

After purchasing, you'll receive a personal unlock code. Enter it in any of these places:

• Settings → License → the activate field at the bottom
• The paywall screen that appears when your trial expires

The code is case-insensitive. Once entered successfully, access is permanent and stored locally on your Mac.

Troubleshooting

"menucal can't be opened because it's from an unidentified developer"

You might need to grant the app permission to open in Settings -> Privacy and Security. Alternatively, you can run

xattr -cr ~/Downloads/menucal.app

in your Terminal.

No events showing up

Make sure menucal has Calendar access. Check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars and ensure menucal is enabled.

I want to see the onboarding again

Run

tccutil reset Calendar com.menubar.calendar
defaults delete com.menubar.calendar

in your Terminal.

Then relaunch the app.

Keychain keeps asking for my password

This happens because the app is unsigned. Enter your password and click 'Always Allow' once. If that doesn't work, click 'Deny'. The app's functionality won't change.

The trial expired but I should have access

Enter your license key in Settings → License. If you don't have one yet, contact us to get your unlock code after purchasing. You can email satco. directly at hello@satco.dev