ColimaBar

A native macOS menu bar app for Colima - the container runtime for macOS.

Features

• Shows all Colima instances in the menu bar
• Start, Stop, and Restart each instance individually
• Open a shell into a running instance (via Terminal)
• Start All / Stop All when running multiple instances
• Create new instances (name, CPUs, memory, disk) and delete existing ones
• View instance details (arch, CPUs, memory, disk)
• Auto-refresh with a configurable interval (5/10/30/60 seconds)
• Launch at login
• Clear status and error reporting (e.g. when Colima is not installed)
• Lightweight, native Swift implementation

Requirements

• macOS 13.0+
• Colima installed (brew install colima)

Installation

From DMG

Download the latest release DMG and drag ColimaBar to your Applications folder.

First launch

ColimaBar is ad-hoc signed, not notarized by Apple, so on first launch macOS shows an "unidentified developer" warning. Right-click the app in Applications and choose Open, then confirm. You only need to do this once.

If macOS still refuses to open it, clear the download quarantine flag:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/ColimaBar.app

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/tdi/colimabar.git
cd colimabar
./build-app.sh
open ColimaBar.app

To create a DMG:

./build-dmg.sh

Usage

Once running, ColimaBar appears in your menu bar. The icon reflects the overall state of your instances:

Icon	Meaning
Filled box	At least one instance is running
Empty box	All instances are stopped
Box with arrow	An instance is starting or stopping

Click the icon to open the menu. Each instance is a row (● running, ○ stopped) that expands into its own submenu.

Managing instances

Open an instance's submenu to see its details (status, arch, CPUs, memory, disk) and act on it:

• Start / Stop the instance
• Restart a running instance
• Open Shell — launch Terminal and SSH into the running instance
• Delete… — permanently remove the instance and its data (asks for confirmation first)

When more than one instance exists, Start All and Stop All appear in the main menu.

Creating an instance

Choose New Instance… and fill in a name, CPU count, memory (GiB), and disk size (GiB). ColimaBar creates it with colima start using those resources.

Open Shell permissions

The first time you use Open Shell, macOS asks ColimaBar for permission to control Terminal. Allow it. If it was previously denied, re-enable it under System Settings › Privacy & Security › Automation › ColimaBar.

Preferences

• Refresh Interval — how often status is polled (5 / 10 / 30 / 60 seconds). The choice is remembered across launches. Polling pauses while an instance is starting or stopping so transitions aren't interrupted.
• Launch at Login — start ColimaBar automatically when you log in.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
N	New Instance
R	Refresh Status
Q	Quit

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.