# Menu bar app and ZC Care > ZCBar, the macOS menu bar app over zc-workstation, and ZC Care, its window for cleaning, protecting and tuning the Mac. ZCBar is a macOS menu bar app over the CLI. It shows what `zc-workstation` would change, the Mac’s vitals and updates in a panel, and opens **ZC Care**, a window that cleans, protects and tunes the Mac. Each change ZCBar makes is one you approve first. It lives in `apps/menubar`, a Swift package for macOS 14 and later. ## Install From the Homebrew tap, with the CLI it needs: ```console $ brew tap zoolcoder/zc-workstation https://github.com/zoolcoder/zc-workstation $ brew install --cask zcbar ``` Each release builds ZCBar for Apple silicon and Intel and signs it ad hoc, not yet with a Developer ID, so macOS blocks the first start: open it once from the Finder with Control-click, **Open**. `gh attestation verify ZCBar_.zip --repo zoolcoder/zc-workstation` checks the zip was built by the release workflow. From a clone of the repository: ```console $ make app-install installed ~/Applications/ZCBar.app; open it once, then tick Open at login ``` `make app` builds `bin/ZCBar.app`, signed ad hoc. `make app-install` copies it to `~/Applications`. An app opened from the Finder gets no shell environment, so if `ZC_WORKSTATION_CONFIG` is set, `app-install` hands that path to the app once. **Choose Config…** in the panel changes it later. ## The panel Click the menu bar mark, or press ⌃⌥Z, to open the panel. Its tabs: | Tab | Shows | | --- | --- | | Mac | Disk, memory, CPU, battery, network and sensors, the largest junk folders to free up, and advice. Each tile opens a detail. | | Overview | Each target with what is in place and missing, **Apply** per target, and a link into the [dashboard](ui.html). | | Updates | Outdated packages and runtimes, with **Update** per item and **Update All…**. | | Health | `doctor` findings with **Fix**, **Copy Fix** and **Ignore**. | | Services | Homebrew services and launchd agents, with **Start**, **Run Now** and their logs. | Its settings turn on notifications, the ⌃⌥Z hotkey, the weekly Smart Care scan and opening at login. If SketchyBar is installed, ZCBar hands it the count of open items for its `zcbar` item. ## ZC Care **Open ZC Care** in the panel opens a window with one module per job. A module opens on an intro that says what it does. Its **Scan** reads the Mac; nothing changes until you press a module’s clean or remove button and confirm. ![ZC Care’s Cleanup module](_images/care-cleanup.png) | Module | Does | | --- | --- | | Smart Care | Scans everything at once and sums it up in cards: junk, clutter, updates and health. **Run** cleans up, then updates. | | Cleanup | Clears caches, logs, build output, npx packages and Mail downloads. Clears **AI clutter**: Claude Code temp files and old versions, and the caches and logs of Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, Windsurf, Codex, Gemini CLI and Chrome DevTools MCP. Empties the Trash. | | Protection | Gatekeeper’s verdict on each app, the apps that run in the background, the privacy permissions apps hold, and each browser’s history, cookies and cache, cleared only while that browser is closed. | | Performance | Login items, background apps and maintenance tasks: free RAM, flush DNS, thin Time Machine snapshots, reindex Spotlight, and clean Homebrew, Docker and simulators. | | Applications | Every app with its size and last use. Uninstalls an app with what it keeps in the Library. **Adopt** replaces an app installed by hand with its Homebrew cask and declares it. Finds what removed apps left behind. | | My Clutter | Large files, duplicates, similar images, old downloads and installers. Similar images are photos Vision finds alike; the one with the most pixels stays. | | Space Lens | A map of what fills your home folder. | | Developer | Dependencies of projects untouched for 90 days, such as `node_modules` and virtualenvs, and local AI models from Ollama, LM Studio and Hugging Face. | | My Tools | Every tool as a searchable card, including **Screen Cleaning Mode**, which blacks out the screens and locks the keyboard until you click **Done**. | | My Activity | Mac health, disk use, the space ZC Care freed by kind, recommendations from the last scan, and recent activity. | ![ZC Care’s My Tools grid](_images/care-tools.png) `zcbar://care` opens the window, and `zcbar://care/` opens a module by the start of its name, such as `zcbar://care/cleanup`. `zcbar://panel/` opens a panel tab. ### What it never touches - Chats, settings and sessions of AI tools: `~/.claude/projects`, `~/.codex/sessions` and the Claude Code version `~/.local/bin/claude` runs. - A Claude Code temp folder used in the last day: a running session owns it. - Caches of apps that are open. ### Where it goes Junk, caches and AI clutter are deleted: each tool makes them again. Files, apps, leftovers, dependencies and models go to the Trash, where you can put them back. A Homebrew app is uninstalled through `zc-workstation remove`, so it also leaves the Brewfile. Maintenance tasks that need an administrator ask for your password in a macOS dialog. ZC Care keeps its last scan in `~/Library/Caches/dev.zoolcoder.zcbar` and the activity log in `~/Library/Application Support/dev.zoolcoder.zcbar`, outside the caches it clears. ### Permissions Reading the privacy permissions needs Full Disk Access for ZCBar. An ad hoc signed build is a new app to macOS, so each rebuild asks again. Emptying the Trash asks once to let ZCBar control the Finder. ## Develop ```console $ make app-test # swift test, the ZCBarCore tests $ make app # bin/ZCBar.app $ make app-icon # redraw the icons from apps/menubar/icon/mark.svg ``` `ZCBarCore` holds the logic, with no UI, and is what the tests cover. `ZCBar` is the SwiftUI app over it. CI builds and tests both on a macOS runner.