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A native macOS menubar app for quick access to a folder of markdown notes and todos with integrated time tracking to help you focus. Opens as a window overlay on top of whatever else you're doing with the shortcut double Fn(configurable).

I use Obsidian but wanted something lighter so I can check/edit todos and notes without opening the full app. I built this app which is pointed to a directory in my Obsidian vault. Read the blog post for the full story.

Click the Flowbar icon in your menubar or press the global shortcut (double-tap Fn by default) and a floating overlay appears with your notes right there. Edit them, check off todos, track time on tasks. Click the icon again or double-tap Fn to toggle it from anywhere.

• Clean Minimal Interface - well thought UX, built with taste
• Floating overlay panel — toggle the app overlay with double-tap Fn, or from menubar(the keyboard shortcut is configurable)
• Resizable window - with dimensions remembered across invocations
• Keyboard Controlled - check settings for the keyboard shortcuts to navigate around the app.
• Smart editor — auto-continues bullets, todos, and numbered lists on Enter; preserves indentation
• Markdown Preview - renders your checkboxes as todos, which can be toggled with ease
• Todo list — aggregated view of all todos across your markdown files and ability to check them off, which updates the source file. Markdown files remain the source of truth.
• Timer — stopwatch to start on any todo and track time against it
• Menu bar timer — active task name and elapsed time shown right in the menu bar so you always know what you're working on
• Timeline - timeline of the day showing time spent on each todo
• Quick search — hit ⌘K to search across all notes by filename and content
• Personalization - Theme, color and font size
• Open in Obsidian - One click button to open your note in Obsidian(assuming it's part of your vault)

1. Grab the latest Flowbar.dmg from the Releases page. Direct DMG link.
2. Open the DMG and drag Flowbar into your Applications folder.
3. Launch Flowbar — macOS will show a security warning because the app isn't notarized (Apple charges $$ for a certificate, and this is a free side project).
4. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click "Open Anyway". You only need to do this once.

The DMG is built automatically by GitHub Actions from the public source code — you can verify the build or build from source yourself (see below).

Checkout learn-swift for a guide to the Swift concepts and patterns used in Flowbar.

You need Xcode installed (tested on Xcode 16+, macOS 15+).

# Generate the Xcode project (only needed once, or after changing project.yml)
cd Flowbar
xcodegen generate

# Build
xcodebuild -project Flowbar.xcodeproj -scheme Flowbar -configuration Debug build

# Run the app
open ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Flowbar-*/Build/Products/Debug/Flowbar.app

Or just open Flowbar.xcodeproj in Xcode and hit Run.

First launch: click the Flowbar icon in your menu bar, go to Settings, and point it at a folder with md files(you can create one inside your Obsidian vault if using Obsidian).

• No nested folders — Flowbar only picks up markdown files in the top-level of the selected folder. Nested subdirectories are not scanned.
• Obsidian users — Don't point Flowbar at your entire Obsidian vault. Instead, create a dedicated folder inside your vault (e.g. vault/flowbar/) and point Flowbar at that. This keeps things fast and avoids pulling in Obsidian's internal files.

This is a personal project, but if you find a bug or want to suggest an improvement, feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request. I'm happy to review and merge contributions that align with the minimalist design and core functionality.

If using claude code, use this command - "/flowbar-dev [the change you want to make]" for ease of development and consistency.