Five short steps — including the one-time macOS security approval and the Keychain prompt, explained before they surprise you.
Ventura or newer, Apple Silicon or Intel. Claudicator is menu-bar only — no Dock icon, no window clutter.
The same login you use for Claude or Claude Code. Claudicator shows the 5-hour and weekly quota of your subscription.
No installer, no settings to configure, no account to create. Download, approve once, sign in — done.
Grab Claudicator.dmg — the link always points at the newest release on GitHub. Safari may ask whether to allow the download; click Allow.
Open the downloaded Claudicator.dmg and drag the Claudicator icon onto the Applications folder shown next to it. Then eject the disk image (click ⏏ next to it in Finder's sidebar) — you can delete the DMG afterwards.
Don't run it from the DMG. Launching straight from the disk image is the most common cause of "the app disappeared after I restarted" — make sure you've dragged it into Applications first.
Open Claudicator from Applications. Because it isn't signed with a paid Apple Developer certificate, macOS blocks the very first launch with a message like this:
Apple could not verify "Claudicator" is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.
Click Done (not "Move to Trash"!), then approve it once:
Why this happens: the warning means the app isn't notarized by Apple (that requires a $99/year developer account) — not that anything is wrong with it. Claudicator is fully open source, so you can read every line or build it yourself. You only approve once — updates and future launches open normally.
On macOS 15 (Sequoia) and later the old right-click → Open shortcut no longer bypasses this — the Privacy & Security route above is the way.
Claudicator has no Dock icon and no window — it lives in the menu bar at the top-right of your screen. Look for the small ring gauge:
If you don't see it, your menu bar is probably full — see the fix below.
Click the menu bar icon, then Connect to Claude… It's the same secure sign-in flow Claude Code uses — your password never touches the app:
Your quota appears immediately and refreshes itself every 2.5 minutes from then on.
Keychain prompt: right after connecting, macOS asks whether Claudicator may use its secure storage — that's where your login token is kept, encrypted by macOS. Click Always Allow and enter your Mac login password (not your Claude password). This is a standard macOS prompt, and "Always Allow" means you won't be asked on every refresh.
That's it — you're done. From now on Claudicator just sits in your menu bar and keeps itself current: it checks for app updates automatically and offers them in-app (or check manually anytime via ⚙→Check for Updates…). No need to re-download from this site.
Don't want to trust a downloaded binary? Build your own copy from source — it's signed to run locally, so it launches with no Gatekeeper prompt at all. You'll need Xcode 15+ on macOS 13+.
git clone https://github.com/waveoff/claudicator.git
cd claudicator
# Build a Release .app and package it as Claudicator.dmg
./build-dmg.sh
Or open Claudicator.xcodeproj in Xcode and press ⌘R to build and run. Then continue from step 4 above.
The complete list of snags people actually hit, with the fix for each. Still stuck after these? Open an issue on GitHub — happy to help.
That's the expected one-time Gatekeeper check from step 3 — Claudicator isn't notarized by Apple, so macOS asks you to approve it explicitly the first time.
If there's no "Open Anyway" entry, launch the app once more first — the entry only appears right after a blocked attempt.
Despite the scary wording, the app isn't damaged — this happens when macOS's quarantine flag gets into a bad state (typically after the DMG was re-downloaded, transferred via AirDrop, or unpacked by a download manager).
With Claudicator already in /Applications, clear the flag from Terminal:
xattr -cr /Applications/Claudicator.app
Then open the app again. If you'd rather not run a Terminal command, delete the app, re-download the DMG fresh with Safari, and reinstall.
That's by design — Claudicator is a menu bar app. Look at the top-right of your screen for the small ring gauge (it shows a percentage once connected).
If it's genuinely not there:
This is the macOS Keychain asking whether Claudicator may read its own stored login token. It's expected and safe:
Since v0.3.0, builds are signed with a stable identity, so "Always Allow" keeps working across auto-updates. If a particular update does re-ask once, that's the signing identity changing — answer Always Allow once more and it persists again.
Your session has likely expired — that happens occasionally and is nothing to fix. Click Connect to Claude… and run through the three sign-in steps again; your settings are untouched.
Claudicator refreshes every 2.5 minutes on its own; the footer of the popover tells you when it last updated. For an instant check, click the ↻ refresh button at the top of the popover.
Keep in mind the numbers come from Claude's own quota service — if Claude is having an off moment, the latest successful reading stays on screen until the next refresh succeeds.
Claudicator needs macOS 13 (Ventura) or later. On macOS 12 and earlier the app won't launch — there's currently no legacy build. Both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs are supported on 13+.
com.ariross.claudicator, and delete the entry.That's everything — there are no background services, launch agents, or leftover data folders.
One download, one approval, one sign-in — and your Claude quota is a glance away for good.
macOS 13 (Ventura) or later · Apple Silicon & Intel