Inside USB Buddy: Every USB Device in One Menu Bar Panel
USB Buddy is a small Mac utility from 1dot1 that lives behind a port icon in the menu bar. It answers three questions that macOS makes surprisingly hard to answer: what is plugged in right now, how fast is each device running, and which of these drives can be ejected. This teardown walks through the app screen by screen and explains the decisions behind each part.
The information itself is not new. macOS already knows all of it, spread across System Information, Disk Utility and Finder. USB Buddy gathers it into one panel that opens in a click and closes when you look away.
One panel, every port
Clicking the port icon opens a single panel with one row per device. Each row carries an icon for the kind of device, its name, a second line with the vendor or the names of its drives, and a small capsule with the speed it is running at. The header counts the devices, and the footer sums up what matters: how many drives are connected and how many devices are running slower than they could.
The row is deliberately short. A desk with a dock, a keyboard, a camera, an audio interface and two drives is already six rows, and the list has to stay readable at that size. Everything else waits one click away, so the panel never turns into a wall of numbers.
What each icon means
USB Buddy works out what each device is from the way it describes itself to the Mac. Drives, keyboards, mice, cameras, audio interfaces, network adapters, printers and phones each get their own icon, and anything it cannot place gets a plain connector. The list is ordered by port, so devices on the same hub sit next to each other.
Hubs are hidden by default. A hub is rarely the thing you are looking for, and on a modern dock there can be two or three of them in the chain. Anyone who wants to see them can switch them on from the options menu, and every device still names the hub it is connected through in its details.
Every detail, one click
Clicking a row expands it in place. The details list the USB standard the device negotiated, from USB 1.1 to USB4, the link speed, the power the Mac has allocated to it, the vendor and product IDs, the serial number, the port location and the hub in between. Values can be selected and copied one at a time, and Copy Details puts the whole list on the clipboard as plain text, ready to paste into a support ticket.
Only one device expands at a time. Opening a second row closes the first, which keeps the panel from growing past the screen and keeps the eye on one device at a time. The panel resizes itself as rows open and close, anchored under the menu bar so it never jumps.
Drives and free space
Drives get an extra section in their details: each mounted volume with its name, a bar showing how full it is, and how much space is free. The row itself shows the volume names instead of the vendor, because for a drive the name you gave it is usually more useful than who made it.
An Eject button unmounts and ejects every volume on the drive in one step. If a volume is in use, USB Buddy says which one could not be ejected rather than failing silently, and the drive stays in the list until it is really gone. Ejecting from the menu bar saves the trip to Finder or the desktop, which may well be hidden behind a full-screen app.
Spot the slow cable
This is the feature that earns the app its place in the menu bar. Every USB device reports the highest standard it supports, and the Mac reports the speed it actually negotiated. When a device that supports USB 3 is running at USB 2 speed or slower, USB Buddy marks the row with a small tortoise and adds a note to its details suggesting another cable or port.
The usual cause is a charging cable that only carries USB 2 data, or a hub or port that cannot go faster. Both look identical to a fast one, and the only symptom is a file copy that takes ten times longer than it should. A tortoise in a list is much easier to notice than a slow progress bar, and it points straight at the device to fix.
One glance away
In the menu bar, USB Buddy shows a port icon and, next to it, the number of connected devices. The count updates the moment something is plugged in or removed, so a glance is enough to confirm that a drive has mounted or that a dongle has finally let go. The number can be turned off for anyone who prefers just the icon.
The icon is a standard system symbol drawn as a template, so it matches the other icons in both light and dark menu bars and never draws attention to itself.
Know when it connects
When a device arrives, a notification names it and the speed it connected at. If the speed is lower than the device supports, the notification says so and suggests another cable or port, so a slow connection is caught before the first file copy starts. A second notification confirms when a device disconnects.
Notifications are on by default and can be switched off in the options menu. macOS asks for permission the first time, and USB Buddy uses notifications for nothing else.
Options, kept small
There is no settings window. A single menu in the corner of the panel holds four switches: notifications on connect and disconnect, the device count in the menu bar, showing hubs, and launching at login. About and Quit sit underneath. Anything that needs more than a switch was left out on purpose.
USB Buddy watches for devices through the same system notifications that macOS itself uses, so it does no polling and uses no noticeable energy while it sits in the menu bar.
Built in black and white
Everything in USB Buddy is greyscale, in light and dark mode. The speed capsules are outlined, the Eject button is solid, and the only mark that stands out is the tortoise. The app icon is a single USB-C port set into a white tile, the most recognisable connector on a modern Mac.
It is a universal app for Apple silicon and Intel Macs, runs on macOS 13 Ventura or later, needs no special permissions and never connects to the internet. It lists USB devices, including those behind a Thunderbolt dock or hub, but not Thunderbolt-only devices such as some displays.
Get USB Buddy
USB Buddy is available on 1dot1 as a single download, with a README and the licence inside the zip.