AirPods, earbuds and mouse battery, in your Mac menu bar

Without any app: open the Bluetooth menu in the menu bar or Control Center. For connected AirPods and Beats it shows the left bud, right bud and case; other headsets usually get one number or none.

Anode keeps the battery visible in the menu bar all the time and shows the left bud, right bud and case for JBL, Sony, Nothing, Pixel Buds and Jabra earbuds too. When a battery drops below your threshold, you get a notification.

AirPods and Beats, plus earbuds with Google Fast Pair that report their battery: JBL, Sony, Nothing, Pixel Buds, Jabra and others. If the earbuds allow it, Anode also tries a direct Fast Pair connection once, which adds the charging state of each bud.

Other headsets, including Samsung Galaxy Buds and many Xiaomi models, get the single level macOS reports.

macOS shows it in the Bluetooth menu. Anode puts the battery of your Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad and other Bluetooth mice and keyboards that report it right in the menu bar, notifies you at a threshold you choose, and keeps a drain history.

In macOS: System Settings → Battery → the (i) button next to Battery Health. The cycle count is in System Information: hold Option, open the Apple menu, choose System Information → Power → Cycle Count.

Anode shows battery health and cycle count next to your Mac’s charge, no digging through settings. The same goes for an iPhone connected by cable.

System Settings → Control Center → Battery → Show Percentage. Anode adds the percentages of everything else next to it: earbuds, mouse, iPhone and Apple Watch.

AirBuddy is built mainly for AirPods and Beats, coconutBattery for the battery health of your Mac, iPhone and iPad, and AlDente for limiting how far your MacBook charges.

Anode puts every device’s battery in one place, shows each bud and the case for Fast Pair earbuds (JBL, Sony, Nothing, Pixel Buds), and is free. It does not limit charging; for that, use AlDente or the Optimized Battery Charging built into macOS. See the comparison table.

Apple silicon Macs only (M1 or later). Intel Macs aren’t supported. It needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later, including macOS 26 and 27.

It’s free: no subscription, ads, trial or sign-up. It’s made by one developer, for himself and for everyone whose earbuds aren’t AirPods. No payment, no data collection.

Very little. It never scans Bluetooth continuously: it listens for 3 seconds at a time, and only when earbuds lack fresh data — every 90 seconds when idle, at most once every 7 minutes while audio plays. The rest of the time it simply waits for events from macOS.

macOS asks whether you want to open an app downloaded from the internet; click Open. You won’t see “cannot verify the developer”: the app is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple.

Then the app asks for Bluetooth access and, optionally, notifications. Anode lives in the menu bar and has no Dock icon. If you open it from somewhere other than Applications, it offers to move itself there; otherwise updates can’t install.

To read the battery of your earbuds, mice and keyboards. If you said no, you can turn it on later in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Bluetooth. Without it you still get your Mac and your iPhone over Wi-Fi.

Only for your iPhone’s battery over Wi-Fi. iPhone sync is off by default; until you turn it on, the app doesn’t listen on the network.

While it’s on, the Mac accepts requests on port 8920, only on your local network and only with the secret token. The macOS firewall may ask once whether to allow incoming connections. Turn sync off and the port closes. If you don’t need the iPhone over Wi-Fi, you can decline.

1. On the Mac, open Anode → Settings → iPhone and turn on accepting iPhone data over Wi-Fi. The Mac and the iPhone need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.
2. Point the iPhone camera at the QR code and open the link. Tap Add Shortcut.
3. In Shortcuts → Automation → “+”, choose the Charger trigger (connected and disconnected) or Battery Level, pick the shortcut you just added, and turn on Run Immediately.

A cable works too: plug the iPhone into the Mac and tap Trust. Then you also see battery health, cycle count and the Apple Watch paired with that iPhone.

On their own. Anode checks for a new version, downloads it and installs it. Every version is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. You can turn automatic updates off in Settings. The changes and the installer’s SHA-256 are on the What’s new page.

Write to support@anode.tools with your earbuds model, macOS version and Mac model. If you can, attach the log from ~/Library/Logs/Anode: it contains no secrets or tokens.

Choose Quit from the icon’s menu and drag the app from Applications to the Trash. Battery history lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Anode and the log in ~/Library/Logs/Anode; delete those folders by hand if you like.