GitHub - mirshko/boatswain: A macOS menu bar app for Fathom Analytics. Keep an eye on your site stats without ever leaving your keyboard.

A macOS menu bar app for Fathom Analytics.

Screenshots

Features

• Live visitor count in the menu bar — always visible at a glance
• Dashboard stats (today, last week) for your main site, refreshed automatically
• All your sites in the menu — hover to see live visitors and quick stats
• Configurable refresh rates for both live visitors and dashboard data
• Open your Fathom dashboard with one click
• Privacy-first — no tracking, no telemetry, no data leaves your machine except API requests to Fathom

Requirements

• macOS 15+
• A Fathom Analytics account

Download

Get the latest release from the releases page.

Install

1. Download Boatswain.zip from the latest release
2. Unzip the file
3. Move Boatswain.app into your /Applications folder
4. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway next to the security warning for Boatswain (the app isn't signed with an Apple Developer account)
5. Open Boatswain and paste your Fathom API key in Settings

Getting Started

1. Open Fathom Analytics and go to Settings → API
2. Generate a read-only API key (site-wide access — "Site specific" keys won't work)
3. Open Boatswain and paste the key into Settings
4. Select your active site from the dropdown
5. That's it — your live visitor count appears in the menu bar

Tips

• Use a read-only API key — Boatswain only fetches data, never writes
• Adjust refresh rates in Settings if you're hitting API rate limits
• All sites' data refreshes in the background at your configured dashboard refresh rate

Prior Art

• Pulse by Vadim Demedes — a macOS menu bar app for Plausible Analytics that inspired this project