# The menu bar and the quick menu

> BeamDisk's menu-bar item: its live throughput and IOPS readout, the amber and red badges, its tooltip, and every item in the quick menu.

BeamDisk lives in the menu bar. Its item shows the app's glyph, two discs under a beam of light, and, if you like, live numbers for all your disks.

- **Click** the item to open BeamDisk's window.
- **Right-click** or **Control-click** it for the quick menu.

BeamDisk has a Dock icon only while one of its windows is open. When it starts at login, it stays in the menu bar; when you open it yourself, the window opens too.

## What the item shows

Settings → Menu Bar chooses the readout, and its preview shows the item on a light and a dark menu bar.

| Setting | Choices |
|---|---|
| **Show in menu bar** | **Icon Only**, **Throughput** (the default), **IOPS**, or **Both** |
| **Split read and write** | On (the default): writes (↑) above reads (↓), in two small lines. Off: one total. |
| **Units** | **MB/s** (the default), **MiB/s** or **Gb/s** |

Throughput is in decimal megabytes, as Finder counts them. IOPS (reads and writes per second) are rounded the short way: 620, 8.4K, 36K. Each number has a slot as wide as its widest value, so the item keeps its width as the numbers change.

## The badge

With **Show a badge when a disk is reconnecting** on (the default), a dot on the glyph tells you something needs a look:

- **Amber**: a disk is reconnecting while BeamDisk holds its writes, is trying again to reach its server, or needs a remount. Usually it sorts itself out. See [When the server stops responding](https://beamdisk.app/docs/disks/outages/).
- **Red**: a disk needs you. Apps are seeing errors on it, it can't connect, or another computer took it. Open the window to see which, and why.

Hover over the item for a tooltip with the totals (Read, Write and IOPS), how many disks are connected, and what the badge means.

## The quick menu

From top to bottom:

- **Turn On BeamDisk in System Settings…**, only while BeamDisk is switched off there.
- **The header**: how many disks are connected (**3 of 3 connected**), a line of the last minute's reads and writes for all disks, and the totals: **Read**, **Write** and **IOPS**. Right after BeamDisk starts, the line reads **Collecting data…** for a moment.
- **Your disks**, under the server each lives on (the name you gave it, or its address, with the port left out when it's the standard 3260). Each row shows the disk's state, its name, its last minute, and its throughput and IOPS. Under the name: **Read-write** or **Read-only** for a disk in use, **Empty disk** or **Not attached** when there's nothing to show, and for a disk in trouble, what's wrong and for how long (**Can't connect · 26 min**). A disk that's reconnecting counts its hold time: **Holding writes · 12 of 60 s**. Click a disk to open its page.
- **Show in Menu Bar**: **Icon Only**, **Throughput**, **IOPS** or **Throughput and IOPS**, and **Split Read and Write**.
- **Open at Login** and **Notify When a Disk Disconnects**, ticked when they're on.
- **Add Disk…** (⌘N), **Open Window** (⌘O), **Connect All**, **Disconnect All** and **Settings…** (⌘,). Connect All is dimmed when there's nothing to connect; Disconnect All when nothing is connected.
- **Disconnect All and Quit**, and **Quit** (⌘Q). Under Quit, a line says what quitting does: **Disks stay connected**, or **Disconnects all disks** if you chose that in Settings → General.

The menu keeps itself current while it's open: a disk that's added, removed or connected shows up without reopening it.

## Related

- [The window and the Overview](https://beamdisk.app/docs/using/overview/)
- [Connect, eject and remove disks](https://beamdisk.app/docs/disks/connect-and-eject/)
- [Settings](https://beamdisk.app/docs/reference/settings/)