Finding the right weather app for your Mac menu bar can be surprisingly challenging. This is shown by the efforts of a user who describes her experiences with a total of 17 tested applications in this blog post – after the new menu bar option in macOS 15.2 was not really convincing.
In the menu bar: The new weather display from macOS 15.2
Requirements and priorities
Various criteria were used to find the optimal app. The main criteria include a cheap or free one-time payment, the display of the perceived temperature, the ability to switch between several cities and a weekly and hourly forecast.
Functions such as displaying sunrise and sunset times or automatically opening the app when the Mac starts are welcome extras, but were not mandatory. However, aspects such as radar maps, widgets or extremely precise weather data are deliberately avoided.
Favorite Applications
Of the apps tested, only a few come close to the skipped requirements. Menu Weather Pro is almost ideal, but since macOS 15 the popup opens in an inappropriate place. Big Weather also fulfills many factors, but only shows the perceived temperature in the popup and occasionally has problems with location detection. Weatherly and the Weather Forecast app have extensive functions, but on a paid subscription (~10 euros/year).
Big Weather: One of the app favorites
Problematic applications
Some applications fail due to critical requirements. Apps like Meteorologist or Forecast Bar support multiple locations and show extensive weather data, but their user interface is difficult to understand. Vetero and Weather Dock do not allow easy relocation, while others, like DatWeatherDoe, lack basic functions such as displaying the perceived temperature. Mercury Weather as well as Dear Sun and Looks Like Rain are also not convincing because they do not offer essential functions in the menu bar.
Meteorologist: Freeware but visually overloaded
Conclusion
The selection of weather apps for the macOS menu bar is large, but even well-known and often recommended applications have their weaknesses. Particularly annoying are the lack of central functions such as the display of the perceived temperature directly in the menu bar or problems with user-friendliness.
To get started, it might be worth activating macOS 15.2's native weather display in the Mac menu bar.
