CodexBar Lite
A free menu bar icon that shows how much of your OpenAI Codex quota you've used, so you don't get cut off mid-task without warning.
🔗 Visit CodexBar Lite
Description
If you use OpenAI Codex through the CLI, you don't get a simple always-visible readout of how close you are to hitting your rate limit — you find out abruptly when a request fails. CodexBar Lite fixes that by putting your Codex usage right in the macOS menu bar, always visible, always current.
CodexBar Lite is a minimal, free and open-source (MIT) macOS menu bar app that reads directly from your local Codex CLI session file, with no browser cookies, Keychain access, API keys or third-party accounts required — and no third-party backend or telemetry. It shows usage as a percentage used or remaining (your choice), sends notifications at 80%, 90%, exhaustion and credit reset, auto-launches at startup, and stays current even offline via a cached fallback. It's a lighter, single-provider spin-off of the broader steipete/CodexBar project, which tracks 63+ AI providers instead of just Codex — CodexBar Lite trades that breadth for simplicity and a smaller footprint.
💬 Our review
The short version: if you only use OpenAI Codex and want a zero-friction, zero-permission way to see your usage before you hit a wall, CodexBar Lite is free, open-source, and does exactly that one job well.
Its main alternative is its own bigger sibling, the original CodexBar, which tracks Codex alongside 62+ other AI providers (Claude, Cursor, etc.) — worth the extra complexity if you juggle multiple AI coding tools, overkill if Codex is the only one you use. Compared to just checking OpenAI's browser dashboard, CodexBar Lite saves you the context-switch and gives proactive threshold notifications instead of requiring you to remember to check. There's essentially no downside for a Codex-only user since it's free, requires no extra permissions, and reads only a local session file — the only real limitation is it's Codex-specific and macOS/Apple Silicon only.
💰 Pricing
📊 Global score
🤖 AI-enriched data
100% gratuit, open-source (licence MIT)
Pros
100% gratuit et open-source
Zéro permission supplémentaire, lit uniquement le fichier de session local
Notifications proactives à 80%, 90%, épuisement et reset
Aucun backend tiers ni télémétrie
Cons
Limité à OpenAI Codex uniquement (pas multi-fournisseurs)
macOS Apple Silicon uniquement
Fonctionnalités volontairement réduites vs la version complète CodexBar
Petit projet, dépend d'un mainteneur unique