# OneMacTools settings: every option explained

OneMacTools settings live in one window (OneMacTools › Settings…, ⌘,) split into sections: Licence, Output, Anywhere on your Mac, Menu Bar Readouts, Appearance, History, Alerts, Alerts on Your Phone, Runaway Processes, Background Activity, Admin Helper, AI Assistants and Helpers. This reference lists every toggle and picker, its default, and when you’d change it.

## How to open OneMacTools settings

Choose **OneMacTools › Settings…** from the menu bar or press ⌘,. You can also click the OneMacTools icon in the menu bar and choose **Settings…**. Settings is one scrolling window of sections rather than tabs, in this order: Licence, Output, Anywhere on your Mac, Menu Bar Readouts, Appearance, History, Alerts, Alerts on Your Phone, Runaway Processes, Background Activity, Admin Helper, AI Assistants and Helpers.

> **Tip:** Until a licence key is activated, Settings shows only the **Licence** section. Everything else appears once OneMacTools is activated. See [activate your licence key](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/activate-onemactools-licence-key).

Changes take effect immediately; there’s no Save button. Settings are stored for your Mac user account only.

## Licence and Output

### Licence

| Item | What it shows or does |
| --- | --- |
| **Plan** | How many Macs your key covers, e.g. “5 Macs · up to 5 Macs”. |
| **Licence key** | Your key, shortened to its first and last four characters. |
| **This Mac** | The name this Mac is registered under (its name from System Settings › General › Sharing). |
| **Free This Mac…** | Gives this Mac’s activation back so you can use the key elsewhere. OneMacTools locks here until a key is activated again. |
| **Get More Macs** | Opens the pricing page. Shown unless you already have the largest plan. |

### Output

| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Save results to** | ~/Downloads/OneMacTools | The folder every tool saves into. **Choose…** picks another folder (you can create one in the panel); **Reset** returns to the default. |
| **Open the folder when a job finishes** | Off | Opens the result folder in Finder after each job. |

Inside the output folder, each job gets its own new folder named after the tool and the time, such as `Compress Video – 2026-10-24 at 14.05.31`. If two jobs finish in the same second, the second gets a number on the end. Result files keep the original file’s name (with a new extension where the format changes), and a number is added rather than overwriting anything. Your originals are never modified. More in [batch processing and progress](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/batch-processing-progress-mac).

## Anywhere on your Mac: Dock, menu bar and notifications

| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Show OneMacTools in the Dock** | On | Off makes OneMacTools a menu-bar-only app. When you turn the Dock off, the menu bar icon is forced on so you can always reach the app. |
| **Show OneMacTools in the menu bar** | On | The icon that opens the menu, accepts dropped files and shows readouts. Greyed out while the Dock icon is off. |
| **Tell me when the internet drops and comes back** | On | A notification when the connection goes and returns. |
| **Notify me when background jobs finish** | On | Notifications for jobs from Finder, the menu bar, Shortcuts and Watch Folders, including failures with the reason. |
| **Finder Quick Actions › Open Services Settings…** |  | Opens Keyboard settings so you can turn the Quick Actions on. |

Closing the main window doesn’t quit OneMacTools; it keeps running in the menu bar so Quick Actions, recordings and Watch Folders keep working. In Finder, right-click files and choose **Quick Actions** or **Services → “OMT: …”**. If they’re missing, turn them on under System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts › Services › Files and Folders. Details in [Finder Quick Actions](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/finder-quick-actions-mac) and, for automation, [Shortcuts and Siri](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/apple-shortcuts-siri-automation-mac).

## Menu Bar Readouts

Live Mac Health figures next to the OneMacTools icon. None are on until you choose them (Mac Health’s **Show in Menu Bar** button turns on CPU and Memory).

| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, Battery, Temperature, GPU, Microphone in use** | Off | Tick a reading to show it. Each has a **Value / Graph / Both** style and left/right arrows to change its order. |
| **Compact, for smaller screens** | Off | Squeezes the readouts to take less menu bar room. |
| **Shortcut for the readout dropdown** | ⌃⌥⌘M | Also ⌃⌥M, ⌥⌘M or Off. Opens the dropdown from any app, or Mac Health when no readout is on. |
| **⌃⌥⌘H offers to quit the heaviest app** | On | Names the app using the most CPU (or memory) and quits it the normal way when you press Return. Never macOS, Finder, or an app without asking to save. |

A reading turns red when the CPU or GPU is above 90%, memory is under pressure, the disk is nearly full, the battery is low or the Mac is hot. See [menu bar system monitor](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/mac-menu-bar-system-monitor).

## Appearance

| Setting | Default | Choices |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Theme** | Liquid Glass | Liquid Glass, Classic, Neo-brutal, Retro. See [themes](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/onemactools-themes-liquid-glass-classic-brutal-retro). |
| **Tool card pictures** | Illustrations | Illustrations or Symbols (Liquid Glass and Neo-brutal only). |
| **Chart colours** | OneMacTools | OneMacTools or Colour-blind safe (Okabe & Ito), used in Mac Health, History, readouts and storage bars. |
| **Network speeds in** | Bytes (MB/s) | Bytes (MB/s) or Bits (Mbps). |
| **Show an app’s CPU as** | % of one core | % of one core (a Mac with 10 cores goes up to 1,000%) or % of the whole Mac (up to 100%). |
| **Temperatures in** | Your region’s unit | Your region’s unit, Celsius (°C) or Fahrenheit (°F). |

### Language

OneMacTools is available in 13 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Ukrainian, Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. There’s no language picker inside the app: it follows your Mac’s language. To run only OneMacTools in another language, use macOS’s per-app setting in System Settings › General › Language & Region › Applications, add OneMacTools, choose the language and reopen the app. Every tool, option, message and History entry is translated.

## History, Alerts and Alerts on Your Phone

### History

| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Record Mac Health history** | On | A reading every 30 seconds while OneMacTools runs, kept per minute for two days and per hour after that, in one file on this Mac. |
| **Keep history for** | 30 days | 30 days, 90 days, 6 months or 1 year. |
| **Open OneMacTools at login** | Off | Registers OneMacTools as a login item, so history and alerts carry on after a restart. If macOS refuses, add it in System Settings › General › Login Items. |
| **Save a weekly report every Monday** | Off | A one-page PDF of the past week, saved in OneMacTools’ folder on Monday from 9:00 (or next time it runs), with a notification. |
| **Stop a recording after** | 30 minutes | 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours, for Mac Health › Record, which reads the Mac every second. |
| **History file › Delete History…** |  | Deletes all Mac Health history. Charts, Ask’s answers about your Mac and CSV exports start again from now. |

This is Mac Health history. The list of jobs you’ve run lives in the History screen and is cleared there; see [history of processed files](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/history-of-processed-files) and [performance history and alerts](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/mac-performance-history-alerts).

### Alerts

**Alert me when something misbehaves** (on) enables nine built-in alerts, each with its own switch: an app keeps the CPU busy (80% of a core for 10 minutes); an app’s memory keeps growing (1 GB within an hour); an app writes heavily to disk or uses the network heavily (about 1 GB in 10 minutes); memory pressure stays high for 5 minutes; the startup disk has less than 10 GB free; the battery is at 10% or less; the Mac stays hot for 5 minutes; the SSD has used 80% of its rated life. **Add Alert…** creates your own rule (any app, a particular app or the Mac; a measure; above or below a value; for a number of minutes). Muted apps are listed here to unmute.

### Alerts on Your Phone

Off by default. **Also send alerts to my phone or chat** sends each alert’s title and text, nothing else, through **ntfy**, **Pushover**, **Slack**, **Home Assistant** or a **Webhook**. **Send Test** checks it works. Tokens and webhook addresses are kept in your Keychain. ntfy topics are public to anyone who guesses the name, so pick a long one.

## Runaway Processes, Background Activity and Admin Helper

### Runaway Processes

| Setting | Default | Choices |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Tell me about runaway developer processes** | On | Checks your own dev servers, scripts and what AI agents start every 30 seconds. |
| **Stop a process stuck at full CPU** | Never | Never, after 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 1 hour. |
| **Stop a dev server nobody uses** | Never | Never, after 1 day, 3 days or 7 days. |

It never touches macOS or an app with a window. More in [dev servers and ports](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/dev-servers-ports-manager-mac).

### Background Activity

A live view of what OneMacTools costs while you’re not looking: **OneMacTools right now** (its own CPU and memory), which **Mac Health readings** are running and how often, and whether **Network use per app** is running. Switches here mirror the ones above: **Record history every minute**, **Watch for runaway developer processes** and **Watch the internet connection**, plus **Turn Off** for menu bar readouts and a count of active Watch Folders. Turning history off and removing the readouts leaves OneMacTools idle in the background.

### Admin Helper

Optional and not installed by default. **Install Helper…** adds a small helper with admin rights so Mac Health can show CPU, power and disk use for macOS’s own processes and power in watts for the CPU, GPU and Neural Engine, and so Keep Awake can work with the lid closed. macOS asks you to allow it under System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions; **Remove Helper** takes it away.

## AI Assistants and Helpers

### AI Assistants

**Let AI assistants use OneMacTools** is off by default. Below it, **Add to Claude Desktop…**, **Add to Claude Code…**, **Add to Cursor…** and **Add to Codex…** write an entry called “onemactools” into that app’s settings file after backing it up (the button is greyed out if the app isn’t installed). **Copy Setup Snippet** is for other assistants. Anything that changes something waits for you to click **Allow**. See [MCP server](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/mcp-server-mac-claude-cursor-codex) and [assistant approvals](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/ai-assistant-permissions-approvals).

### Helpers

Lists **FFmpeg**, **yt-dlp**, **WebP tools** and **Ghostscript**, each with a green tick and its location when found, or **Install with Homebrew**. **Custom FFmpeg path** lets you point at your own copy. Images, PDFs and on-device AI need none of them. Full details in [FFmpeg on Mac](https://www.onemactools.com/docs/ffmpeg-on-mac-setup).

## Questions

**Where are OneMacTools settings?**
Choose OneMacTools › Settings… or press ⌘, while the app is in front. You can also open them from the OneMacTools menu bar icon. Before activation, only the Licence section is shown.

**How do I change where OneMacTools saves files?**
In Settings › Output, click Choose… next to Save results to and pick a folder. Every job then creates its own dated folder inside it. Reset returns to Downloads › OneMacTools.

**How do I hide OneMacTools from the Dock?**
Turn off Show OneMacTools in the Dock under Anywhere on your Mac. The menu bar icon is then always shown, because it’s the way back into the app.

**How do I change the language of OneMacTools?**
OneMacTools follows your Mac’s language and supports 13 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Ukrainian, Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. To change it for this app only, go to System Settings › General › Language & Region › Applications, add OneMacTools, pick a language and reopen it.

**How do I make OneMacTools start when I log in?**
Turn on Open OneMacTools at login in the History section. It then starts in the background after a restart, so Mac Health history, alerts, Quick Actions and Watch Folders keep working.

**How do I reset OneMacTools settings to default?**
There’s no single reset button. Each setting can be put back individually using the defaults listed on this page, and the output folder has its own Reset button. Deleting Mac Health history is in the History section.

**Does OneMacTools use much battery in the background?**
Settings › Background Activity shows its own CPU and memory use live and which readings are running. Mac Health reads the Mac only while something shows it; turning off history and readouts leaves the app idle.

Source: https://www.onemactools.com/docs/onemactools-settings-reference (updated 2026-10-24)