How to Track Your Day's Progress on a Mac: Menu Bar Apps and Dock Timers

What macOS gives you for day progress

A clock tells you it's 2:40. A progress bar tells you more than half your day is already gone. That second number is the useful one when you're pacing a long task or a launch, or just trying to get through the afternoon's list.

Apple's widget help describes two places for widgets on a Mac: the desktop and Notification Center. On the desktop, you can click a widget in the gallery or drag it anywhere you like. For Notification Center, you click Edit Widgets at the bottom of Notification Center and add widgets from there. That page doesn't describe putting widgets in the Dock.

So the practical answer comes in two parts:

• For how much of the day has passed, use Moor's time progress widget, which shows a value like "Day 54%" and can sit in the menu bar as a one-line value through Mast. If you'd rather use a dedicated app, or want week, month or year progress, a menu bar app built for that job works too.
• For time cues in the dock, put a clock, a countdown and a focus timer in a Moor dock, next to your apps.

Plenty of people use both together.

Option 1: a dedicated progress app in the menu bar

These apps sit in the menu bar, not the Dock, and each does one job. The sources below come from different years, so the date of each is noted.

The apps differ by period. Day Progress focuses on the day, and its developer's page says you can set your own hours instead of midnight to midnight. YearBar and Progress Bar cover weeks, months and years. Because these details come from articles and pages of different ages, check each app's own page for current settings and macOS 26 support before you install.

One distinction to keep in mind: Day Progress's own FAQ calls it a general day progress indicator, not a task timer, and points people to Pomodoro apps for timing sessions. That's a good way to split the jobs in your setup too.

Option 2: time widgets in a Moor dock

Moor is a Dock replacement for macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later on Apple silicon, and its docks can hold live widgets. Its time widgets include time progress, which shows how much of the day has passed (for example "Day 54%"), plus the rest of pacing: the time now, how long until a deadline, and how long this work session has left.

1. Press Control-Option-E, or choose Edit Docks from Moor's menu bar icon (the little boat). The icons wiggle, a toolbar appears and the Add to your docks panel opens.
2. Click Widgets at the top of the panel to show only widgets. Each one comes with a live picture.
3. Type a widget's name in the search field, such as "Clock", "Countdown" or "Focus Timer".
4. Click a widget to add it to the dock you touched last, or drag it into any dock and drop it where you want it.
5. If a widget shows Set Up, click it and make the choice it asks for.
6. Drag the widgets along the dock until they sit together, then press Done (or Control-Option-E again).

To change a widget later, open Settings → Docks, pick the dock and select it under Items. Remove one by mistake and Command-Z or Put back returns it to its old spot with its settings. The Widgets docs cover how widgets behave: a click does the widget's job, and the details are one chevron away. For more on these widgets, see adding a focus timer, countdown and world clock to your dock and showing your next meeting in the dock.

Keep the time widgets together

• Use a Divider. Add a Divider from the Tiles section of the panel to separate your time widgets from your apps.
• Try the Islands theme. Islands splits the dock into separate pods at each divider, so your time widgets get their own island.
• Tune the text. In Settings → Themes, pick a theme, choose Duplicate to Edit and change Widget text size (75 to 150%) if the numbers are hard to read.

Put it all where your eyes already go

The menu bar and the dock widgets work well together. A few ways to arrange them:

• Time progress in the menu bar. Turn on Moor's Mast part in Settings → Parts, then choose Add Widget to the Menu Bar. The time, clocks, timers, the focus timer and time progress show as a one-line live value, such as "Day 54%". Click one to open the full widget.
• Keep a progress app visible. If you use a third-party progress app instead, note that Mast hides menu bar icons left of its divider. Hold Command and drag the app to the right of the divider so it stays in view.
• A clock your way. With Moor Bar on, the Clock section takes a preset or any date pattern, such as Fri 15 Jan 9:41, in the Leading, Centre or Trailing zone.
• On the desktop. Deck puts Moor's widgets on the desktop at full size, under every window. Choose Add Widget… in Settings → Deck.

On a single laptop screen, a good split is the day's progress in the menu bar and the clock and countdown in the dock. With several displays, give a side dock the time widgets and keep the main dock for apps. Moor docks go on any edge of any display.

Tips and limits

• On a crowded dock, widgets shrink. If your pinned items are still too wide once icons reach their smallest normal size, widgets step down from extra wide to wide to icon size. See what happens when the dock is full.
• Keep pacing for work hours. If you want the timers only during work, save two profiles: one dock setup with the countdown and focus timer, and one without (see the Profiles docs). Once they're saved, Control-Option-1 to 9 switches between them.
• Apple's widgets stay Apple's. Desktop widgets from macOS keep their settings in System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Widgets, including Dim widgets on desktop. Moor doesn't change them.
• Check macOS 26 support before you install a third-party app. For Day Progress, Softpedia lists a 2026 build that runs on macOS 26.0 or later. It's a third-party listing, and the developer's page cited here doesn't confirm Tahoe support, so check there first. For YearBar and Progress Bar, the sources here don't confirm macOS 26 support, and the Progress Bar listing dates from 2019, so check each app's own page first.

Next steps

• Turn on Mast in Settings → Parts and add time progress to your menu bar.
• Press Control-Option-E and put a Clock, Countdown and Focus Timer side by side in your dock.
• Read the Widgets docs to see everything else a dock can show.

Moor has a free 14-day trial at moorapp.com.