Home Assistant on the Mac menu bar: setup guide
Updated 2 July 2026
Home Assistant's web dashboard is powerful but heavy for everyday control – opening a browser tab to turn off a light gets old. On a Mac, the natural place for your home is the menu bar.
Itsyhome for macOS connects directly to your Home Assistant server over its WebSocket and REST APIs using a long-lived access token. There is no intermediary cloud: the app talks straight to your server, locally or remotely via Nabu Casa, DuckDNS, Tailscale, or any URL your server answers on.
Setup
- 1
Create a long-lived access token
In Home Assistant, click your profile (bottom-left) → Security tab → Long-Lived Access Tokens → Create Token. Give it a name like "Itsyhome" and copy the token – it is shown only once.
- 2
Connect Itsyhome
Install Itsyhome from the Mac App Store, choose Home Assistant as the platform on first launch (or switch in Settings → General), and enter your server URL and the token. Local URLs (http://homeassistant.local:8123), Nabu Casa remote URLs, and reverse-proxy or VPN addresses all work.
- 3
Control your entities
Entities are grouped by device and area automatically. Lights (with brightness, RGB, and colour temperature), switches, climate, covers, locks, fans, humidifiers, valves, alarm panels, scenes, and sensors all get native menu rows – every numeric sensor shows its value and unit.
Cameras and doorbells over WebRTC
Home Assistant cameras stream in Itsyhome with WebRTC for low-latency live video (the stream integration must be enabled on your server). Doorbell events pop a pinned live stream in the corner of your Mac's screen, and the camera mosaic works the same as with HomeKit cameras.
HomeKit and Home Assistant together
If you run both ecosystems, the standard pattern is: pair oddball devices (Zigbee, ESPHome, cheap Wi-Fi) into Home Assistant, then expose what you need to Apple Home with HA's HomeKit Bridge integration. Note the direction of each integration: HomeKit Bridge exposes HA entities to Apple Home, while HomeKit Device brings native HomeKit accessories into HA – a device paired directly to HA this way cannot simultaneously be paired to Apple Home, though it can be re-exported through the bridge, and Matter devices can live in both via multi-admin.
On the Mac you do not have to choose: Itsyhome supports both platforms, and SSID-based auto-switching can even flip between homes or servers depending on which Wi-Fi network your Mac is on. If your HA bridge devices show "No response" in Apple Home, the usual cause is mDNS across VLANs or Docker – the bridge needs host networking or an mDNS reflector.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Home Assistant app for the Mac menu bar?
Yes – Itsyhome for macOS connects directly to your Home Assistant server over WebSocket with a long-lived access token and puts your entities in the menu bar: lights, climate, covers, locks, scenes, sensors, and WebRTC camera streams. No intermediary cloud.
How do I create a Home Assistant long-lived access token?
In the Home Assistant web UI, click your profile in the bottom-left, open the Security tab, scroll to Long-Lived Access Tokens, and click Create Token. Copy it immediately – Home Assistant shows it only once.
Does it work remotely, away from my home network?
Yes, as long as your server is reachable: Nabu Casa remote URLs, DuckDNS, a reverse proxy, or a VPN/Tailscale address all work. The app talks directly to whatever URL you configure.
Should I use HomeKit or Home Assistant for my devices?
They compose well: Home Assistant integrates almost anything (Zigbee, ESPHome, proprietary Wi-Fi), and its HomeKit Bridge integration exposes those devices to Apple Home and Siri. Itsyhome on the Mac speaks both natively, so you can run HomeKit, Home Assistant, or both at once.
Related guides
Control HomeKit from iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV
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