Frostbar

Windows 11, the macOS way.

A menu bar, a Dock, search and Control Center that run on top of the Windows you already have.

Free under the MIT licence. Windows 11 22H2 or later, 64-bit.

Menu bar

Frostbar's settings, your recent items, and sleep, restart and shut down.

Its name and its menus sit at the top of the screen, whichever app you are in.

For common apps, each command shows the keys that run it.

Each opens a panel of its own. Hold Ctrl and drag to put them in your order.

Click the clock for Windows' notifications, grouped by app.

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Focus, brightness, volume and what is playing, in one place.

Panels are translucent glass, in light and dark. On Windows 11 24H2 and later, their edges bend what is behind them.

Drag to reorder. Bottom, left or right, or hidden until you need it.

An icon bounces while its app opens, and a dot marks what is open. Progress and badges show on the icon.

Icons grow under the pointer, as much as you set.

Opens search from anywhere. The shortcut is yours to change.

The buttons narrow the search to one kind.

Sums and unit conversions, without opening anything.

Light or dark, glass, sizes, shortcuts, hot corners, what the menu bar shows.

Laid out like macOS's System Settings, with a search field.

Download the zip, run setup.cmd, and choose whether Frostbar hides the Windows taskbar. Updating is the same; your settings stay.

Also in it: An app grid with pages and folders, a window overview with Windows' virtual desktops along the top, hot corners, and a notification centre that groups notifications by app.
Requirements: Windows 11 22H2 (build 22621) or later, 64-bit (x64). The .NET runtime is in the download. The author has tested it on one PC, with Windows 11 26H2.
Install: Download Frostbar-<version>-<commit>-win-x64.zip from Releases.

Right-click the zip, choose Properties, tick Unblock, then OK.

Extract it and double-click setup.cmd. If Windows says it protected your PC, choose More info, then Run anyway: the app is not signed.
If the taskbar does not come back: Double-click %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Frostbar\restore-taskbar.cmd. It works without Frostbar running.
Uninstall: Double-click uninstall.cmd in the same folder. It brings the taskbar back and removes the program, its Start menu entry and its start at sign-in.
Privacy: Frostbar sends nothing over the network. Notifications, clipboard history and recent files are read on your PC only to be shown.
Source: C# and WPF, under the MIT licence, on GitHub. English and Japanese.