Every feature Marquee currently ships, what it does, and exactly where to turn it on, off, or adjust it. This page only describes what's actually in the running app — nothing aspirational or planned. See the release notes for what changed in each version.
Marquee shows a per-display window bar. By default it only appears on your secondary displays, leaving your primary display's native macOS Dock and menu bar untouched. You can instead show a bar on every display, including the primary one.
How to change it: Settings… → Bar displays segmented control (“Secondary displays” / “All displays”).
When enabled, each bar slides off-screen when you're not using it, leaving only a thin sliver visible at the bottom edge. Moving the pointer into that edge's trigger zone slides the bar back in. Each display's bar hides and reveals independently — there's no shared state between screens. Auto-hide is off by default; when off, the bar stays visible at all times.
How to change it: Settings… → Auto-hide bars toggle.
Four fine-tuning controls: Bar height (28–56pt) controls how large window titles and icons render. Hidden sliver (1–12pt, auto-hide only) sets how much of the bar peeks out at the edge while hidden. Reveal zone (2–16pt, auto-hide only) sets how close the pointer must get to the edge to trigger a reveal. Hide delay (100–1200ms, auto-hide only) sets how long the bar waits after the pointer leaves before sliding away.
How to change it: Settings… → sliders for Bar height, Hidden sliver, Reveal zone, and the Hide delay stepper.
Optional Finder and Applications icons pinned to the far-left edge of every bar, matching the equivalent icons in the real Dock. Clicking Finder opens or activates Finder; clicking Applications opens the Applications folder. Both are on by default and can be toggled off independently. There's no support for pinning arbitrary third-party apps or reordering the icons.
How to change it: Settings… → Show Finder icon / Show Applications icon toggles.
Every bar item represents one open window and supports: Raise (bring to front and focus), Minimize, Restore (un-minimize), Close, and a Windows-style in-place Maximize that resizes the window to fill the display's usable space without triggering native macOS fullscreen or switching Spaces — clicking Maximize again restores the window's prior size and position. Native double-click-titlebar zoom is also recognized and correctly toggles between zoomed and restored states.
How to change it: Nothing to configure — right-click any bar item for Raise / Minimize / Restore / Maximize / Close, or use the primary click behavior described below.
Controls what a plain (left) click on a bar item does when that window is already the active one. Always raise just keeps it focused (default). Minimize if already active instead minimizes it, matching how clicking a running app's icon in the real Dock behaves. Minimized items always restore on click regardless of this setting.
How to change it: Settings… → Clicking the active window picker.
Every bar shows a live, minute-accurate clock at its trailing edge, since secondary displays don't show the system clock unless you've separately enabled per-display Spaces. Clock format follows your macOS 12h/24h setting by default, or can be forced to 12- or 24-hour regardless of locale. Show seconds adds a seconds field. Clock date optionally shows today's date above the time, either in your region's format or a fixed numeric pattern (MM/DD/YYYY, DD/MM/YYYY, or YYYY-MM-DD).
How to change it: Settings… → Clock format, Show seconds, and Clock date. Clock format can also be changed by right-clicking the clock directly.
Starts Marquee automatically the next time you log in to your Mac, using the standard macOS Login Items mechanism. If macOS requires explicit approval for this, Settings shows a note telling you to confirm it in System Settings.
How to change it: Settings… → Launch at login toggle. Also offered as a one-time prompt the first time you open Marquee.
The bar reflects window moves, resizes, minimizes, title changes, app launches/quits, and focus changes within about a second, combining macOS app-lifecycle notifications, per-app Accessibility observers, and a low-frequency polling fallback that self-corrects anything missed. No manual refresh is ever required.
How to change it: Nothing to configure — always on. Copy Diagnostics in the status menu reports observer health if something looks stale.
Off by default. Once enabled in Settings, the menu-bar status menu gains Dock Replacement actions: Enable Dock Replacement… snapshots your current Dock preferences, then sets the Dock to effectively never reveal (so Marquee becomes your only taskbar) and restarts the Dock process. Restore Dock puts your captured settings back exactly. Force Visible Dock… is a fallback recovery action that forces the Dock visible again even with no snapshot to restore from. Every action is confirmed before it runs and every preference write or Dock-restart failure is reported, never silent.
How to change it: Settings… → Show Dock replacement controls toggle to reveal the actions, then use them from the menu-bar (status bar) menu.
Off by default. Once enabled in Settings, the status menu gains Dock Lock actions. Lock Dock to Main Display… turns off macOS's system-wide "Displays have separate Spaces" setting, which pins the single Dock and menu bar to your primary display so it stops following whichever display has the active window — preventing it from overlapping a Marquee bar. This also merges Mission Control Spaces and full-screen apps across every display, not just the Dock, and only takes effect after logging out and back in. Restore Separate Spaces… reverts to the prior value, and Log Out Now… logs out immediately (every app still gets its normal save prompt). On multi-display setups Marquee also offers this as a one-time suggestion the first time it detects the overlap risk.
How to change it: Settings… → Show Dock-lock controls toggle to reveal the actions, then use them from the menu-bar (status bar) menu.
Marquee checks for new versions once a day automatically and offers them through the standard Sparkle update window; Check for Updates… in the status menu checks on demand at any time. Updates are cryptographically signed (Sparkle/EdDSA) and served from this website.
How to change it: Nothing to configure for automatic checks. Use Check for Updates… in the status menu to check immediately. See the release notes for what's in each version.
Send Feedback… in the status menu opens a small in-app form. Your message is sent directly to a write-only feedback inbox the moment you press Send — nothing is sent automatically or in the background. An opt-out toggle attaches your Marquee and macOS version numbers to help match reports to the exact build; nothing else about your system is ever included. The same inbox receives messages from this website's support form.
How to change it: Status menu → Send Feedback…, or the support form on the homepage.
Puts every setting in the Settings window back to its original out-of-the-box value in one action.
How to change it: Settings… → Reset Defaults button.
The Settings window's "Danger Zone" section provides a one-click uninstall: it turns off Launch at Login, restores the Dock if Dock Replacement was ever enabled, clears all saved preferences, and moves Marquee.app to the Trash — Marquee quits immediately afterward. This replaces having to do each step manually from a Terminal.
How to change it: Settings… → Danger Zone (bottom of the window, hover to reveal) → Uninstall Marquee…, then confirm.
Marquee requires the macOS Accessibility permission to read window titles/positions and perform window actions — this is requested once on first launch. If permission looks granted but macOS treats the app as untrusted (for example after a rebuild or re-signing), the modal system prompt does not re-appear on every launch; the status menu's "Accessibility: Not Granted" item is the durable way back to System Settings.
How to change it: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, or click the status-menu item that appears when permission isn't granted.