Download AirBuddy for macOS

Twelve hours of usage history, broken down by listening and talk time. That’s the kind of detail AirBuddy surfaces the moment your AirPods case opens nearby.

What it tracks and controls

• Shows individual AirPod and case battery — and flags when left or right is draining faster
• Records total listening time and talk time over the last 12 hours, 24 hours, or previous day
• One-click connection to switch audio from iPhone to Mac without digging through Bluetooth settings
• Trackpad gesture to change listening mode on AirPods Pro — flick between transparency and noise cancellation
• Playback controls that appear when devices are nearby, so you can pause or skip from a compact window

Magic Handoff

AirBuddy 3 extends the same proximity smarts to your desktop peripherals. Magic Handoff lets you move a Magic Mouse, trackpad, or keyboard between Macs as soon as they’re close, cutting the cable-repairing tango you’d normally face. The status window comes in small and large designs, and a menu bar icon option now covers the app icon, a battery indicator, or no icon at all. macOS 14 or later is required.

Switching the menu bar icon

Out of the box, AirBuddy does most of the heavy lifting, but a few tweaks make it feel properly yours.

• Menu bar icon: Head into preferences and pick between the full app icon, a compact battery indicator, or nothing at all. The battery-only view is cleaner if your menu bar is already crowded.
• Connection modes: Set a default mode for each pair of headphones. You can have AirPods Pro automatically switch to transparency mode when connecting to your Mac during work hours, or lock in noise cancellation for a focus session. Volume level and mic state live in the same rule, so a single connection can dial everything in.
• Large status window: The default popover is subtle, but the large window (toggle it in Appearance) puts battery rings, usage history, and playback controls in one glance — handy if you treat a second display as a dashboard.

Workflow: wrangling audio between devices during a video call

Task: start a Zoom call on your Mac with AirPods Pro, then switch to your iPhone mid-call without fumbling settings.

Before the call, open AirBuddy’s preferences and create a connection mode called “Calls.” Set it to transparency mode, volume at 40%, and mic active. Assign it as the default when your AirPods connect to the Mac. Now when you flip open the case near the computer, AirBuddy connects them and applies those settings immediately — no Control Centre digging.

Mid-call, you need to grab coffee and take the conversation on your iPhone. Pop one AirPod out and back in; the iPhone picks up the audio within a second or two. AirBuddy’s status window on the Mac confirms the disconnection, and when you return to your desk, one click on the AirPods entry reconnects them and re-applies your “Calls” mode.

After the call, glance at the usage history panel. That one-hour block now shows a split between listening time and talk time — useful if you’re tracking how much of your day is spent in meetings versus focused work.

Glance at AirPods charge before opening the case

You sit down at the desk and wake the Mac. AirBuddy’s menu bar icon blinks a small battery ring for your AirPods Pro — still in their case, still at 72%. You open the case, and the popover slides in from the menu bar: left bud, right bud, case, all with their own circles. The right AirPod is two percentage points lower than the left, flagged with a subtle amber tint.

You tap connect in the popover. Your pre-set “Desk” mode engages: noise cancellation on, volume at a moderate 35%, mic off because the desk mic handles calls. The status window collapses, and you start a two-hour deep-work block.

Around the 90-minute mark, you pause playback from the compact status window — a quick click on the pause glyph that hovered near your cursor when the AirPods were active. You check the 12-hour usage timeline. The bar shows a solid stretch of listening with a tiny sliver of talk time from a quick phone call earlier. It’s a satisfying sanity check: roughly seven hours of focused audio and only 20 minutes of chatter.

When you pack up and move to the couch with an iPad, AirBuddy’s Magic Handoff kicks in. Your Magic Trackpad appears on the nearby MacBook’s screen almost instantly, and you drag the AirPods connection across with a single click. The session ends without a single trip into System Settings.

Good to know: the beta release added that menu bar flexibility, so you get the current version’s full set of status-window and icon choices.

• Menu bar icon now supports the app icon, a battery indicator, or no icon at all

• macOS 14 or later
• Intel or Apple Silicon Mac