You Can Add a Windows-Style Start Menu to MacOS
Macs don’t have a Start menu like Windows does, but that wasn’t always true. In the 90s, Mac computers offered a list of applications in the Apple menu that looked something like this:
It’s a distant memory at this point – it’s been 25 years – so we probably shouldn’t count on Apple bringing this feature back. The good news is that a free app called XMenu that I found through App Addict more or less brings this functionality back. In some ways it’s even better than the vintage version.
Load XMenu and it will add a single icon to the menu bar, similar to the Mac apps icon. You can click on it to view your Applications folder.
It’s not a perfect Start menu replacement, especially if you have a lot of apps, but it can help you organize them a little. Any apps found in folders will appear as submenus, which means you can organize things a bit by placing apps in specific folders in the Finder.
You can also add more icons in Settings. There is support for your documents and home folder, which means you can use it to view all your files.
There’s also support for a Developer and Snippets folder if you’re the type to use those, as well as a Custom folder that you can fill with whatever you want. You can create an alias for any folder in the Finder by right-clicking and selecting New Alias . You can drag and drop various aliases through ~/Library/Application Support/XMenu/Custom to create a custom menu that includes all the folders that interest you most. Of course it will take a little longer, but everything will work exactly the way you want.