rainbar

Rainbar is a tiny, native macOS menu bar application designed to provide long, natural rain ambience without the artificial feel of a white-noise machine. It runs entirely in the background with no Dock icon, allowing users to pick a location, adjust the volume, and let the rain loop seamlessly. Key capabilities include: - Native macOS Dropdown: Left-click or right-click the menu bar cloud icon to access a standard dropdown with an on/off switch and volume slider. - Curated Rain Tracks: The app bundles a set of CC0/public-domain rain recordings from diverse environments, including urban storms, tropical downpours, rural rain, and forest canopies from locations such as Mumbai, London, and the Altay Mountains. - Seamless Audio Playback: Tracks start from a randomized position to prevent repetitive beginnings. The app uses AVAudioEngine to schedule crossfades near the end of tracks, avoiding dead pauses during loops. Per-track gain normalization ensures consistent volume levels when switching between different recordings. - Automatic Updates: Rainbar checks GitHub Releases daily for new versions. If an update is available, it downloads the new app bundle, replaces the current version, and relaunches automatically. Manual checks are also available. - Privacy First: The app is local-only and does not collect analytics, telemetry, or user data. It makes no network requests except for checking and downloading updates from GitHub. It also supports opening at login and remembers the last selected track and volume level. Built using Apple system frameworks (AppKit and AVFoundation), Rainbar is intentionally small and efficient. It is available under the MIT License, with bundled audio provided under CC0 or public-domain licenses.