User Guide

What DNS Taskbar does

DNS Taskbar is a native macOS 15+ menu bar app with two connected tools. Continuous monitoring measures how quickly your configured DNS resolvers answer a real DNS question. Quick Lookup lets you enter a domain, URL, or IP address and inspect structured, dig-like records from the resolver you choose.

The app supports classic DNS over UDP and wire-format DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH). It runs locally, needs no account, and sends DNS traffic only to the resolver endpoints you select.

Requirements

• macOS 15 or later.
• Network access to the resolvers you want to use.
• UDP port 53 access for classic DNS and/or HTTPS access for DoH.
• No DNS Taskbar account or cloud service.

First launch

DNS Taskbar starts with three enabled UDP resolvers and begins measuring them immediately:

No setup is required to see the first values. The default poll interval is one query per resolver every 10 seconds. Polls are staggered so all resolvers do not receive a query at once.

Reading the menu bar

Each displayed resolver has a compact millisecond value and health colour:

• Green — below the good threshold (50 ms by default).
• Amber — at or above the good threshold and below the warning threshold (150 ms by default).
• Red — at or above the warning threshold, or the most recent probe failed.

You can change the global thresholds or override them for an individual resolver. A timeout is represented as a failure and contributes to loss; DNS Taskbar never substitutes a fictional latency such as 2,000 ms.

Automatic menu bar mode shows full detail for a small resolver list and becomes more compact as the list grows. Choose Primary resolver to show one resolver or Summary for a compact overall view. Resolvers hidden from the menu bar continue to be measured and remain in Detail.

Hover graph and Detail window

Hover over the status item to see the most recent 15 minutes for every enabled resolver. The graph uses each resolver's accent colour and marks failures explicitly instead of drawing them as latency points.

Choose Open Detail from the right-click menu (or use its keyboard shortcut) for a larger graph and statistics:

• Current — the latest successful latency, or a failure indicator.
• Average — mean latency in the selected range.
• P95 — the value at or below which 95% of successful measurements fall.
• Peak — highest successful latency in the range.
• Jitter — mean change between successive successful measurements.
• Loss — the proportion of probes that timed out.
• Total failures — all unsuccessful attempts, including non-timeout validation or transport failures.

Choose a history duration in Settings: 15 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours, 24 hours, or 7 days. The hover popover always stays at 15 minutes. DoH cards can also expose connection diagnostics such as connection reuse, protocol, DNS bootstrap, connect, TLS, and time to first byte when macOS supplies them.

Adding and editing resolvers

Open Settings and use the + menu to add a built-in Cloudflare, Google, or Quad9 endpoint over UDP or DoH, or choose Add Custom Resolver. You can add an unlimited number of entries and duplicate a resolver to compare UDP and DoH side by side.

Use Display Settings to choose a poll interval from 5 to 300 seconds, the Detail history duration, the menu bar mode, the primary resolver, and global thresholds. Save applies the complete validated settings snapshot; Cancel leaves the active configuration unchanged.

Quick DNS Lookup

1. Left-click the menu bar item. The Quick Lookup popover opens with the search field focused.
2. Enter a domain, paste a URL, or enter an IP. A URL is reduced to its host before any DNS request is made.
3. Choose a resolver. The picker includes enabled configured resolvers and the built-in choices, over UDP or DoH.
4. Run the lookup. Press Return or click the arrow button.
5. Review or copy results. Use Copy All, copy an individual record, or select text directly.

For a domain or URL, DNS Taskbar selects the common lookup types: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, CAA, and SRV. For an IPv4 or IPv6 address, it builds the correct reverse name and selects PTR. The query-status strip shows the selected types, result state, answer count, and timing.

Records are grouped by type and show name, type, TTL, rendered data, and whether the record came from the answer, authority, or additional section. Expand Query details to inspect flags such as AA, TC, RD, and RA, the RCODE, section counts, response size, and timing.

Only the parsed host and selected record types go to the chosen resolver. URL paths, query strings, fragments, usernames, passwords, and other credentials are never included in the DNS question.

Demo Mode

Right-click the menu bar item and choose Explore Demo Mode. DNS Taskbar loads deterministic, realistic history for Cloudflare, Google, and Quad9, including latency variation and failures, and continues updating without any network access.

Demo Mode does not alter your saved resolver configuration or persist generated history. Quick Lookup is disabled because it would require a live DNS request. Choose Exit Demo Mode to return to normal monitoring.

Launch at login and Dock options

In Display Settings, enable Launch at Login to start DNS Taskbar automatically when you sign in. Enable Show in Dock if you want the app to remain visible in the Dock and app switcher.

With Show in Dock off, DNS Taskbar behaves as a menu-bar utility. It can temporarily appear as a regular app while a keyboard-capable window such as Settings or Detail is open, then return to menu-bar-only behaviour when the window closes.

Privacy and diagnostics

Resolver configuration and display preferences are stored locally in macOS user defaults. DNS Taskbar has no account, analytics, advertising, or developer-operated service. See the Privacy Policy for the exact network and data-handling details.

Diagnostics stay in Apple's Unified Logging system under ca.slepp.dns-taskbar. The Support page includes the command to collect recent entries and common troubleshooting steps.