Menu bar and Keep Awake
Excubia's menu bar panel: status, mode, timed blocking, network and data usage, app activity, speed instead of the icon, and the Keep Awake feature.
Excubia lives in the menu bar. Click its icon to open the panel; in Block everything the shield is crossed out.
At the top
The name, the filter state and the mode menu, with the four modes and, if you have any, the rule sets. An orange cup means the Mac is being kept awake.
Status tab
- Alerts waiting: if an alert ended up behind other windows, Show brings it back to the front.
- Protection: the filter switch, the mode and active rule set, and the counters of allowed and blocked connections.
- Block everything: the switch and the Block everything for a while menu (15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 2 hours). During timed blocking, the end time and End now appear. Turning the switch off restores the previous mode, or Ask.
- Learning, if it’s running, with Stop and review….
- Network: Download and Upload speed, a graph of the last minute and the traffic Since this Mac started.
- Data usage: the three apps that use the most.
Activity tab
The apps that connected recently, with the number of allowed and blocked connections; open a row to see the destinations.
At the bottom
Open Excubia opens the window. Quit closes the app after a confirmation: rules, blocklists and the mode stay active in the filter, but in Ask mode new connections go through without an alert until you reopen Excubia.
Speed instead of the icon
In Settings › General › Menu bar you can show the Icon, the Speed (download and upload as numbers, on two lines) or a Graph of the last 30 seconds.
Keep Awake
With Keep Awake in the menu on (Settings › General), the panel gets a third tab:
- Keep this Mac awake, for a chosen time: indefinitely, 15 or 30 minutes, or 1, 2, 3, 5 or 8 hours. Excubia remembers the last duration.
- Allow the display to sleep: the Mac stays on but the display turns off as usual (off at first).
- Stop on low battery: on Macs with a battery, turns off below 20% when running on battery (on at first).
Closing the lid still puts the Mac to sleep, unless it’s connected to power and an external display. Keep Awake doesn’t change any system setting and stops when you quit Excubia.