One Switch

One Switch is a paid Mac menu-bar utility from Fireball Studio that consolidates your most-reached system toggles — dark mode, keep-awake, Do Not Disturb, Night Shift, Bluetooth, and more — into a single, clean popover so you never have to hunt through System Settings again.

What is One Switch?

One Switch is a compact menu-bar app that acts as a universal control panel for the macOS toggles you flip multiple times a day. Instead of diving into System Settings, opening Control Center, or running a Terminal command, you click the One Switch icon and every switch you care about is right there, neatly stacked in a single list.

The developer, Fireball Studio, has built a tightly scoped tool: it does exactly one thing — surface toggles — and refuses to sprawl into a full system utility. That restraint is, honestly, its biggest selling point.

What does One Switch do best?

One Switch excels at eliminating the micro-friction of everyday macOS housekeeping. The switches I reach for most — keeping the display awake during a presentation, flipping on Do Not Disturb before a video call, toggling dark mode when I move from a bright office to a dim room — are all one click away instead of three or four.

• Keep Awake: prevents your Mac from sleeping or dimming without touching Energy Saver settings — invaluable during long downloads or screen shares.
• Hide Desktop Icons: clears visual clutter before a screen recording in seconds.
• Screen Saver launch: locks the screen instantly without memorising a keyboard shortcut.
• Night Shift & True Tone: toggled per-session, not buried in Displays preferences.
• Bluetooth & AirPods connect: switch audio output without opening the Sound panel.

Each switch also supports keyboard shortcuts, so power users can assign a chord and never touch the menu bar at all. The popover is keyboard-navigable too, which is a small but appreciated detail.

How much does One Switch cost?

One Switch is a paid app. It is sold as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store and directly from Fireball Studio's site; there is no subscription. Given how often I trigger it daily, the price-per-use ratio drops to nearly zero within a week. A free trial is available on the developer's website so you can verify it fits your workflow before paying.

Who should use One Switch?

One Switch is built for Mac users who live in their menu bar and resent unnecessary detours into System Settings. If you are a developer who routinely gives screencasts and needs a fast "hide desktop + keep awake" combo, a designer toggling dark mode to proof work in both appearances, or simply someone who finds macOS Control Center too gesture-heavy, this app will earn its keep immediately.

It is less compelling for users who rarely change system settings mid-session or who already rely on a macro launcher like Raycast or Alfred with custom scripts — those tools can replicate some toggle behaviour, though without the clean dedicated UI One Switch provides.

What are the best One Switch alternatives?

The closest direct competitor is Lungo (keep-awake only, free-ish, extremely minimal) if you just need caffeine-style screen prevention. Amphetamine covers keep-awake in far more depth but ignores the broader toggle set. Raycast can approximate many of these toggles via its System extension and community store, but requires configuration and does not give you a persistent visual panel. TopNotch handles the notch-bar area rather than toggles. None of them bundle the full breadth of macOS switches in a single popover the way One Switch does — that bundling is the product's core argument.

How does One Switch compare to macOS Control Center?

Control Center is built-in and free, which matters. But it is designed around Apple's opinionated selection of controls and requires a trackpad swipe or a click into a nested panel for many settings. One Switch lets you customise exactly which toggles appear, reorder them, and assign keyboard shortcuts — none of which Control Center supports. For users who want a curated, keyboard-first control surface rather than Apple's default one, One Switch wins on ergonomics every time.