See every Claude Code account's limits in the menu bar

Claude Code can tell you its limits from inside a session, but not for the other accounts on your Mac, and not while you are in another app. Headroom is a free Mac menu bar app that shows session use and weekly use for every Claude Code account signed in on your Mac, always one click away. This post covers the built-in options first, then what Headroom shows and how it works.

Headroom is made by Everyday Mac Tools. It is independent: not made, endorsed or supported by Anthropic.

What Claude Code already gives you

Anthropic documents several places to see plan usage. The main ones, as of November 2026:

• /usage in Claude Code. It shows "session cost, plan usage limits, and activity stats", and on a Pro, Max, Ultra, Team or Enterprise plan it includes a breakdown of what counts against your plan limits (commands). It covers the account the current session uses.
• The status line. Claude Code passes status line scripts rate_limits.five_hour.used_percentage and rate_limits.seven_day.used_percentage, each from 0 to 100, plus when each resets. They appear only for claude.ai Pro, Max and Ultra subscribers and only after the first API response in a session (status line).
• Settings > Usage in the Claude apps. It shows "Current session" and "Weekly limits" (usage limit best practices), on the web, in Claude Desktop and in the mobile apps (usage and length limits). Everything is in one place, but it shows one signed-in account at a time.

For a full comparison of where to look, see Where to see your Claude limits.

Those work well for one account. The gap is several accounts: a work seat and a personal plan, say, where you want to see where each one stands without opening a session in each.

What Headroom shows

Headroom lives in the menu bar as a gauge icon plus a number. The number is the average session use across the accounts it tracks. Click it and a panel opens. Its first line says how many accounts are usable now and the average, for example:

3 of 4 accounts usable now · average session use 52%

Below that is one row per Claude Code account signed in on the Mac. Each row has:

• a status dot
• the account's email
• a status on the right ("Ready", "Back in 38m" and so on; see Headroom's statuses explained)
• small meters for Session %, Week % and, when the account has one, a per-model weekly limit shown with the model's name

Every meter shows how much you have used, not how much is left. A bar turns red at 90%.

What a click on a row shows

Click a row and it expands:

• each limit as a bar with "% used" and a line such as "Resets in 38m, 3:40 PM", the countdown and the clock time together
• the plan, for example "Pro", "Max", "Ultra" or "Team 5x"
• the folder the account lives in, for example ~/.claude-work
• a line such as "renews around 30 Nov"

The renewal line is an estimate. Headroom works it out from the day the subscription started, which is right for monthly billing and wrong for annual billing. For annual billing do not trust Headroom's date. Treat it as a hint and check your billing page. (Anthropic notes that you cannot change the date you are charged for Pro, Max or Ultra; see the billing FAQs.)

Session, week and per-model limits

Anthropic describes two types of limits on paid plans: "a session limit that resets every five hours, and weekly limits that reset once every week" (usage and length limits). Weekly limits "reset at a fixed time each week that is assigned to your account", not on the day you start. Some plans also have a separate weekly limit for one model; as of November 2026 the Help Center names Fable (Fable models on your plan). Headroom's per-model meter shows up only on accounts that have such a limit.

Verified Ultra accounts have no five-hour limit (Ultra plan). Headroom shows such an account with only its weekly limits and leaves it out of the menu bar average, because the average covers only accounts that have a session limit.

How often it checks

Headroom checks every five minutes, and again whenever you open the panel. A refresh button checks right now. Opening the panel to look does not use any of your limits, because Headroom never sends a prompt; it only asks for usage figures.

Where the numbers come from

Headroom shows the same usage figures Claude Code shows. It finds accounts by looking in your home folder for folders named .claude or starting with .claude- that hold a signed-in account, reads the sign-in Claude Code already saved on your Mac, and talks only to Anthropic's servers for usage.

Anthropic does not publish this as an official interface. A change on Anthropic's side can break Headroom until it is updated. When that happens the panel says it could not read the numbers instead of guessing.

There is also no analytics and no account. Once a day Headroom fetches a small version file from its own website to see whether a newer version exists; it shows a notice and never installs anything by itself. It keeps one small cache file of the last numbers in ~/Library/Application Support/Headroom.

What it does not do

• It does not track API key (Console) billing.
• It does not track the Claude desktop, web or mobile apps on their own. Those count toward the same plan limits, so their use shows up through the account, but an account never signed in to Claude Code on this Mac does not appear.
• It does not switch accounts for you, and it cannot change limits.
• It does not run on Windows, Linux or iPhone. It needs macOS 13 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel, and is about 1 MB, signed and notarized by Apple.

Getting it and adding accounts

Download it from the Headroom home page. It is free for everyone: no trial, no account, no ads, and any number of accounts. "Open at Login" is in the panel's "…" menu.

It lists accounts already signed in to Claude Code. To add another from the "…" menu without using Terminal, see Add a second Claude Code account to Headroom. If you are new to keeping several accounts, How to use several Claude Code accounts on one Mac explains the folders it reads.