The tray menu and Settings

Fregata is a menu-bar app by default (with an optional Dock icon — see Finding the menu-bar icon below). Every setting that’s not a Frigate configuration option lives in the tray. This page walks through it top-to-bottom.

Finding the menu-bar icon

By default the menu-bar item is Fregata’s only entry point — no Dock icon, no main window. If you can’t see it, the icon is almost always hidden rather than missing: Fregata is still running.

macOS gives apps no way to pin themselves to a fixed or “priority” spot. The right-hand end of the menu bar is reserved for Control Center, the clock, and other system items, and third-party icons sit to their left. When the bar runs out of room — most often on MacBooks, where the notch eats the middle — macOS silently hides the overflow, starting from the left. A freshly installed icon also tends to land at that far-left end, the first place to get hidden.

Optional: a Dock icon

For a second, always-visible way to find Fregata, turn on Settings → Show Dock Icon. New installs are offered this as a checkbox (“Also show Fregata icon in the Dock”) on the last page of the first-run welcome wizard, checked by default; existing installs stay menu-bar-only until you flip the Settings toggle yourself — see Settings → Show Dock Icon below. Clicking the Dock icon opens the exact same tray menu as the menu-bar item; nothing about Frigate control, folders, or Settings differs between the two.

If you’d rather stay menu-bar-only, here’s how to keep the icon reachable:

• ⌘-drag to rearrange. Hold ⌘ and drag any menu-bar icon left or right. Pull Fregata’s 🐦 out from behind the notch, or drag a less-important icon off the bar to free up space. The position you choose is remembered across restarts and updates.
• Make room. Quit or hide a few other menu-bar apps, or turn off system items you don’t need in System Settings → Control Center.
• Use a menu-bar manager. Ice (free and open-source) or Bartender corral overflow icons into a second row or a click-to-reveal list, so Fregata stays reachable no matter how full the bar gets.

On launch, if the Dock icon is off, Fregata also posts a “Fregata is running” notification that points you to the menu bar, so even a hidden icon leaves a trail in Notification Center. (With the Dock icon on, its constant presence is already that proof, so the notification is skipped.) To confirm Fregata is up without either, open https://localhost:8971 or look for the Fregata process in Activity Monitor. (If the icon is genuinely gone and Frigate is unreachable, see Menu bar icon is gone.)

Frigate controls

The first three items control the Frigate Python core that does the actual NVR work:

• Open Frigate Web UI (⌘O) — opens https://localhost:8971 in your default browser. This is the main UI for live view, recordings, events, and per-camera configuration. The first visit shows a self-signed certificate warning — that’s expected; click through to continue.
• Start Frigate / Stop Frigate — starts or stops the Frigate Python core. Stopping ends recording and detection until you start it again.
• Restart Frigate — graceful stop + start. Use this after editing config.yml.

If Frigate crashes, open its log to see why from Settings → Open Frigate Logs. Logs are kept on the SSD, so they survive restarts and crashes.

Settings → Folders

Fregata keeps state in five directories under ~/Fregata/. The Folders sub-menu lets you open or relocate each one:

• Open Config Folder → ~/Fregata/config/ — config.yml, the SQLite database (frigate.db), the model cache, TLS material.
• Open Media Folder → ~/Fregata/media/ — recordings/, clips/, exports/. All your recordings and clips
• Open Cache Folder → ~/Fregata/temp/ — RAM-disk-backed scratch space. Ephemeral; cleared on quit. Disabled (grayed out) when the cache is backed by tmpfs — that path isn’t Finder-browsable, and there’s nothing useful inside that outlives the session anyway. See Performance — RAM-disk cache for the two modes (Smart memory / tmpfs vs Basic RAM disk) and how the welcome wizard picks one for you.
• Open App Settings Folder → ~/Library/Preferences/ — where the macOS-side settings (which folders, env vars) are stored as a .plist.
• Change Config Location… / Change Media Location… — pick a new folder via the standard macOS open panel. Fregata will move the existing data there on next launch or let you move things yourself.

Config folder must be on a local disk

The config folder holds Frigate’s SQLite database and Fregata’s activation token. Both require reliable POSIX file locking and atomic writes — guarantees that network drives (NAS shares over SMB or NFS, AFP, WebDAV) cannot provide. Keep the config folder on a local APFS or HFS+ disk. Fregata blocks network volumes in the folder picker. The media folder has no such restriction and works fine on a NAS.

The full layout is documented at Default paths.

Settings → Environment Variables…

Opens an editor for extra environment variables that get passed to the Python core. Use this for advanced tuning that doesn’t have a dedicated checkbox.

The most commonly set vars:

• PLUS_API_KEY - used if you have a Frigate+ subscription.
• MQTT, RTSP, etc usernames and/or passwords - only relevant if you are using environment variables in your Frigate config.yml to store these values
• The full list is at Environment variables.

Settings → Launch at Login

Toggle on to register Fregata as a macOS Login Item. On next login the app will start automatically and reach the menu bar in a second or two.

This is the only “background-y” affordance Fregata exposes — there’s no separate daemon, no headless mode, no LaunchAgent .plist you need to manage. If the menu-bar icon seems to have vanished, it’s usually just hidden by a full menu bar rather than not running — see Finding the menu-bar icon above.

Settings → Show Dock Icon

Toggle on to also show Fregata’s icon in the Dock, alongside the menu-bar item — a second, always-visible way to find Fregata if the menu-bar icon ever gets hidden. Takes effect immediately, no relaunch needed. Clicking the Dock icon opens the same tray menu described on this page. New installs get this on by default via the welcome wizard’s last step; see Finding the menu-bar icon above for details.

Settings → Show Welcome…

Re-runs the first-launch welcome wizard (network permission, folder choices, activation). Mostly useful when you want to walk through the setup again.

Status indicators

Below Settings, the tray shows live status:

• Fregata Status — Starting, Running, Stopping, Restarting, Relocating, Error. Idle states tend to be brief; if you’re stuck in Starting for more than a few seconds the Troubleshooting page is the right next step.
• Last verified: <N> days ago — Only shown if it has been several days since your license was last verified. Doesn’t affect a running app, but if you restart while offline this is what the cold-start grace checks. See Running offline.
• Update available: v<X.Y.Z> — appears when a newer release is out and your license covers it. Clicking opens the update window with a download link. See Updates & renewals.
• Convert to Paid License — appears during the trial. One-click upgrade; same key, no reinstall.

About / Quit

• About Fregata… — version, build number, license summary, acknowledgments.
• Quit Fregata (⌘Q) — stops Frigate cleanly, unmounts the RAM-disk cache, closes the menu-bar item.

Where the settings live on disk by default

Setting	Path	Notes
Folder choices, env vars	~/Library/Preferences/com.3rdbitlabs.fregata.plist	Fregata settings.
Frigate config	~/Fregata/config/config.yml	The thing the web UI’s Settings panes edit.
License token	~/Fregata/config/fregata-license/	Updated on each successful heartbeat.
Login item	macOS Service Management database	Toggled by the menu, not stored as a user-facing file.
Logs	~/Fregata/logs/frigate/current (plus go2rtc/ and nginx/)	Live logs on the SSD; persist across restarts/crashes. Open via Settings → Open Frigate Logs (follows live in Console.app).