5 Best Mac Weather Apps in 2026

Most of the time you do not want a weather app. You want a number. Is it going to rain before you leave, and do you need a jacket? That takes two seconds to answer and about thirty seconds to look up, because answering it usually means leaving what you were doing, finding a window or a Dock icon, and reading a full screen of meteorology to extract one fact.

The best Mac weather apps in 2026 split neatly along that line. Some are proper weather apps with radar, alerts, and ten-day outlooks. Others just put the temperature where your eyes already are. Here is how the five worth installing compare.

Seam's expanded weather view in the notch, with current conditions and a five-day forecast

We make Seam. It’s our pick below, so read that entry knowing who wrote it.

TL;DR: Apple Weather is free, already installed, and good enough for most people. CARROT Weather is the most capable if you want radar and alerts. Mercury Weather has the cleanest design across Apple devices. Seam puts the temperature in your MacBook’s notch so you never open a weather app at all.

What Makes a Good Mac Weather App?

We cared about four things:

Time to answer: How long from wondering to knowing. A menu bar readout wins over an app you have to launch.
Screen cost: A weather app that needs a window competes with your actual work. One that lives in the notch or menu bar does not.
Data quality: Apple’s WeatherKit powers a lot of these now. The differences show up in radar, severe alerts, and how far out the forecast goes.
Price shape: Weather is a utility. Paying monthly for a temperature reading is a hard sell, so one-time purchases and free tiers matter.

The 5 Best Mac Weather Apps

1. Seam: Weather in Your Notch (Our Pick)

Seam turns your MacBook’s notch into a live activity area, and weather is one of the things it shows there. In compact mode you get a condition icon and the current temperature sitting in the notch. Hover and it peeks out with your city, the condition, and the day’s high and low. Click and it expands into a full card with current conditions over a condition-aware gradient, plus a forecast strip you can switch between hourly and daily.

The data comes from Apple’s WeatherKit, so it is the same source feeding the built-in Weather app.

The honest limitation: Seam is not a weather app. There is no radar map, no severe weather alerts, no ten-day outlook, no trip planning. If a storm is coming and you want to watch it move across a map, use something else on this list. What Seam does is remove the lookup entirely for the 95% case where you just want the number.

It is also not weather-only. The same surface handles now playing, a focus timer, calendar, battery, and voice transcription, so the weather is riding along on an app you would run anyway.

Seam's weather peek, showing city, condition, and the day's high and low

Best for: People who want the temperature visible without opening anything. Price: $29 one-time Platform: macOS 14 or later. Works on any Mac via island mode if you do not have a notch.

2. Apple Weather: Already on Your Mac

Since macOS Ventura, Apple ships a real Weather app on the Mac. It is good: hourly and ten-day forecasts, precipitation maps, air quality, and severe weather notifications, all free and already installed.

It also has a Notification Center widget, which is the closest the system gets to glanceable. That is still a two-step interaction: open Notification Center, read, close.

The gap is the menu bar. macOS has no built-in menu bar temperature readout, which is exactly why the rest of this list exists.

Best for: Anyone who wants a capable weather app without installing or paying for anything. Price: Free Platform: macOS 13 (Ventura) and later

3. CARROT Weather: Most Capable, Most Personality

CARROT is the power user pick. It has a menu bar mode with the current temperature always visible, a global hotkey to summon it, radar maps, severe weather alerts, and a time machine feature for looking at historical or future forecasts. You can also pick your data source, which matters if you have opinions about forecast accuracy in your region.

The personality is the divisive part. CARROT narrates the weather with jokes and insults. Some people love it and some people turn it off, which the app lets you do.

Pricing is subscription tiers. At the time of writing, Premium runs $4.99/month or $19.99/year, Premium Ultra is $9.99/month or $39.99/year, and a family plan sits at $14.99/month or $59.99/year. There is a free tier, but the menu bar and the better data sources sit behind the paid tiers.

Best for: People who want radar, alerts, and control over data sources. Price: Free tier, Premium from $4.99/month or $19.99/year Platform: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch

4. Mercury Weather: Cleanest Design

Mercury is the design-led option. It is calm, legible, and consistent across every Apple platform: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. Where CARROT throws data at you, Mercury edits.

Its standout feature is trip forecasts, which show you the weather for a destination across the dates you will be there. If you travel, that is more useful than another radar layer.

Individual pricing is $2.99/month, $14.99/year, or $49.99 once for lifetime access. The lifetime option is the one worth noting, since it turns a subscription into a purchase.

Best for: People who value design and travel often. Price: $2.99/month, $14.99/year, or $49.99 lifetime Platform: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Vision Pro

Weather Bar does one thing. It puts current conditions in your menu bar, and clicking gives you temperature, humidity, dew point, wind speed, and a short-term forecast for the next twelve hours. No radar, no alerts, no personality.

If all you want is a menu bar temperature and you do not want to think about it again, this is the least complicated way to get one.

Best for: People who want a menu bar readout and nothing more. Price: Free Platform: Mac

Quick Comparison

App	Glanceable	Radar & alerts	Price
Seam	Notch, always on	No	$29 one-time
Apple Weather	Widget only	Yes	Free
CARROT	Menu bar (paid)	Yes	From $19.99/year
Mercury	Menu bar	Limited	$49.99 lifetime
Weather Bar	Menu bar	No	Free

Seam's compact weather in the notch, showing the condition icon and current temperature

Which Mac Weather App Should You Pick?

If you want to spend nothing: Use Apple Weather. It is already there and it is good. Add Weather Bar if the missing menu bar readout bothers you.

If you want serious weather data: CARROT Weather. Radar, alerts, and selectable data sources are worth the subscription if you actually use them.

If you travel and care about design: Mercury Weather, on the lifetime plan.

If you never want to open a weather app again: Seam. It answers the jacket question without you asking, and it does the same for your music, calendar, and timers.

Worth saying plainly: these are not mutually exclusive. Seam and Apple Weather cover different jobs, and running both costs you nothing extra. Glanceable temperature in the notch, full app for when a storm is actually coming.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does macOS have a built-in weather app?

Yes. Apple has shipped a Weather app on the Mac since macOS Ventura, with hourly and ten-day forecasts, maps, and severe weather notifications. What macOS does not have is a built-in menu bar temperature readout.

What is the best free Mac weather app?

Apple Weather, because it is capable and already installed. If you specifically want the temperature in your menu bar, Weather Bar is free and does exactly that.

Can I put the weather in my MacBook’s notch?

Yes, with a notch app. Seam shows the condition and temperature in the notch, expanding to a full card with an hourly or daily forecast when you click it.

Do weather apps drain MacBook battery?

They can, if they poll aggressively or keep a radar view live. Well-behaved apps throttle how often they fetch. Seam, for example, enforces a 90 minute floor between fetches and caps daily calls, so the weather costs close to nothing in battery terms.

Where does Mac weather data come from?

Most Apple-platform weather apps now use Apple’s WeatherKit, which is also what the built-in Weather app uses. CARROT lets you choose between multiple providers, which is the main reason to prefer it if you find one source unreliable where you live.