Guide
Check your Codex usage without an API key.
Most usage trackers ask for something first - an API key, a Keychain prompt, a browser cookie grab. Here's why that's normally the price of admission, and how to skip it entirely for Codex.
Why usage trackers usually ask for more than a login
A menu bar app that shows "usage" for more than one AI provider generally has to reach into wherever each provider keeps that data: an API key you generate and paste in, a browser's cookie jar (which on macOS means asking the Keychain to decrypt it, and sometimes Full Disk Access for Safari), or a stored account session. None of that is malicious - it's just what multi-provider tracking requires. But it does mean granting access well beyond "show me a number."
What Codex already has, that other tools ask you to duplicate
When you run codex login, the Codex CLI creates a local session file at ~/.codex/auth.json on your Mac. That file is already the credential Codex itself uses to talk to chatgpt.com. An API key is a second, separate credential - one more secret to generate, store, and eventually rotate - for a session that already exists.
How CodexBar Lite reads usage without one
CodexBar Lite reads that one file - ~/.codex/auth.json - and makes the same minimum request to chatgpt.com that the Codex CLI would, purely to ask for your current usage. No API key is generated, stored, or transmitted, because none is needed. The same architecture means it also skips:
- Browser cookie access, on any browser
- macOS Keychain
- Full Disk Access, Accessibility, or Screen Recording
- A third-party account or backend
If no Codex session exists yet, CodexBar Lite launches codex login in Terminal and watches for it to complete - usage appears automatically once you're logged in, with nothing to configure afterward.
Where this fits among the alternatives
CodexBar Lite isn't the only tool with a minimal access model - see the full comparison against CodexBar, CodexUsageBar, SessionWatcher, and TokenBar for how each one's requirements (and providers, price, and platform support) actually compare, sourced from their own sites.
Your Codex login is enough. Free, open source, and native to your menu bar.