AirPods have simplified the way you connect to headphones, but there's some room for improvement in how they work on Mac. Whenever I connect my AirPods to my MacBook, I still have to press the Bluetooth button in the menu bar and select my AirPods, despite how easily they can connect to an Apple TV or iPhone. It's also hard to quickly check the battery level of my AirPods or their case. Installing AirBuddy ($13) made all of these complaints a thing of the past. The app lets you connect to AirPods quickly, reliably shows their battery level, and even lets you set up keyboard shortcuts to switch listening modes, mute or unmute, and more. Plus, it's not limited to working with AirPods.
Once you've installed AirBuddy, you'll need to take a few minutes to go through setup. The app will ask for Bluetooth permissions, which it needs to see your AirPods and other Bluetooth accessories. Once granted, the app will quietly settle into your Mac's menu bar. Click the menu bar icon and select the gear icon to open AirBuddy's settings.
In the General tab, you can select what happens when you click AirBuddy's menu bar icon. You can either make it show a list of available Bluetooth devices or just immediately connect to your favorite headset. You can also enable the Increase font size option here—I think the default size for battery percentage stats is a bit too small.
Next, go to the Proximity settings page and select Enable Status Window. This is among AirBuddy's best features—it shows a small floating window whenever you open your AirPods' case near your Mac, with the battery percentages of the case and each individual AirPod listed, plus an option to connect them to your device. You can select the size and position of this window, and set up a keyboard shortcut for it, too.
To set up more shortcuts, go to the Shortcuts tab and click the + button. I've added one for switching between noise cancellation and transparency modes, and another one to mute or unmute the AirPods mic, which is useful for video calls.
Lastly, you can go to the Devices tab and enable AirPods Firmware Update Notifications. Usually, your AirPods will automatically update themselves, but you can use AirBuddy to receive a notification when Apple issues an update, which can sometimes include interesting new features. With this, your basic AirBuddy setup is complete, but feel free to look around in settings to tweak a few more things as you see fit.
Quite often, I've realized that my AirPods are dead right after I've left the house. Luckily, AirBuddy also lets you set up notifications when connected accessories are low on power. Go to the Devices tab in AirBuddy settings, right-click any device from the list, and select Create Battery Alert. You can set up separate alerts for the case and the AirPods themselves. This is also where AirBuddy's support for other Bluetooth accessories comes in, since you can use this feature to set up battery alerts for each of them. This includes other headsets, your mouse, keyboard, etc. (AirBuddy can also work with Shortcut automations or transfer Apple's Magic accessories to other devices with a single click.)
Ever since I've set up AirBuddy, I find myself using my AirPods a lot more with the Mac. It's made me a lot less anxious about leaving the house with a dead pair of AirPods (or worse—with one AirPod that's failed to charge for some unknown reason). As someone who likes to use apps in full-screen mode, AirBuddy's keyboard shortcuts have saved me a fair bit of time, too. Now, I no longer need to long-press my AirPods themselves or fiddle with the menu bar to control my AirPods' listening modes.
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