Instruction manual
JumpDock puts shortcuts to System Settings panes, privacy sections, utilities and system folders in your menu bar, plus your own apps, documents and folders, and a volume slider for every audio output device, not only the one your Mac is currently using. This manual covers building your list, arranging it, reaching the one setting macOS gives no link to, backing the whole thing up, and what a license changes.
JumpDock is a menu bar app. You pick destinations from a catalog of 36, and each one you enable becomes a shortcut you can reach in a single click: a System Settings pane, a specific privacy section inside one, a utility app, or a system folder such as Launch Agents or the audio plug-in folders.
You are not limited to the catalog. Any app, document or folder on your Mac can be a shortcut too, and several of them can sit behind one icon as a menu. See Your own shortcuts.
The same menu carries a volume slider for every audio output device on your Mac, and a gain slider for every microphone, each one setting that device, not merely the one macOS happens to be playing through. There is no window to keep open and nothing to learn: the app sits in the menu bar, out of the way, until you need it.
One place you can jump to: a settings pane, a privacy section, a utility, a system folder, or something of your own.
A destination you have turned on, with its own icon, color and optional keyboard shortcut.
Scrolling a pane to the exact section you asked for, rather than dropping you at the top. See Security Settings.
Where you build the list, in four tabs: Shortcuts, Volume, Input and Backup. Open it from any JumpDock menu, or press ⌘,. The Appearance setting on the Shortcuts tab makes JumpDock's windows and menus follow the system, or stay light or dark whatever the system does.
A fresh copy starts with one shortcut, Security Settings, already in your menu bar.
Add Shortcut… and pick a destination: Displays, Screen Recording, Terminal, whatever you reach for most. The settings window opens from any JumpDock menu, or with ⌘, when JumpDock is frontmost.App…, Document or Folder…, or Group… for several behind one icon. See Your own shortcuts.Everything happens in the Shortcuts list at the top of the settings window. Each row is one destination.
Add Shortcut… starts with your own (App…, Document or Folder… and Group…) and then, under a System Settings & Utilities heading, lists every catalog destination not already in your list. Remove All clears the list; it asks first, and it tells you what it is about to do.
Removing a shortcut does not lose its settings. Add it again and its color and keyboard shortcut come back.
Drag rows to reorder them. Order matters in two places: the first row is what the single menu bar icon opens on a plain click, and in the menu bar your icons appear in list order.
The tick box on each row controls whether that shortcut is active. An unticked row keeps its settings and simply stops appearing in the menu bar.
The catalog covers what macOS buries. Everything else on your Mac, whether an app, a document or a folder, can be a shortcut too, and several of them can sit behind a single icon.
The Add Shortcut… menu begins with three commands of your own, above the catalog:
| Command | What it makes |
|---|---|
| App… | A shortcut to an application. Choose several at once and you get one shortcut each. |
| Document or Folder… | The same for a file or a folder. Clicking it opens the file in whatever app owns it, or the folder in the Finder. |
| Group… | One icon holding several things, which drops a menu instead of opening one. |
A group is not a different kind of shortcut. It is what a shortcut becomes when it holds more than one thing: add a second item to a plain shortcut and its icon starts dropping a menu, remove one and it goes back to opening what is left directly. There is nothing to convert and no mode to pick.
Mix them freely. A group for a project can hold the project's folder, the app you work on it in, and the one document you keep reopening.
Your own shortcuts wear a badge rather than a system glyph: JumpDock's arc arriving at one or two characters of your choosing. It takes your color the same way every other icon does.
An app's own icon is full color, so it takes no tint, and at menu bar size a detailed icon reads as a smudge beside a row of monochrome symbols. The real icons still appear in the menu, where there is room for them.
A badge starts as the first letter of the shortcut's name, and stops following the name the moment you set one yourself. A mark you have learned to recognize in the menu bar should not change because you fixed a typo in the name.
Choose Edit Shortcut… from the row's ••• menu. The sheet holds the name, the badge, and everything the shortcut opens, in the order its menu shows them. Order matters here for the same reason it does in the main list: the first item is what the shortcut opens if it is ever down to one.
Applications are remembered by identity rather than by location, so an app you drag somewhere else is still found.
Documents and folders have only their path. Move or rename one in the Finder and JumpDock can no longer reach it. The row says so, the editor names which item it was, and the shortcut goes on working for everything else in it.
Each shortcut can carry its own tint, so you recognize them by shape and color rather than reading them: Automatic, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, or graphite.
Automatic is the standard template icon, which follows the menu bar's own light and dark appearance. The others are fixed colors that stay put whichever appearance you are in.
Any destination can have a keyboard shortcut, which works system-wide. You do not need JumpDock to be frontmost. Click Record Shortcut on the row and press the combination you want.
These are the fastest way to use the app: the whole point of a shortcut to Displays is not having to go looking for Displays, and a keystroke skips even the click.
Six more keys live in the Volume and Input tabs (volume up, volume down and mute for the output, and gain up, gain down and mute for the input) because they act on whichever device is the current output or input rather than on any row in the shortcut list. See Volume, input & output devices.
macOS gives you a volume control for one device: whichever is the current output. The menu bar slider, the keys on your keyboard, the Sound pane, all of them follow the output and nothing else. JumpDock gives every output device a control of its own.
This is the part worth knowing, and the reason the feature exists. Each ticked device gets its own slider and its own mute button, and each one acts on that device, whether or not it is the current output.
So you can set the level of the interface feeding your monitors while you are listening on headphones. Turn a second output down before you switch to it, instead of after. Mute the device in the other room without leaving the one in front of you. Without this, setting a device that is not the output means making it the output, changing the level, and switching back, or a trip to Audio MIDI Setup.
Switching output is still one click, and it is in the same row: the device's icon on the left makes it the output. Setting a level and choosing an output are two separate gestures here, which is what lets you do either without the other.
The Volume tab lists every audio output device your Mac can see: built-in speakers, headphones, USB and Bluetooth interfaces, displays, and virtual devices installed by other software. Tick the ones you actually use.
Ticked devices appear at the top of the JumpDock menu, current output first. Click a device's icon there to make it the output; drag its slider to set the level; click the speaker button to mute it.
Each row can also carry a color, and the row's … menu offers Give It Its Own Menu Bar Icon: a separate icon for that one device, showing and setting its level from the menu bar whether or not it is the output. That is the shortest path to one particular device: scroll over its icon and it moves, with nothing to open and nothing to switch. It is off by default, because a row in the menu is the cheap way to have a device to hand and menu bar room is the scarcest thing the app spends.
Not every output publishes a volume control. HDMI and DisplayPort displays usually do not, and neither do most virtual devices. The level is set on the hardware or by the app that owns it. Those devices can still be ticked: their menu row switches the output and simply offers no slider. The Volume tab labels them no volume control so an absent slider does not read as a fault.
Once a device has an icon of its own, the row's … menu has a Menu Bar Icon submenu. Automatic picks a glyph from the kind of device: a laptop for the built-in speakers, a display for HDMI, a cable for USB. Or choose one yourself: speaker, hi-fi speaker, headphones, AirPods, laptop, display, TV, cable, AirPlay, waveform, music note or mixer for an output; microphone, round or studio microphone, headset, camera, laptop, cable, waveform, wireless or mixer for an input.
Every choice has a slashed twin that appears while the device is muted, so the icon always says whether the device is silenced and still says which device it is. The submenu shows each glyph beside its slashed version.
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Scroll over a sound icon | Sets that device's level, whether you scroll up and down or swipe sideways (right is louder). A level readout appears under the icon while you do. A wheel click moves one step, the same size as the keyboard's own volume keys; a trackpad swipe is scaled so one full swipe covers roughly the range. |
| ⌥-click or middle-click | Mutes and unmutes, without opening anything. |
| Click | Opens that device's slider, or, if you have chosen Click the Icon to Mute Instead of Opening the Slider in the row's … menu, mutes and unmutes it. |
| Right-click | Opens the menu, as everywhere else in the app. |
A device's own icon acts on that device, output or not. In one-icon mode, the single JumpDock icon acts on the current output. It is the icon carrying sound in that arrangement.
Volume up, Volume down and Mute output can each take a keyboard shortcut, recorded below the device list. They act on whichever device is the current output, wherever you are, in the same steps as the keyboard's own volume keys. That is useful on a keyboard that has no volume keys, or when the ones it has are doing something else.
The keys are the one part of this that follows the output, because that is what a key with no device attached can sensibly mean. To reach a particular device without switching to it, use its row in the menu or give it an icon of its own.
Show volume controls in the JumpDock menu turns the whole section on and off. With one icon with a menu selected in the Shortcuts tab, that menu carries volume whatever the switch says, because it is the only place volume could go, and the settings window says so rather than leaving you with a control that appears to do nothing. The switch takes effect again when each shortcut has an icon of its own.
The Input tab does for microphones what the Volume tab does for outputs: every audio input your Mac can see (built-in microphone, webcams, USB and Bluetooth interfaces, virtual devices) with a tick to put it in the menu. Ticked devices appear under Input Level, current input first. Click a device's icon to make it the input, drag its slider to set the gain, click the microphone button to mute it.
As with outputs, each slider acts on its own device, so a microphone you are not recording from can be set without switching to it. Inputs have the same options as outputs: their own menu bar icon, a color, a choice of glyph, scroll to set the gain, and click-to-mute. A headset or interface that is both an input and an output has a separate row, setting and icon on each side. Many USB microphones publish no gain at all, because it is set on the hardware, and the row says no input gain; it can still be ticked and still switches the input.
Input gain up, Input gain down and Mute input take keyboard shortcuts below the list and act on the current input. Show input levels in the JumpDock menu is the switch for the section; ticking a device turns it on, and in one-icon mode the menu carries input whatever it says.
A device is remembered by its identifier rather than by its position, so unplugging one keeps its row and its settings and simply stops it appearing in the menu until it is back. If a device reappears under a new identifier (some USB devices without serial numbers do this when moved to another port) JumpDock matches it back up by name.
36 built-in destinations, in four groups. JumpDock checks each one against your Mac at launch, so nothing is offered that your system does not have. Anything not here you can add yourself. See Your own shortcuts.
These open System Settings directly at a section inside Privacy & Security, not merely at the pane.
Screen Recording · Microphone Access · Camera Access · Location Services · Accessibility Access · Automation Access · Files & Folders Access
Displays · Sound · Bluetooth · Network · Notifications · Focus · Keyboard · Function Keys · Trackpad · Sharing · Software Update · Login Items · Time Machine · Startup Disk · Users & Groups · Screen Time · Wallpaper
Terminal · Disk Utility · Activity Monitor · Console · System Information · Screenshot · Audio MIDI Setup · Bluetooth Explorer
Launch Agents: /Library/LaunchAgents, where installers leave the helpers that start every time you log in. Opens in the Finder.
Audio Plug-Ins: /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins, the Audio Unit, VST, VST3 and CLAP folders every audio app reads.
AAX Plug-Ins (Avid): /Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins, where Pro Tools looks. Only offered on a Mac that has it.
The Security Settings shortcut is the one JumpDock was built around. It opens Privacy & Security and scrolls to the bottom, where the “Allow applications from” setting and the list of blocked apps you have to approve live.
macOS gives that section no direct link. Other shortcut apps can open the pane; getting to the setting itself means scrolling, and scrolling another app's window is something macOS only permits through the Accessibility API.
That scroll is the only reason JumpDock ever requests Accessibility access, and macOS asks the first time you use the shortcut. Every other destination in the catalog is a plain link or an app launch and needs no permission at all.
Check that JumpDock is ticked in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. If the grant is there but nothing scrolls, remove JumpDock from that list and add it back. The permission is tied to the exact copy of the app, so replacing the app can leave a stale entry behind.
One shortcut is free, permanently, and it is whichever one you enable first, not a particular destination chosen for you. You can change your mind whenever you like. A free copy never expires.
A free copy shows a short license reminder when it opens, at most once a day and never on the day you install it. Tick Don’t remind me again in the reminder, or untick Remind me about the license once a day in the License box of the settings window, and it stops; tick the setting again to bring it back.
A one-time purchase makes the rest of your list active too, each with its own menu bar icon, color and keyboard shortcut. It also turns on volume: a slider for every audio output device in the JumpDock menu, each setting that device whether or not it is the one you are listening through, plus per-device menu bar icons and the three volume keys. There is no seat limit: one license covers every Mac you own. Buy once, use the same key everywhere.
None of it needs setting up twice. Extra shortcuts and ticked devices can be arranged on a free copy and simply start working when the Mac is activated.
Once activated, the settings window shows who the license belongs to, so you can see at a glance which account a Mac is running on.
Deactivate releases this Mac. The shortcut list goes back to one active entry here, and the license becomes free to activate elsewhere. Your shortcuts are kept, and they come straight back if you activate again.
Activating needs the internet once, so JumpDock can register the key. After that no connection is needed, ever. There is no grace period to run out and no “license expired” screen for being offline.
Two different messages, meaning two different things. “That key was not accepted” means the key itself was refused: check for a typo, or that you pasted the JumpDock key rather than one from another purchase. “Could not reach Lemon Squeezy” is a network problem, not a key problem; try again when you are online.
A list you have built up (the shortcuts, their colors, their keys, your groups and your device picks) is real work. The Backup tab writes all of it to one file and reads it back.
Save Backup… writes a single dated .jumpdocksettings file wherever you put it. The tab says what a backup taken now would contain before you take it, so the button is not a blind one.
Worth doing before you rebuild a Mac, and worth carrying to a new one.
Restore from Backup… reads a file back, and so does double-clicking one in the Finder. Either way JumpDock shows you what the backup holds and which Mac and version it came from before it changes anything, and then asks which of two things you want:
| Choice | What happens |
|---|---|
| Add | Keeps everything you have and appends the backup's shortcuts and devices after it. Your menu bar arrangement, Dock setting and open-at-login are left exactly as they are. Nothing already set up is changed, moved or removed. |
| Replace | Puts the Mac back exactly as the backup found it, discarding what is set up now. This is the one for a Mac you are moving to or rebuilding. |
Add is the default, because it is the one that cannot lose anything. It is also how you pull the shortcuts from a second Mac into the list on this one without having to choose between the two.
Either choice can be made twice safely. Restoring the same file again by Replace gives the same result; adding it again recognizes what it already put there and does nothing.
| In the backup | Not in the backup |
|---|---|
| Your shortcuts, in order, including your own apps, documents, folders and groups | Your license |
| Colors, keyboard shortcuts, badges, and which shortcuts are switched on | Anything about how you have used the app |
| Menu bar arrangement, appearance, Dock setting, open-at-login, the hidden-icon warning | The Accessibility permission, which macOS ties to one Mac and one copy of the app |
| Volume and input device picks, their icons, and the six volume and input keys |
Shortcuts to catalog destinations that the new Mac does not have are dropped from the menu bar quietly, the same as always. Shortcuts of your own that point at an app which is not installed, or a file at a different path, are named after the restore rather than dropped: they stay in your list, marked, and start working as soon as what they need is there.
JumpDock has no account, no analytics and no tracking, and it collects nothing about how you use it.
A free copy never touches the internet at all. If you enter a license key, JumpDock contacts Lemon Squeezy to check it: when you activate, when you deactivate, and on launch when the last check is old enough to be worth repeating. It sends the key and your Mac's name, and nothing else. A license that has been activated never times out. If the Mac is offline for a day, a month or for good, it stays licensed. The only thing that switches a license off is Lemon Squeezy reporting the key as disabled or refunded, and only when the Mac happens to be online to hear it.
Your key is stored in your Mac's Keychain. The name shown in the settings window and the date of the last check are stored in JumpDock's own preferences. All of it stays on your Mac, and it is removed when you deactivate.
Backup files carry none of that. A backup holds your settings and nothing tied to this Mac: no key, no license details, nothing about how you have used the app. It is a plain file you can read yourself, and JumpDock never uploads one anywhere. See Backup & restore.
The full policy is the Fulwave Privacy Policy.
JumpDock is distributed as a disk image from fulwave.com, signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Drag the app to the Applications folder in the image window. That gesture matters more than it looks.
If you open JumpDock from anywhere else (straight from the disk image, or from your Downloads folder) it asks first whether to move itself to Applications. Choose Move to Applications and it copies itself there, puts any older copy it replaces in the Trash, and reopens from Applications; eject the disk image afterwards. Choose Not Now and it runs where it is, and asks again next time unless you tick Don’t ask again. A copy anywhere inside Applications, including a subfolder, is never asked.
To update, download the current version and replace the copy in Applications. JumpDock does not check for updates in the background. The only network connection it ever makes is the license check.
Almost always a full menu bar. Open the settings window; if an icon could not be placed, JumpDock says so there. Switch to one icon with a menu, or quit something else that lives in the menu bar. If you run a menu bar manager, look inside it first: JumpDock can tell a held icon from a hidden one and stays quiet about the former.
Untick Warn when menu bar icons are hidden. A menu bar manager that parks its hidden items on-screen rather than off it is indistinguishable from a full menu bar, so the setting is there to let your own eyes win. It stays off until you turn it back on.
It was opened from outside your Applications folder, usually straight from the disk image. Let it move: the Accessibility permission and Open JumpDock at login both belong to where the app lives, and a copy on a disk image is gone once the image is ejected. If you keep apps somewhere else on purpose, choose Not Now with Don’t ask again ticked. See Installing & updating.
Yes, that is the point of the device list. Every slider and mute button acts on its own device, so the interface feeding your monitors can be set while you are on headphones, and neither has to become the output for the other to be adjusted. The volume keys are the exception: with no device attached to them, they follow the current output.
It publishes no volume control, which is usual for HDMI and DisplayPort displays and for virtual devices. Its row still switches the output; set the level on the hardware or in the app that owns it. See Volume, input & output devices.
Volume is part of the license, so on a free copy the keys are recorded but idle. If the Mac is activated, check that the key you chose is not already claimed by macOS or another app. Recording it again with a different combination is the quickest test.
Whatever it points at is not where it was. For an app that usually means it is not installed on this Mac; for a document or folder it means the file has been moved or renamed, since those are remembered by their location. Choose Edit Shortcut… on the row to see which item it is and point it somewhere else. Nothing is lost in the meantime, and a shortcut repairs itself if the missing item comes back.
Yes. That is a group, and it is just a shortcut holding more than one thing. Use Add Shortcut… › Group…, or add a second item to a shortcut you already have. Its icon drops a menu instead of opening something. See Your own shortcuts.
In the menu bar it shows a badge instead, because an app icon is full color. It cannot take your chosen tint, and at that size it reads as a smudge next to the monochrome symbols beside it. The app's real icon is used in the menu, where it is large enough to be worth showing.
Yes. Save a backup on the other Mac, restore it here, and choose Add rather than Replace. Your existing shortcuts stay where they are and the backup's are appended after them, with anything you already have left untouched. Do it twice and the second time changes nothing.
No, and deliberately not. A backup is a file you might email to yourself, so it carries no key. Restore the backup on the new Mac and paste the same license key in. There is no seat limit to run out of.
They are still in your list. A shortcut of your own that points at something the new Mac does not have keeps its row, marked as missing, and gives up its menu bar icon until it can open something again. JumpDock names them right after the restore for exactly this reason. Open the settings window and look for the marked rows.
That is the Accessibility permission. See Security Settings & Accessibility.
The catalog is curated. macOS vends over 200 settings extensions, most with names no one would recognize, and a menu of all of them would be worse than no menu. If something genuinely useful is missing, write in. Adding a destination is a small change.
App Store apps must be sandboxed, and a sandboxed app cannot read System Settings' window at all, which means it could open the Privacy & Security pane but never scroll to the Gatekeeper controls. The app's headline feature cannot survive the sandbox, so JumpDock is sold direct instead.
No. One license covers every Mac you own; paste the same key into each.
Deactivate on the old one if you still can, then activate on the new one. If the old Mac is gone, just activate. There is no seat limit to run out of.
Questions, bug reports, and requests for destinations that ought to be in the catalog are all welcome. Use the support form and choose JumpDock.
It helps to say which version you are running (the settings window shows it, under the app's name in the sidebar) and what macOS version you are on. You can also find the JumpDock page and the Privacy Policy on this site.