StreamPulse is a free, live-updating desktop widget for macOS that shows your Plex server’s status right on your desktop — no need to open the app or a browser tab.
What it shows:
- Server online/offline status
- Now Playing — active streams with progress bars, transcode/direct play info, and a Stop button
- Recently Added — movies, TV, music, and games, grouped by category
- Bandwidth, CPU, and memory stats for your server
- How many distinct users currently have an active stream
It’s built as an Übersicht widget (a free macOS app for running small JS widgets on your desktop), so it refreshes every couple of seconds — genuinely live, not a periodic check-in.
GitHub: https://github.com/witchking86/stream-pulse
Setup takes a few minutes — install Übersicht, sign in with Plex.tv/link. Full instructions are in the README.
Sample
Everything talks directly to your own Plex server — nothing is sent anywhere else, and your token only ever lives in the widget file on your own Mac.
Feedback, bug reports, and feature requests welcome — this is actively maintained.
Changes & Additions
StreamPulse v1.5 - What’s new since v1.4
-
Weather effects: snow, rain, and falling leaves, each with its own
on/off toggle and intensity slider, plus a heavier “storm” mode for
rain (and for snow and leaves). Rain’s storm mode adds occasional
lightning, with a small chance of a quick double-flash so it reads
as natural rather than mechanical. -
Halloween effect set: bats, cats, ghosts, and pumpkins, each with
its own toggle and intensity slider. -
Christmas effect set: mistletoe, ornaments, gingerbread, falling
stars, and a flying Santa sleigh silhouette. Santa always starts
off-screen, comes in from the left or right at random, and can be
recolored (Default, Red, Green, Gold, White, Silver, Azure). -
Every weather effect (and the background photo) has its own
“Locked” option to stay at full opacity no matter where the
widget’s transparency slider is set. -
All weather/seasonal controls live in one Weather menu.
-
Streams can now pop out into their own resizable, draggable
window, separate from the compact widget - adjustable tile size
and column count, filtering by state/type/user, search, sort, its
own background theme, and a fullscreen mode. You can hide the main
widget and keep just the pop-out running. -
Confetti celebration on today’s top streamer’s tile.
-
Background color and photo customization, with its own “Locked”
full-opacity option. -
Accent color picker with several presets, replacing the hardcoded
Plex orange everywhere in the widget. -
The server name shown in the header can be renamed to anything you
like (cosmetic only), with a one-click reset back to the real name. -
A “Hide Logo” toggle for the header logo/heartbeat.
-
The whole dashboard can be hidden and restored independently of
the Streams pop-out, for a minimal on-screen footprint.
