WinMac Menu

Win32 application that shows a Windows context-like popup menu. It’s configurable via an INI file, adapts to your light/dark theme, allows to specify relative and absolute positioning, supports a dynamic Recent Items and Force Quit submenus, shell objects, folder submenus, power options menu, showing folder content in root menu, icons, sorting and many more!

Discover the range of possible application use cases.

• Windows 10/11, x86 and ARM64 supported
• No installer, single EXE
• Low-latency popup

Windows 11:

Windows 10:

Features

• Config-driven items with separators, folders as submenus, URIs, commands, power actions, and more
• Recent Items - dynamic submenu from %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\ folder
• Force Quit - dynamic submenu to forcibly end tasks
• This PC - dynamic submenu to list This PC content
• Home - dynamic submenu to show User Profile folder
• Light/Dark auto-adaptation - immersive dark hint on the invisible owner window
• Icons - per-item icons, theme-aware overrides (light/dark), optional DefaultIcon + theme variants, and optional system folder icon retrieval
• Placement controls (edges, center, or cursor, with offsets + ignore options), per‑monitor DPI aware
• First-letter activation, outside-click dismissal
• Folder submenu behaviors: lazy population, max depth, name-only items, optional “Open ” entry
• Inline folder expansion (inject a folder’s contents directly into the root menu) with optional clickable header
• Sorting of folder content by name, date, size and type
• Granular extension hiding (global + recent-only override)

Run

Quick Start: Double‑click the EXE. By default, it runs in background mode with a system tray icon.

Modes:

• Background Mode (default) - App stays running in background. Launch again to toggle/show menu.
• Single Run - Set RunInBackground=false in config to exit after menu closes (legacy behavior).
  • To start silently in background, without showing the menu on first launch, set ShowOnLaunch=false.

Custom config: Use --config <path> to point at a custom INI (single instance per INI path applies).

Sections

• [General] global behavior and style
• [Placement] position rules
• [Menu] menu items Item1..ItemN
• [Icons] per-item icon mapping Icon1..IconN and optional DefaultIcon/DefaultIconLight/DefaultIconDark
• [IconsLight] theme-specific per-item icons for light theme (Icon1..IconN)
• [IconsDark] theme-specific per-item icons for dark theme (Icon1..IconN)
• [Power] exclude specific power options
• [Sorting] sort folder content
• [RecentItems] item settings
• [TaskKill] item settings
• [ThisPC] item settings
• [Home] item settings
• [Logging]

You can find more details about each section in Wiki page.

Behavior Details

• First-letter activation
• Outside click dismisses menu
• DPI-aware scaling via system menu metrics
• Icons in legacy mode use MIIM_BITMAP, keeping native look (no custom owner-draw)
• Recent resolves .lnk targets; missing targets skipped
• Power actions: consistent markers used internally (POWER_MENU aggregates)
• Single-instance per INI path
• Second invocation toggle: launching the executable again (e.g., via a Windows key binding in an external tool) sends a toggle message. If the menu is open it closes; if closed it opens at the configured position. This enables assigning the EXE both to open and to dismiss via the same key.

Security & Privacy

• No telemetry. The app makes no network connections and collects no data.
• Registry usage: optional HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run entry when you enable “Start on login” from the tray. It’s off by default and only changed when you toggle it. There is no service or scheduled task.
• Keyboard/mouse hooks: installed only while the popup menu is visible to allow outside‑click/escape dismissal; they are immediately removed when the menu closes.
• Recent cleanup: choosing “Clear Recent Items list” deletes shortcut (.lnk) files from your user Recent folder. It doesn’t touch actual documents or programs. There’s no confirmation.
• Filesystem: reads your config.ini and enumerates folders you explicitly reference in the menu.

Troubleshooting

• Empty folder submenu: check path, permissions, filters (ShowHidden / ShowDotfiles)
• No icons: ensure ShowIcons=true (or LegacyIcons=true for backward compatibility) and paths are correct
• Folder icons not appearing: set ShowFolderIcons=true; the system folder icon only shows when no per-item icon exists

Notes

Note

Please be informed that this is a beta version - you're using it at your own risk!

• WinMacMenu reads an INI. If missing, a default (config.ini) is created.
• Environment variables expand in labels, paths, params, and icon paths (e.g., %USERNAME%).
• Settings GUI window is still in experimental phase, so I can't promise its stability for now.
• Indices N in [Icons]/[IconsLight]/[IconsDark] map to ItemN in [Menu].
• Generated default INI contains no comments (to keep the file minimal). Comments are still supported by the parser if you add them manually: lines beginning with ; or # are ignored.
• Duplicate keys: The last occurrence in a section wins (standard Win32 profile API behavior).
• Unknown keys are ignored.
• Built with standard Win32 APIs: user32, shell32, shlwapi, comctl32, uxtheme, dwmapi, powrprof, advapi32.
• This app uses legacy popup menus; so no parity with Windows 11 Fluent Design System for now
• It's recommended to use it together with Open-Shell, so the WinMacMenu can be triggered by clicking the Start menu button with the left mouse button or by pressing the Windows key.
• You can also pin shortcuts to taskbar, or add to custom toolbar. Each shortcut can refer to different config.ini files with different file names for ini file.
• INI file used in current session will be highlighted in tooptip of tray icon, if file name is different than default (config.ini).
• You can reference either *.dll or *.exe file in [Icons] section as path or jsut a file name (if the file resides in directory defined in %PATH%).

Future plans

• custom activation shortcuts
• rewrite settings page in WinUI3
• open folder of specific file entry in Recent Items list with middle mouse button