Church bells on your Mac, on the hour
Yes — Horologe rings church bells on your Mac, and it's $5.99, paid once. Two of its five voices are tower bells: Westminster and Whittington. The hour is counted out, the quarters are optional, and the bells go quiet at night.
The spec, in prose: four faces — Mantel, Station, Chronometer, Nocturne. Five bells — Westminster, Whittington, Ship's Bell, Temple Bowl, Grandfather. Quarters on or off; the hour counted, one strike for each o'clock. Quiet hours silent from 10pm to 8am, and a right-click on the menu-bar bell to mute. About three and a half megabytes, macOS 15 or later, Mac App Store.
Which bells are the tower bells
Westminster is the tune Big Ben plays — four quarter bells, five short changes, the hour counted on the great bell below. Whittington is the other great English change-ringing tune, rounder and a little warmer. Both mark the quarter-hours; both count the hour. The remaining three aren't tower bells at all: Ship's Bell is the nautical watch, Temple Bowl is one long struck note, and Grandfather is a single deep toll.
What "on the hour" means here
At one o'clock, one strike. At twelve, twelve. Nothing to read and nothing to dismiss; the count is the message. If the quarters are on, they play first — four notes, then eight, then twelve, then all sixteen on the hour, then the count. The whole sequence is written out if you want to follow it. If you'd rather keep it to the hours, one setting does that.
And nobody hears a church at three in the morning
Quiet hours are on by default and silent from 10pm to 8am, which covers the hours a neighbour would notice. Right-click the bell in the menu bar and it's quiet on the spot, with the icon struck through so you can see that it is. If you want the bells all night, you can have that too — it's your desk.
There's a feeling underneath this that missing church bells abroad says better than a spec sheet can: the hour used to arrive on its own, and then one day it didn't.
The limits, in the same size
No alarms, no timers, no world clocks, no ticking. It can ring during a call, because it can't see what you're doing and won't ask. The Westminster chime is the fullest version of what it does.
Horologe is $5.99 once. First week: Grandfather, hour only, volume low. The quarters can wait.
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