Mac desktop clock widgets: a clock, not a widget
No — Horologe isn't a desktop widget. It's a small window that lives on the desktop, and it's $5.99, paid once. It shows the time without being opened, and it rings the hour whether or not you're looking.
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 out. 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.
What macOS desktop widgets do
Apple brought widgets onto the desktop with macOS Sonoma in 2023. You drag them where you like, pick them from a gallery, and they show you a slice of an app at a glance — a forecast, a date, a battery level. For a lot of jobs that's exactly enough, and a clock widget in the corner is a perfectly good way to keep the time in view. If a glanceable readout is all you want, macOS may already have you covered.
What a desktop window does differently
A widget's job is to be seen when you look. Horologe's job is to be heard when you don't. It sits at desktop level — in front of the wallpaper, behind everything you're working in. Drag it anywhere and pull a corner to make it larger, until it reads across the room. It never takes focus and never comes to the front; your windows cover it the way paper covers a desk clock. And it can strike an hour you didn't ask about, which is rather the point of a bell.
Where the two part ways
We didn't build a widget because a clock that rings is an event, and a widget is a glance. If you want the time available the moment you look, use a widget. If you want the room to keep the hour, a clock with a sound is the other thing. The difference in practice is small and specific: one is silent until asked, the other speaks once an hour and then stops.
It's also not a menu-bar clock, and doesn't try to be. What it is instead is a window with four faces and five bells, a right-click to hush it, and quiet hours at night.
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 your screen and won't ask to. Muting it is one right-click on the menu-bar bell.
Horologe is $5.99 once. A glance is free; the hour arriving on its own is the part you buy.