See exactly how much of your Claude plan you've used — at a glance, in your Windows taskbar.
Every quota that lives on claude.ai/settings/usage — Current session, Weekly · All models, Sonnet only, Opus only, Claude Design, daily routine runs, overage — rendered as a quiet, glanceable pill above your taskbar. Click for an instant refresh. Hover for the full breakdown.
Your Claude plan has limits — but Claude doesn't show you how much you've used without opening a webpage and going looking. So you hit a wall mid-thought, then sit there guessing when it'll reset.
Claude Meter is the fuel gauge for your Claude plan. It sits quietly above your taskbar and shows how much you've got left, all the time, so you're never surprised.
- Shows everything your usage page shows — your current session, your weekly totals, and a breakdown per model (Sonnet, Opus, Claude Design), plus your daily runs and any extra-usage. It figures out your plan automatically.
- Lives in your tray as a live percentage — colour-coded green to orange to red, so you can glance at it like the clock.
- A little bar above your taskbar — shows how much is left and counts down to
the reset (
resets in 4h 48m), with a refresh button right there. - Hover for the full picture — every number, plus a mini-graph of the last two weeks, in a clean Claude-style design.
- Doesn't flicker out. If Claude's servers are busy, it keeps showing your last good numbers (with a small amber dot) instead of going blank.
- Checks gently. It refreshes on its own every few minutes and slows down when you're away, so it never wastes your allowance just by watching.
- One file, no install. Download, double-click, done. Turn on "run at startup" from the tray menu and forget about it.
- Grab
ClaudeMeter.exefrom the Releases page. - Drop it in
C:\Tools\(or anywhere). Double-click. - Right-click the tray icon → Run at startup so it's there next reboot.
Claude Meter reads ~/.claude/.credentials.json, which is written only by the Claude Code CLI on login. The Claude desktop app and claude.ai in the browser use different credential storage that the widget can't read yet (see roadmap).
If you've ever run claude login (or just claude) on this machine, you're already set. Otherwise:
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
claudeclaude opens a browser-based login. After you authenticate, it writes the credentials file and the widget picks it up automatically on next refresh. You don't have to actually USE Claude Code for coding — login once and forget it.
If you don't want Node.js, an installer is available at https://claude.com/claude-code that doesn't require it.
Browser-only users / desktop-app-only users: support for reading
sessionKeyfrom your browser cookies is on the v0.2 roadmap so you won't need to install the CLI just for this widget. For now, the CLI is the path.
Windows may show "Windows protected your PC" the first time you run ClaudeMeter.exe. That's because this binary isn't code-signed (code-signing certificates are $200–400/year, not currently in scope for a hobby project). The code is open-source — you can read every line and rebuild it yourself if you want.
To run it anyway:
- Click the small "More info" link on the SmartScreen dialog
- Click the "Run anyway" button that appears
Windows trusts it on subsequent launches.
There are several great usage tools out there now. Here's an honest comparison against the closest Windows peers:
| Claude Meter | jens-duttke | Zrnik | sr-kai's claudeusagewin | CodeZeno | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stack | Python + PySide6 | Python (single-EXE) | C# / WPF | C# / WPF + WPF-UI | Rust + Win32 GDI |
| Per-model breakdown (Sonnet/Opus/Design) | ✅ | ✅ (Sonnet/Opus + extra) | ❌ (unified only) | ❌ (unified only) | |
| Daily routine runs | ✅ | — | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Overage tracking | ✅ (when API exposes) | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Plan auto-detect | ✅ | — | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Light Claude-brand theme | ✅ | — | ❌ | ||
| Keeps last data on API errors | ✅ | — | ❌ | ❌ | |
| Time-aware alerts (fire when you outpace the clock) | (roadmap) | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Localization | (roadmap) | ✅ (12 languages) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Drop-in logo override | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| End-user .exe size | ~70 MB | Python single-EXE | ~5 MB (needs .NET 8) | ~6 MB (needs .NET 8) | ~3 MB |
| Multi-account | (roadmap) | — | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
The closest tool to this one is jens-duttke's usage-monitor-for-claude — same idea (Windows tray, Python, zero-config auth from ~/.claude/.credentials.json, per-model bars, adaptive polling with 429 backoff). It's excellent, and it does two things Meter doesn't yet: time-aware alerts (it warns you when you're burning faster than the clock, not just at fixed percentages) and 12-language localization. If either matters to you, reach for it.
A few more, depending on what you want:
- Smallest binary — CodeZeno's Rust version (~3 MB).
- Multi-account side-by-side — Zrnik's.
- On a Mac — JohnDimou/ClaudeWatch (menubar, last-24h behavioural insights), or tddworks/ClaudeBar if you want Claude and Codex/Gemini quotas in one menubar.
- Cost reporting, not live quota — ryoppippi/ccusage is the dominant CLI; it reads your local
~/.claude/projects/*.jsonllogs to tally spend, which is a different (and complementary) job to watching your live limits.
Claude Meter is for people who want the full claude.ai/settings/usage page replicated in their Windows taskbar — every quota row, plan auto-detected, last-good numbers kept when the API hiccups — with a quiet design that feels like Anthropic could have shipped it.
Claude Meter asks Claude's own usage service for the exact same numbers the
claude.ai usage page shows, and lays them out in your taskbar. It reads new
kinds of usage Anthropic might add later without needing an update.
It checks in only every few minutes (and less often when you're idle), so it's gentle on your allowance — watching the gauge doesn't cost you anything to speak of. The technical details live in CLAUDE.md if you want them.
The widget loads its logo from the first matching file in:
%APPDATA%\ClaudeMeter\claude_logo.svg(or.png)<exe dir>\assets\claude_logo.svg- The bundled SVG in
assets/ - Falls back to a programmatic Claude asterisk
Drop the official Anthropic mark into any of those paths and the widget picks it up on next launch.
Right-click the tray icon → Settings…:
- Refresh interval (default Auto — 7 / 20 min adaptive)
- Manual API-key override
- Toast notifications when crossing 75 % / 90 % / 95 %
- Auto-hide on real fullscreen apps (off by default — won't trigger on maximized windows)
- Position offsets from system tray / taskbar
Settings live in %APPDATA%\ClaudeMeter\settings.json.
Usage history (for the sparkline) lives in %APPDATA%\ClaudeMeter\history.json — 14 days, ~10-minute buckets.
git clone https://github.com/JackBhanded/claude-meter
cd claude-meter
build-exe.cmd :: produces dist\ClaudeMeter.exe
:: …or run from source:
run.cmdRequires Python 3.10+ on PATH. PySide6 is the only heavy dependency.
- Multi-account side-by-side (cycle through
.credentials.jsonprofiles) - Live-tile-style taskbar icon on Windows 11 (Win+W panel via MSIX)
- Linux build (KDE/GNOME tray support is already in Qt)
- Optional Excel/CSV export of the 14-day history
- Localization
PRs welcome.
Standing on the shoulders of giants. Big thank you to:
- Zrnik — proved the header-based approach works
- Sasha Kai (sr-kai) — popularized the tray-icon-as-percentage UX and the overage card
- CodeZeno — Rust prior art, taught me sensible polling intervals
- hamed-elfayome's Claude-Usage-Tracker — best documentation of the API field shapes
- f-is-h/Usage4Claude — first to expose per-model rows
|
Built by Jack Bhanded, Lead developer and architect at SawYouAtSinai. Devotee of innovative technologies and gadgets. Built this because he uses Claude Code daily and wanted to know how much quota was left without leaving the editor. |
Part of a small suite of Claude utilities alongside Claude Lifeboat (backup & restore for your Claude data), Claude Lifejacket (keep every Claude session aware of your projects), Claude Compass (keep every session attuned to how you like to work), and Claude Parachute (a safety net for the Bash changes Claude Code's /rewind can't see).
See CHANGELOG.md for the version-by-version list of changes.
MIT — do whatever you want, just keep the copyright notice.