WhatCable, a tiny menu bar app for inspecting USB-C cables

USB-C cables can be a mess. One cable charges at 5W, another does 100W and Thunderbolt 4, and they look identical in the drawer. WhatCable sits in your menu bar and reads the cable data your Mac already has access to. Plug in a cable and it tells you in plain English what it can actually do: charging wattage, data speed, display support, Thunderbolt, etc. Built in Swift/SwiftUI. Open source, free, no tracking. GitHub: https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable

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In plain words

WhatCable is a menu bar app for Mac that identifies USB-C cables and displays their capabilities in plain language. When a cable is connected, it shows charging wattage, data speed, display support, and Thunderbolt compatibility. The app reads cable data already available to macOS, requiring no additional hardware. Built in Swift and SwiftUI, WhatCable is open source, free, and includes no tracking. It solves the common problem of identical-looking USB-C cables with vastly different capabilities.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

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