The tray menu and Settings

Fregata is a menu-bar app. Every setting that’s not a Frigate configuration option lives in the tray. This page walks through it top-to-bottom.

Frigate controls

The first three items control the Python core that does the actual NVR work:

• Open Frigate Web UI (⌘O) — opens http://localhost:8971 in your default browser. This is the main UI for live view, recordings, events, and per-camera configuration.
• Start Frigate / Stop Frigate — starts or stops the Python core. Stopping ends recording and detection until you start it again.
• Restart Frigate — graceful stop + start. Use this after editing config.yml if you want a clean restart instead of waiting for the live config-reload to pick up the change.

If Fregata crashes, you’ll also see Open Crash Log here, pointing at the saved log from the crashed run.

Settings → Folders

Fregata keeps state in five directories under ~/Fregata/. The Folders sub-menu lets you open or relocate each one:

• Open Config Folder → ~/Fregata/config/ — config.yml, the SQLite database (frigate.db), the model cache, TLS material.
• Open Media Folder → ~/Fregata/media/ — recordings/, clips/, exports/. The big folder.
• Open Cache Folder → ~/Fregata/temp/ — RAM-disk-backed scratch space. Ephemeral; cleared on quit.
• Open App Settings Folder → ~/Library/Preferences/ — where the macOS-side settings (which folders, env vars) are stored as a .plist.
• Change Config Location… / Change Media Location… — pick a new folder via the standard macOS open panel. Fregata will move the existing data there on next launch.

The full layout is documented at Default paths.

Settings → Environment Variables…

Opens an editor for extra environment variables that get passed to the Python core. Use this for advanced tuning that doesn’t have a dedicated checkbox.

The most commonly set vars:

• FREGATA_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 — opt out of the telemetry sent with each licence heartbeat.
• FREGATA_PERF_LOGS=1 — emit verbose per-pipeline timing logs. Useful when debugging performance, noisy in normal operation.
• FREGATA_DETECTOR_KEEPALIVE_MS=<ms> — override the detector keepalive interval. 0 disables the keepalive; the default is 250 on the ANE.

The full list is at Environment variables.

Caution

A few env var names are reserved (FRIGATE_BUNDLE_RESOURCES, FRIGATE_CONFIG_DIR, FRIGATE_MEDIA_DIR, FRIGATE_CACHE_DIR, FRIGATE_RUN_DIR, PYTHONPATH, PYTHONHOME). The editor flags them in orange. You can override them anyway, but understand you’re stepping over the launcher’s path-management — wrong values will refuse to launch.

Settings → Launch at Login

Toggle on to register Fregata as a macOS Login Item via SMAppService (the modern replacement for LaunchAgents). On next login the app will start automatically and reach the menu bar in a second or two.

This is the only “background-y” affordance Fregata exposes — there’s no separate daemon, no headless mode, no LaunchAgent .plist you need to manage. If the menu-bar icon is gone, the app isn’t running.

Settings → Show Welcome…

Re-runs the first-launch welcome wizard (network permission, folder choices, activation). Mostly useful when a teammate is borrowing your Mac to look at Fregata, or when you want to walk through the setup again.

Status indicators

Below Settings, the tray shows live status:

• Fregata Status — Starting, Running, Stopping, Restarting, Relocating, Error. Idle states tend to be brief; if you’re stuck in Starting for more than a few seconds the Troubleshooting page is the right next step.
• Last verified: <N> days ago — when the licence last heartbeated successfully. Stays green until the 7-day offline grace starts ticking down.
• Update available: v<X.Y.Z> — appears when a newer release is out and your licence covers it. Clicking opens the update window with a download link. See Updates & renewals.
• Convert to paid — $10… — appears during the trial. One-click upgrade; same key, no reinstall.

About / Quit

• About Fregata… — version, build number, licence summary, acknowledgements.
• Quit Fregata (⌘Q) — stops Frigate cleanly, unmounts the RAM-disk cache, closes the menu-bar item.

Where the settings live on disk

Setting	Path	Notes
Folder choices, env vars	~/Library/Preferences/com.fregata.app.plist	UserDefaults; written by the Swift app.
Frigate config	~/Fregata/config/config.yml	The thing the web UI’s Settings panes edit.
Licence token	macOS Keychain (com.fregata.app service)	Rotated on each successful heartbeat.
Login item	macOS Service Management database	Toggled by the menu, not stored as a user-facing file.
Logs	~/Fregata/logs/current (live), ~/Fregata/logs/ (rotated)	Stored on the SSD, not on the RAM-disk cache.