You remember the MacBook Touch Bar. That thin, glowing strip of glass that Apple insisted was the future of computing before they eventually ripped it out and gave us real keys again. It was mostly for scrubbing through videos or picking emojis. But for a brief, glorious moment in the late 2010s, it became a tiny, pixelated nursery for a digital creature. Specifically, the Tamagotchi touch bar pet—properly known as TouchBar Pet—captured a specific kind of tech nostalgia that felt way more human than anything Apple actually intended for that hardware.
It was useless. It was distracting. Honestly, it was perfect.
We’re talking about a piece of software that took a $2,000 professional machine and turned it into a plastic toy from 1996. While developers were trying to figure out how to put Photoshop shortcuts on the bar, a developer named Grace Huang looked at that narrow horizontal space and saw a habitat. It wasn't an official Bandai release, let's be clear about that. But it felt more "Tamagotchi" than the official apps because it lived in the periphery of your actual work life, just like the original keychain lived in the periphery of your middle school classes.
Why the Tamagotchi Touch Bar Pet Actually Worked
Most people hated the Touch Bar because it took away the physical Escape key. That’s a fair gripe. But the Tamagotchi touch bar pet solved the "empty space" problem. When you weren't typing, the bar was just a black void. Adding a pet made the hardware feel alive.
The mechanics were brutally simple. You had a small animal—originally a cat, though the app evolved to include dogs and other creatures—that wandered back and forth across the glass. You had to feed it. You had to clean up its poop. If you ignored it while you were grinding through a spreadsheet or editing a video, it died.
That’s the core of the Tamagotchi experience, isn't it?
The stakes are low, yet the guilt is remarkably high. I remember sitting in meetings, seeing my pet’s hunger meter drop, and feeling a genuine surge of anxiety. It was a digital "memento mori" sitting right above my numbers row. The app, often referred to as TouchBar Pet, used the 2170 x 60 pixel resolution of the bar to create a side-scrolling environment. It didn't need a 4K display. It just needed enough space for a sprite to walk.
The Technical Oddity of the Bar
Writing software for the Touch Bar was notoriously annoying for developers. Apple’s guidelines were strict. They didn't want the bar to be a "second display." They wanted it to be an extension of the keyboard. They specifically discouraged "distressing" animations.
Grace Huang’s creation basically ignored all of that.
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By placing a pet there, the app utilized the NSTouchBar API in a way that felt rebellious. It turned a corporate tool into a digital terrarium. You’d tap the screen to drop food (represented by small pixelated icons) and the pet would scurry over. It was tactile in a way that clicking a mouse isn't. You were literally reaching out and touching the "ground" of its world.
The Rise of the Virtual Desk Pet Movement
The Tamagotchi touch bar pet wasn't an isolated incident. It was part of a larger, weirdly persistent trend of "Desktop Pets" that dates back to the 90s. Remember BonziBuddy? (Hopefully not, he was spyware). Or the Neko cat that chased your cursor?
This was the modern evolution.
What made the Touch Bar version different was the physical separation. Most desktop pets get covered by your browser windows. You forget they exist until you minimize everything. But the Touch Bar is always visible. It’s "always on." This created a constant visual feedback loop.
- Proximity: The pet is inches from your fingers.
- Visibility: It’s never obscured by Slack or Chrome.
- Interaction: Tapping the bar feels more personal than a right-click.
There were other contenders, too. You had "Pock," which put your entire macOS Dock into the Touch Bar, and "Touch Bar Lemmings," which was exactly what it sounds like. Little green-haired guys walking to their doom across your keyboard. But the pet felt different because it required maintenance. It turned your laptop into a living thing.
Is It Still Possible to Get a Tamagotchi on Your MacBook?
Here is the cold, hard truth: Apple killed the Touch Bar. The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros from 2021 onwards moved back to physical function keys. The 13-inch MacBook Pro, the last holdout, finally bit the dust in late 2023.
If you have a newer Mac, you can't run the Tamagotchi touch bar pet in its native habitat because the habitat doesn't exist anymore.
However, if you're rocking an Intel-based Mac or one of the early M1/M2 13-inch Pros, you can still find the project on GitHub. It’s usually listed under TouchBar Pet. It’s open-source, lightweight, and still runs on macOS Sonoma, though your mileage may vary as Apple continues to move away from the Intel-era codebases.
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What If You Don't Have a Touch Bar?
For those who have moved on to the "Magic Keyboard" life, the spirit of the pet hasn't died. It just moved.
- Pixel Pals: This is the spiritual successor. It lives in the "Dynamic Island" on the newer iPhones. It’s basically the same concept—a tiny cat or dog that hangs out in that pill-shaped cutout at the top of your screen.
- Browser Extensions: There are dozens of Chrome extensions that inject a "pet" into your browser window, though they lack the physical charm of the glass strip.
- The "Holographic" Era: We're seeing a rise in dedicated hardware again, like the "UniPet" or various Kickstarter projects that aim to be a standalone, high-res Tamagotchi.
Why We Crave Digital Companionship at Work
There’s a psychological layer here. Modern work is sterile. We spend eight hours a day staring at flat UI designs, sans-serif fonts, and gray backgrounds. The Tamagotchi touch bar pet was a splash of chaotic, colorful life in an otherwise optimized environment.
It gave us a reason to look down.
In a world where every app is trying to maximize our "productivity" and "output," there was something profoundly radical about an app that did the opposite. It cost you time. It lowered your efficiency. It made you stop typing an email so you could give a pixelated dog a treat.
That’s why people loved it. It was a small act of digital sabotage.
Managing Your Expectations and Your Pet
If you manage to get the app running today, don't expect a deep RPG experience. It’s primitive. The pet’s AI is basically a "random walk" script. It has a few states: hungry, bored, dirty, or sleeping.
But there’s a nuance to it.
The "Health" of your pet is tied to how often you interact with it. If you leave your laptop closed for three days, you’re probably going to open it to a digital tombstone. This actually forced some users (myself included) to develop a weird ritual of checking the pet before closing the lid for the night. It became a "shut down" ceremony for the workday.
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The Technical Legacy of the TouchBar Pet
From a coding perspective, the Tamagotchi touch bar pet showed how underutilized the Touch Bar really was. Apple wanted it to be a tool for pros. The users wanted it to be a toy.
When developers like Grace Huang released these apps, they often faced a weird hurdle: the Touch Bar isn't technically a "screen" in the way the main display is. It’s handled by a separate chip (the T1 or T2 in Intel Macs). This meant the pet had to be extremely light on resources. It couldn't hog the CPU, or your laptop would fans-spin just to keep a cat alive.
The fact that it worked as smoothly as it did is a testament to the efficiency of sprite-based animation.
Common Troubleshooting for Touch Bar Pets
If you’re trying to run this in 2026, you’re going to hit some snags.
- Permissions: You’ll likely need to go into System Settings > Privacy & Security and "Open Anyway" because the app isn't signed by a "known developer" in the eyes of the latest macOS.
- Resolution: Sometimes the pet gets "stuck" on one side of the bar if you use external monitors. Unplugging the monitor usually resets the pet’s boundaries.
- Battery: While the app is light, keeping the Touch Bar active and bright will drain your battery slightly faster than a static bar would.
Where to Go From Here
The era of the Tamagotchi touch bar pet is ending because the hardware is literally disappearing. But the desire for it isn't. If you’re looking to scratch that itch, your best bet is looking at the Dynamic Island on your iPhone or exploring the "Desktop Meadow" style of apps on Steam.
But for those of us who still have that glowing strip of glass above our keys, it remains the best use of that hardware. It turned a failed Apple experiment into a tiny, heart-tugging success.
If you still have a Touch Bar Mac, go find the DMG file on GitHub. Download it. Feed the cat. It’s a reminder that even in our high-powered, professional machines, there should always be a little room for something pointless and cute.
Check your "Security & Privacy" settings immediately after downloading—modern macOS is much more aggressive about blocking these older, unsigned apps than it was five years ago. Once you've white-listed the app, keep your "Sleep" settings in mind. If your Mac goes into a deep hibernate, your pet's internal clock might get wonky. It's a small price to pay for a desk companion that doesn't shed.