The menu manager API lets plugins register menus and menu contexts that are saved in 3ds Max's menus customization file (found at UI\MaxMenus.mnu by default) , and can be configured by the user.

Menus are populated with action items published from action tables. Menu contexts are places where menus can appear in 3ds Max's UI. Menu contexts can be either for the main menu bar, or for places where a quad menu can be displayed. 3ds Max ships with a few pre-defined menu contexts, including the main menu bar, the viewport quad menu and the active shade quad menu. Only a single menu-bar context is allowed, but plugins may register new quad menu context as appropriate. For example, the UVW Unwrap plug-in in the 3ds Max SDK defines a quad menu context that is used when the user right-clicks in the UVW Unwrap window.

Menu creation is handled with the IMenu API defined in the iMenus.h header.