The problem I have is too many things in my menubar. I like having all the info at a glance, but when I go mobile, only a few items fit before it runs out of space.
A bit hard to believe especially given the amount of time between the community raising the alarm and any coherent response from the new owners.
Still no individual’s names or contact info on the website.
I am a paying user who uninstalled the app from all my Macs and replaced with ice.
Ice lacks my favorite bartender feature (show the extended app bar when mouse hovering over the camera island) but I still prefer it to a shady alternative.
The same company Applause recently bought out Strongbox [0], which has been discussed a few times on HN a few times[1]. They have a pretty reliable history of destroy applications / extracting maximum value.
I love the idea of putting things in the menu bar, but it seems like the apps still have to be taking up space in the dock. I can't have WhatsApp, Signal, FB Messenger, Slack, Discord, etc. tucked away running in the background and popping up in my menu bar when there's something to respond to. I have to have them crowding my dock with half a dozen icons.
Is there a way to hide the items from the dock and just have them in the menu bar?
It’s super hard to make menubar show just the stuff I care about.
Tons of apps like Bartender or Ice can hide icons, but adding the ones I actually want? That’s what Badgeify do.
Plus, it can stay quiet and only show icons when there’s a message, so it’s not in your face all the time.
This seems like a polished, limited in scope version of what xbar[1] and SwiftBar[2] does. Personally, I love using the menu bar as the place for at-a-glance information. I currently use SwiftBar to provide status indicators for my audio devices with some hacky scripts I wrote to talk to my mixer.
glad you mentioned xbar, and your comment is ranked high (so maybe someone can help me out). I've been a long-time user of xbar, but recently it stopped showing up in the menubar on macOS 15.2. Even a simple script with just print doesn't display anything. Anyone else running into this?
btw. I'm starting to think xbar might be abandoned - it hasn’t seen updates in a while.
I agree that xbar's seemingly not getting as much love as it once was. I was also having some weird CPU resource issues with it, which all but went away with SwiftBar, so I'd definitely recommend swapping it out. The script backend is compatible with xbar/BitBar scripts, so migration should be pretty pain-free. I'm currently running SwiftBar on 15.4 with no issues (minus some interesting nuance with how it handles to menu bar items which I think is more of a macOS menu bar thing than a SwiftBar thing, as I had the same issues with xbar).
Every background service wants some screen estate in the menu bar, but the app that I need is always hidden behind the notch of my MacBook. Why can’t I hide the ones I don’t frequently need?
You can Command-Drag some of them off the menubar. It doesn't work in every case, but it might help. Plus there are tools like Ice and Bartender that help you hide most or all of them.
I don't think a project's core security concerns should be left up to my charity.
I get why they need the permission to implement their cutesy drag and drop interface.
But I'd like to hear why these apps can't continue to hide menu icons after you've revoked the permission. Ice and Bartender at least require you to grant it at all times last I looked a few months ago.
As far as I understand it works by grabbing screenshots of your menu bar and redrawing overtop of it. It can't do that if it doesn't have the permission to do screengrabs.
Unless we're just waiting on someone to figure out another genius workaround, that's the case, yes. Macs are not Linux, for better and for worse.
To be honest it seems crazy at this point an overflow for menu bar items isn't built into macOS, especially now that all their laptops have this notch that can hide menu bar items if you have too many. Plus it competes with space with the dropdown menu items on the left since if an app has too many they'll wrap to the other side of the notch.
Maybe I can redeem myself by clarifying that the real frustration here is with bad macOS UX, not people trying to hack around it. I barked up the wrong tree.
Calling it out only because I don’t see it mentioned - until last year, Bartender was one of the popular go-to tools to manage menu bar items, but it fell from favor after quietly changing owners, changing certs, general shadiness https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/psa-bartender-mac-app-u...
A specific and relevant reminder why open source is so important for system utilities.
Many apps offer hiding their menubar icon as an option. I'm always looking for that option and I managed to get a super clean menubar[1] — without sacrificing features or apps I need. The “11m” icon is from a little gem called Aware[2].
You should know at some point in the past year or so it was silently sold to a shady company which makes me VERY wary for something I gave screen recording permissions to. I'd never install Bartender on my machine again.
I am not! Bought the program about a month ago and it’s really buggy on MacOS 15. You can clearly tell that it was developed for some previous MacOS version and has been since then forgotten.
Perhaps it’s your phrasing? To use a particularly obnoxious phrasing from Wired Magazine as demonstration of how the tone of feedback can influence how it’s perceived:
Tired: “maybe you should rename X to Y”; lacks an explanation of why, ‘maybe’ is often sneering / condescending in this usage, assumes that proposed solution is correct
Wired: “fyi there’s a copy error on the site: X doesn’t match Z, should it be Y?”; explains the problem, asks if theorized solution is correct, makes proposing a solution optional
The chosen example tone is not intended as a reflection or judgment of you in any regard, but the necessity of this disclaimer supports my point.
Its interesting how we can both infer the opposite from our statements. Your start of "there’s a copy error on the site" would seem to me to be more condescending as it assumes that it is a mistake, whereas I merely suggest that it is.
I don't really mind the downvotes, just pointing out how stupid they are. I just think of them as cowardly anonymous idiots and go about my (otherwise awesome) day.
I use Badgeify, nice feature set, and I appreciate this works with Ice[1], there's an OSS alternative[2] but not work well with Ice somehow.
[1] https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice
[2] https://github.com/xiaogdgenuine/Doll
Ice never worked for me. https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden is the only thing I could make on my Mac work for some reason. I think https://github.com/Mortennn/Dozer didn't work either for me (well, it used to then it stopped after a Mac update or so).
Anyway, after 15.4 update yesterday a lot of things are misbehaving for me including miraculous battery drains.
I have just started to use hidden, and although it isn't pretty by any means, it works fine (MBP M3 Pro 15.4)
The problem I have is too many things in my menubar. I like having all the info at a glance, but when I go mobile, only a few items fit before it runs out of space.
Not sure what a good solution there is.
There’s an open source menu bar manager called Ice. Works well. https://icemenubar.app/
Tried reducing the space between the icons?
https://community.folivora.ai/t/reduce-menu-bar-icon-spacing...
Relevant? https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-disappear...
Bartender was sold off and became dubious in nature.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606
Ice (mentioned several times on this page) is the open source replacement.
From ten months ago: https://www.macbartender.com/b5blog/Lets-Try-This-Again/
A bit hard to believe especially given the amount of time between the community raising the alarm and any coherent response from the new owners.
Still no individual’s names or contact info on the website.
I am a paying user who uninstalled the app from all my Macs and replaced with ice.
Ice lacks my favorite bartender feature (show the extended app bar when mouse hovering over the camera island) but I still prefer it to a shady alternative.
The same company Applause recently bought out Strongbox [0], which has been discussed a few times on HN a few times[1]. They have a pretty reliable history of destroy applications / extracting maximum value.
[0] https://strongboxsafe.com
[1] https://kagi.com/search?q=strongbox+site%3Anews.ycombinator....
It really is too bad... once I switched to Ice, I have no desire to switch back... and I'm saying that as a paying customer of Bartender.
I love the idea of putting things in the menu bar, but it seems like the apps still have to be taking up space in the dock. I can't have WhatsApp, Signal, FB Messenger, Slack, Discord, etc. tucked away running in the background and popping up in my menu bar when there's something to respond to. I have to have them crowding my dock with half a dozen icons.
Is there a way to hide the items from the dock and just have them in the menu bar?
When I did Mac programming a decade ago, there was an app metadata flag, inside the bundle, to hide the icon in the Dock.
Now that apps are digitally signed, it might require a few more hoops to manipulate the app. (Your Mac protects you from running tampered apps.)
It’s super hard to make menubar show just the stuff I care about. Tons of apps like Bartender or Ice can hide icons, but adding the ones I actually want? That’s what Badgeify do.
Plus, it can stay quiet and only show icons when there’s a message, so it’s not in your face all the time.
Great app! I'd love to support it through https://setapp.com/
This seems like a polished, limited in scope version of what xbar[1] and SwiftBar[2] does. Personally, I love using the menu bar as the place for at-a-glance information. I currently use SwiftBar to provide status indicators for my audio devices with some hacky scripts I wrote to talk to my mixer.
[1] https://xbarapp.com/
[2] https://swiftbar.app/
glad you mentioned xbar, and your comment is ranked high (so maybe someone can help me out). I've been a long-time user of xbar, but recently it stopped showing up in the menubar on macOS 15.2. Even a simple script with just print doesn't display anything. Anyone else running into this?
btw. I'm starting to think xbar might be abandoned - it hasn’t seen updates in a while.
I agree that xbar's seemingly not getting as much love as it once was. I was also having some weird CPU resource issues with it, which all but went away with SwiftBar, so I'd definitely recommend swapping it out. The script backend is compatible with xbar/BitBar scripts, so migration should be pretty pain-free. I'm currently running SwiftBar on 15.4 with no issues (minus some interesting nuance with how it handles to menu bar items which I think is more of a macOS menu bar thing than a SwiftBar thing, as I had the same issues with xbar).
I actually wonder how I can get them out?
Every background service wants some screen estate in the menu bar, but the app that I need is always hidden behind the notch of my MacBook. Why can’t I hide the ones I don’t frequently need?
I use Hidden Bar to hide icons I don't want to see (some of my icons are company required software that I can't quit)
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hidden-bar/id1452453066?mt=12
I've been using hidden bar for over a year and it's working beautifully.
Also available via Homebrew
You can Command-Drag some of them off the menubar. It doesn't work in every case, but it might help. Plus there are tools like Ice and Bartender that help you hide most or all of them.
FOSS solution that's actually really good: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice
You have to grant global Screen Recording permissions to use these menubar managing apps.
It's insane to grant that just to move some icons around.
If you see some other way to resolve this, I'm sure Ice welcomes contributions.
I don't think a project's core security concerns should be left up to my charity.
I get why they need the permission to implement their cutesy drag and drop interface.
But I'd like to hear why these apps can't continue to hide menu icons after you've revoked the permission. Ice and Bartender at least require you to grant it at all times last I looked a few months ago.
As far as I understand it works by grabbing screenshots of your menu bar and redrawing overtop of it. It can't do that if it doesn't have the permission to do screengrabs.
Interesting. do all these apps work the same way? Apple does not provide any API's to modify the menubar?
Unless we're just waiting on someone to figure out another genius workaround, that's the case, yes. Macs are not Linux, for better and for worse.
To be honest it seems crazy at this point an overflow for menu bar items isn't built into macOS, especially now that all their laptops have this notch that can hide menu bar items if you have too many. Plus it competes with space with the dropdown menu items on the left since if an app has too many they'll wrap to the other side of the notch.
I deserve the downvotes for my first line, heh.
Maybe I can redeem myself by clarifying that the real frustration here is with bad macOS UX, not people trying to hack around it. I barked up the wrong tree.
Theoretically it would work without this permission but it wouldn't be convenient: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice/discussions/362
Lots of good recommendations in replies.
Calling it out only because I don’t see it mentioned - until last year, Bartender was one of the popular go-to tools to manage menu bar items, but it fell from favor after quietly changing owners, changing certs, general shadiness https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/psa-bartender-mac-app-u...
A specific and relevant reminder why open source is so important for system utilities.
There are apps that help you hide unused menu bar apps - this one works well: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hidden-bar/id1452453066?mt=12
Many apps offer hiding their menubar icon as an option. I'm always looking for that option and I managed to get a super clean menubar[1] — without sacrificing features or apps I need. The “11m” icon is from a little gem called Aware[2].
[1] https://i.imgur.com/0AFL1rU.png [2] https://awaremac.com/
There’s a great app called Bartender that does this. I’ve been using it for over 10 years. Very stable.
You should know at some point in the past year or so it was silently sold to a shady company which makes me VERY wary for something I gave screen recording permissions to. I'd never install Bartender on my machine again.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll check into this for sure
There are several 3rd party utilities (free and paid) that allow status bar icons to be hidden
Interestingly, the site in question contains a relevant article:
https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-disappear...
im a big fan of https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/
I am not! Bought the program about a month ago and it’s really buggy on MacOS 15. You can clearly tell that it was developed for some previous MacOS version and has been since then forgotten.
[dead]
Since other people are sharing their fav menu bar manager, shoutout to bartender app: https://www.macbartender.com
Some people are worried about the new ownership: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606
Yeah. I've moved all my stuff to Ice, and that's what I recommend to friends now.
Another good name would have been "Barify".
I use a combo of xbar [1] and Menubarx [2]. I used to have several widgets just for system stats but eventually moved to mac-stats [3] for that.
[1] https://github.com/matryer/xbar
[2] https://menubarx.app/
[3] https://github.com/exelban/stats
[flagged]
[flagged]
Reminds me of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
It’s super hard to make menubar show just the stuff I care about.
Tons of apps like Bartender or Ice can hide icons, but adding the ones I actually want? That’s what Badgeify do.
Plus, it can stay quiet and only show icons when there’s a message, so it’s not in your face all the time.
Maybe you should rename your "lifetime duo" to "lifetime trio"?
[flagged]
Perhaps it’s your phrasing? To use a particularly obnoxious phrasing from Wired Magazine as demonstration of how the tone of feedback can influence how it’s perceived:
Tired: “maybe you should rename X to Y”; lacks an explanation of why, ‘maybe’ is often sneering / condescending in this usage, assumes that proposed solution is correct
Wired: “fyi there’s a copy error on the site: X doesn’t match Z, should it be Y?”; explains the problem, asks if theorized solution is correct, makes proposing a solution optional
The chosen example tone is not intended as a reflection or judgment of you in any regard, but the necessity of this disclaimer supports my point.
Its interesting how we can both infer the opposite from our statements. Your start of "there’s a copy error on the site" would seem to me to be more condescending as it assumes that it is a mistake, whereas I merely suggest that it is.
I don't really mind the downvotes, just pointing out how stupid they are. I just think of them as cowardly anonymous idiots and go about my (otherwise awesome) day.