Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
PSA: Bartender Mac App Under New Ownership, But Lack of Transparency Raises Concerns
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I got to looking at my menu bar more closely, and decided I had a lot of junk there that I didn't really use enough to justify taking up the space. So, after cutting down the volume of menu bar items to 7 Apple things + 6 non-Apple things, I decided I didn't really need Bartender or an equivalent anymore either, and tossed it.
Really weird. Have you checked System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services to see if Bartender is still in there? Perhaps another option would be reinstalling some version of the app, enabling and disabling location services and anything else (screen recording, etc) before uninstalling again
Yeah, it's very strange. There's nothing relating to Bartender in any of the Privacy & security settings. I read you can use Homebrew to uninstall everything even if you didn't use it to install by doing:
Code:
brew rm --zap --force bartenderbut even doing that made no difference as it still shows as accessing my location on restart.
Think I might give your suggestion of a reinstall and disable Privacy & Security options before uninstalling again.
That's that sorted after a re-install and uninstall. What I did was:
- Installed Bartender 5
- Reset any Bartender entries in the privacy database but doing:
- Uninstalled Bartender with AppCleaner
- Uninstalled with Homebrew for good measure
- Restarted
I *think* the only step that was probably required was the privacy database reset as previously I'd uninstalled the app fully and done a case insensitive search of every file on my hard disk for files with Bartender in the name and removed any that I'd found and the problem had still persisted. That had led me to believe that there was a SQLite db or something similar that contained some configuration.
Anyway, just glad it's solved the issue and hope this helps anyone else that might see this sort of thing happen in the future.
- Installed Bartender 5
- Reset any Bartender entries in the privacy database but doing:
Code:
tccutil reset All com.surteesstudios.Bartender- Uninstalled with Homebrew for good measure
- Restarted
I *think* the only step that was probably required was the privacy database reset as previously I'd uninstalled the app fully and done a case insensitive search of every file on my hard disk for files with Bartender in the name and removed any that I'd found and the problem had still persisted. That had led me to believe that there was a SQLite db or something similar that contained some configuration.
Anyway, just glad it's solved the issue and hope this helps anyone else that might see this sort of thing happen in the future.
I've been using Bartender since version 3 and it's always worked well for me with no problems until version 5, where, due to a limitation of the operating system (allegedly), the triggers on icon change were removed. I have it on both my Mac Studio and I keep version 4 on my MBA with the screen notch as otherwise my menu is too wide to fit. With V4, I can have icons only appear when the appearance changes.
I'm giving Ice a try on my Studio.
What I'd really like, is for one of these apps to be able to completely re-colour the entire menu bar. We used to be able to set it to white in OS X but that was removed a while ago. The way I do it now is to manually paint a white bar along the top of my wallpaper but that's a bit of a fiddle.
Bartender and Ice both seem to be able to overlay a tint but it's not very effective.
I'm giving Ice a try on my Studio.
What I'd really like, is for one of these apps to be able to completely re-colour the entire menu bar. We used to be able to set it to white in OS X but that was removed a while ago. The way I do it now is to manually paint a white bar along the top of my wallpaper but that's a bit of a fiddle.
Bartender and Ice both seem to be able to overlay a tint but it's not very effective.
I have looked at HiddenBar, it doesn't quite do the job for me on my main computer but I do use it on an old spare MacBook I have as backup. Ice is interesting and looks like it would be a viable replacement for Bartender for me but this is the problem in a way. It's so good that I'm wondering how long it will be before Jordan Baird sells his currently donationware app to some big developer just as Ben Surtees did. It's kinda the way of things, honest small time private developers come up with a good app, improve on it until it becomes the benchmark then sell it on to a corporate developer and suddenly it's subscription only and privacy issues begin to arise. We saw the same with MalwareBytes and others and I can only imagine we will continue to see more of the same.
Anyhow, I think I too will remove Bartender (a pity I have a lifetime licence) and give Ice a try. It's not so much the money involved but the underhand degrading of our "trusted" apps that I resent.
Last edited:
Update on the above. Disabled Bartender, downloaded and installed Ice from GitHub. Very easy to setup, fulfils all my requirements for M1 14" MBP and comes with this little notification below:
I guess thats about as good as it gets?
I guess thats about as good as it gets?
Ice and the rest—but Tahoe is a BETA 1, so you'll have to wait a bit for compatibility. They're working on it.
So that means Bartender 6 will support it. I'll continue to watch for beta for ver. 6. And Not put Tahoe on my main Mac Mini Pro.
Bartender, Ice, etc may not be necessary because aside from the secondary menu bar (or whatever Bartender calls it, I don’t remember) Tahoe includes some of the menu extras (what the right side thingies are called, in case anyone didn’t know) management features that have been in those useful utilities.
Well, I use a lot of apps that add their own menu bar icon, and some I use regularly and prefer to have things in their own space, not the random however it’s loaded order.
I also prefer using (and seeing) iStat menus options in their preferred spot..
From what I’ve seen in some limited testing in macOS 26, there’s still no options or sorting of these..
I also prefer using (and seeing) iStat menus options in their preferred spot..
From what I’ve seen in some limited testing in macOS 26, there’s still no options or sorting of these..
It’s developer beta 1, not even a public beta yet. That never has all the new features in it. It’ll come. We still have at least 3 months before release.
Right, I’m just wondering why you think it won’t be necessary.. Apple hasn’t shown anywhere that they’re going to be Sherlock’ing any features Bartender or Ice does.
- Allow in the Menu Bar – In macOS Tahoe's System Settings, you can now control which third-party apps are allowed to display menu bar items. Sherlocks Bartender and Ice.
Tahoe doesn’t any of the useful things I use ice for
Nor do spotlight’s new features come anywhere near Alfred, incidentally
I think what Tahoe does is only half the battle. With Bartender or Ice, you can have a menu item only appear when you mouse hover over the menu bar. Tahoe just does away with the menu item entirely.
I guess I’m wondering if it truly does copy Bartender’s feature set. As an example, I use iStat menus, and some of the icons I have showing all the time, and then a few other options I have for sensors and things are set to show on the alternate menu bar. I wonder if the new macOS settings will allow for one third-party app to have something shown in one spot and also in another?
Correct. Plus the hover bar, trigger conditions that decide when to show or hide a menu item, when to use the hover bar and when not to, and a host of other features that Bartender has.
No it does not truly doesn’t copy bartender or ice’s feature set
And it does not do the thing you are looking for
It seems that whoever wrote the original macrumors article may never have used bartender, ice or macOS 26
(I don’t mean this to be disparaging, but rather as a point of information)
Last edited:
Since this is the first beta, it's entirely possible that Apple will introduce the "feature" and then flesh out the changes as time goes by. A lot of Apple's additions to macOS (and iOS, for that matter) are introduced as basic "features" and then the functionality is expanded.
As it appears now, these additions to macOS will not replace Bartender, Ice, Alfred, etc, but way well replace them over the next couple of years. Remember the heat Jobs and Apple took with the initial iOS didn't do copy/paste?
