Six Bartender Alternatives to Manage Your Mac's Menu Bar

[brerlappin]

Thanks

This adjusts the spacing of the icons, which is certainly helpful (I used to shrink the spacing with Bartender) - but what I'm really after, I'm realizing now, is how to add padding as well. This way, I can group the menubar icons and have those groups separated by some extra blank space

‎Spaced

‎The app provides menu bar separators to group menu bar items for a more streamlined appearance. It is particularly beneficial on larger screens where menu bar space is ample, as opposed to smaller laptop screens with limited space.

apps.apple.com

 

[ipaqrat]

No amount of damage control should be acceptable to users if an app like this is installing trackers. This should kill Bartender immediately and forever.

Also, props to MacRumors for alerting users and suggesting alternatives.

Agreed, though we shouldn't be naive about trackers, miners, exfiltration, and command & control.

Individual, as well as nation-state [implemented, sponsored, encouraged], skullduggery is a 100% real not good thing. Several of the Menu Bar Management extensions recommended in the article are authored or sold by vendors associated with... "jurisdictions of less-than-sterling reputation."

Blind faith is one choice. Or one can test things, even if they ain't been called out for shenanigans. For example: Before committing to any app or update in prod, test in your own mad-science lab. Due diligence is easy once you get set up in advance:

1. Set up Virtual Machines to "sandbox" a MacOS, so you don't have to test on your real live Mac OS.
   1. Make sure the VM matches your prod machine before starting a test.
      1. vmWare Fusion is now free
      2. VMs don't require a ton of resources, barely enough to run.
   2. It's OK to let the sandboxed Mac OS VM reach the internet. That's more or less the entire point.
   3. Don't let the VM access the host Mac's SSD or regular removable media.
   4. Don't use your normal Apple ID on the VMs
      1. Use a second Apple Account to enable App Store, iCloud, wallet, music, tv, etc.
      2. Don't set your normal valid credit card in the second Apple Account, use a limited form of card, like the ones limited for kids or for shopping.
   5. Don't use your normal web site accounts; use "Legit decoys" on the Sandboxed VM, for example:
      1. Use "burner" email and social media accounts just for the test VMs. And if you test on more than one VM at a time, use a different set of burner accounts for each.
      2. It's tricky to test online banking. Use a "Kids" account, or a second real bank account, where you keep little/no money.
         • Do NOT attempt to use fake credentials with a bank or credit union, if that's even possible - that's Federal time.
      3. Keep an empty coin wallet with no ties to any real legit wallets. These draw in hacks like crazy.
2. Make a punch list of activities to perform, as if it was your normal machine.
3. Check the VM's netflows for several restarts and over hours of idle time (don't let the host Mac sleep.).
   1. Little Snitch has a demo mode, but it's worth every penny to license.
4. Per #2, make a list of "Indicators of Compromise" (IOC), such as changes to the VM other than just the app being tested, increase in spam to the decoy mail account, transaction attempts on the decoy credit card or bank account, or coin waller account, etc., etc.
   1. Checking Mac OS security logs for suspicious activity is super tedious. You'd pretty much need some analytics tools.
5. Don't reuse test VM images; revert to baseline, delete the images, or archive them for later reference.

There are more degrees of instrumentation, like if you're running honey traps or monitoring humint/osint for attack vectors. But this is a chunk of how IT security pros do it.

There. All caught up.

 

[MattPackwood]

This is all very sad, I liked Bartender but based on what I see here and elsewhere it is time to move on. I think that the overriding lesson is if you are going to sell your product you have to tell people BEFORE people get "Publisher has been updated" notifications. Trust once "broken" is tough to rebuild.

 

[wanha]

TBH HiddenBar does the trick for me. Not sure what else it needs to do) I wouldn't hold thy breath — where are the oh so convenient tag color bars? I still miss them and have installed xtra finder to bring them back. Unfortunately xtra developer is so behind that he drops the current version a few months before the new software comes out...

My issue with HB is that it only hides menu bar apps, but it does not give me a way to access those that are covered by the notch, which is probably my single biggest pain point

 

[alexandr]

My issue with HB is that it only hides menu bar apps, but it does not give me a way to access those that are covered by the notch, which is probably my single biggest pain point

Sure it does — there's a caret that unhides everything that's hidden.

 

[Jakimo]

‎Spaced

‎The app provides menu bar separators to group menu bar items for a more streamlined appearance. It is particularly beneficial on larger screens where menu bar space is ample, as opposed to smaller laptop screens with limited space.

apps.apple.com

this is pretty helpful, thank you

 

[icanhazmac]

This was not an oversight, but a sneaky transaction that was meant to be kept from the public.

Most likely true. Thankfully I now know a bit about the dev that bought it and also I'm not really inclined to trust the original dev either.

 

[Tagbert]

Sure it does — there's a caret that unhides everything that's hidden.

Does it swap one set for another or does it just hide and then show one set of icons. What many of us used Bartender for was to have two sets of icons and switch between them. In part to reduce the space occupied by icons.

 

[alexandr]

Does it swap one set for another or does it just hide and then show one set of icons. What many of us used Bartender for was to have two sets of icons and switch between them. In part to reduce the space occupied by icons.

The latter. At least I didn't find any settings for the second option. But considering I mostly use a 30" monitor — it's not an issue for me.

 

[Ledgem]

Why do so many of these apps require "Allow Screen Recording"? Ice's prompt says it doesn't actually record the screen but I'm still very uneasy with that.

I don't see a macOS" screen recording notice, which is a bit reassuring, but what if it just takes quick screenshots?

You asked this twice and nobody responded, so I'll give it a go. I don't know the technical reason, but back when Bartender was going from version 4 to 5 (that is, when it was still a trusted program) the author made some statement about how Apple had changed something internally such that something the program did would trigger the operating system to give the screen recording warning. There was reassurance at the time that no recording was actually going on, and that it was just something associated with the new operating system.

I'm sorry I don't have anything more specific than that. All I can say is that it stands to reason that other, similar programs have encountered a similar issue.

Edit:I chose Ice as my Bartender replacement, based on what others wrote here. I didn't try any others. It feels a bit bare-bones compared with Bartender but for my uses - simply hiding a bunch of cluttered menu bar items - it works beautifully. It was jarring at first, because I was used to doing most of my setup through Bartender's options menu, but here you just drag and drop the icons between one of three sections and that's it. It even has the three ellipses as a logo you can choose, so it looks literally the same as when I was using Bartender. Bartender probably had the ability to do this, but there's also a way to have icons hidden even when you expand the menu bar items. I never used that feature before (if Bartender even had it) but might use it here.

I have a cleaner app that I used to remove all 295 files associated with Bartender (one of which was the Bartender 3 application, which I evidently still had in my Applications folder). I admit that I paused before hitting the button to wipe it, feeling slightly sentimental. You find some apps that you figure are just so good and useful that you'll be using them for decades to come, and Bartender was one of those. I'm a bit surprised and sad to get off that train. And who knows - with Apple set to release a stand-alone password app, perhaps 1Password will soon be joining Bartender. (I'm still using version 7 - the last version you could do a one-time purchase for, and which was a native Mac app instead of something bundled through Electron. I've been resisting having to start a subscription through version 8. 1Password is another program I was sure would be with me until the end of my computing days, but alas...)

 

[ipaqrat]

ipedro said:
Why do so many of these apps require "Allow Screen Recording"? Ice's prompt says it doesn't actually record the screen but I'm still very uneasy with that.

I don't see a macOS" screen recording notice, which is a bit reassuring, but what if it just takes quick screenshots?

You asked this twice and nobody responded, so I'll give it a go. I don't know the technical reason, but back when Bartender was going from version 4 to 5 (that is, when it was still a trusted program) the author made some statement about how Apple had changed something internally such that something the program did would trigger the operating system to give the screen recording warning...

I'll speculate 🤔. Hypothetically, from a programming perspective, the issue of graphical arrangements - icon, color, spacing, hide, show, start end... must accommodate a vast array of variables from the users display configuration. Rather than import, parse, recreate and inject new properties into Apple's display subsystem catalogs (which might be hidden by permissions and locked by System Integrity Protection (SIP) ), a program might simply SNAPSHOT the portion of the screen the altered icon bar is about to occupy, rendering icons and menus on that backdrop.

Then, the hypothetical app might have to trap certain display system interrupts, such as connecting a display, changing resolution, changing colors, wallpaper, transparency, accessibility features, etc, etc., whereupon it might have to screencap again, and again, and again... Hypothetically, the more interrupts it traps for re-rendering, the more seamless the app's integration might appear.

And owing to hypothetical shenanigans, such as malicious screen caps, and Microsoft's new RECALL feature... Mac OS might have added that screen cap warning for any hypothetical attempt to sample video frame buffers without permissions set very precisely to Mac OS' specification.

Disclaimer: Commenter is not a programmer and generally avoids coding like the plague. Commentary was not approved by the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons. No hardware, software or organic neurons were harmed, not even a little bit, in the creation of this comment. Excess use of "Hypothetical" and other conditionally uncertain verbiage might have been granted under a potential license that might possibly specify the potential for inexperienced indecisive blather.

 

[Jakimo]

Ice with Spacer has been phenomenal, and all free

Good this all happened, I think my memory footprint has gone down as well! =)

Who knows, maybe Monday's iOS 18 beta will incorporate these things

 

[HouseofG]

Well the new owners definitely messed up big time. The fact they still haven’t put out a statement to do damage control is beyond crazy.

It'll all be irrelevant when Bartender goes to subscription model in 3, 2, 1...

 

[doublep]

Thanks to all these inputs, I've decided to switch from Bartender to iBar. For me, I found that iBar is the most convenient to display all the menu bar items which don't fit onto the overall menu bar (I use a 14" MacBook Pro).

 

[HouseofG]

Thanks to all these inputs, I've decided to switch from Bartender to iBar. For me, I found that iBar is the most convenient to display all the menu bar items which don't fit onto the overall menu bar (I use a 14" MacBook Pro).

The developer 宁波上官科技有限公司 thanks you for your support! Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm sure it's fine. Really, I was just looking for an excuse to use my textsniper app since I don't use it often enough

I'm liking Ice a lot but am going to compare the features of these two.

 

[laptopllama]

Seems that most of these apps are about hiding menu icons instead of showing the hidden ones? I'm looking for one for my Macbook Pro with the notch that will help me see all of the icons that get hidden behind the notch. Any recommendations for which of these apps would best work for that scenario?

My issue with HB is that it only hides menu bar apps, but it does not give me a way to access those that are covered by the notch, which is probably my single biggest pain point

I'm in the same boat as both of you. If it's of any help, I've made a big ol' table here of all the Bartender alternatives I've found so far, with the "extra bar support" column being the feature we're wanting. Though I'm not quite willing to switch to the alternatives I've found so far.

I'm tempted to stick with Bartender 5.0.48 (from SetApp) until the BetterTouchTool author finishes adding "hidden icon showing" features in the next few days. He's already added a "Move Menubar Status Item To New Position" to v4.577-alpha where you can kinda fake some extra-bar functionality by moving around your menu items in response to an action.

What is the latest "safe" version of Bartender to install and use and where to download it ? I am with 5.0.49 right now.

It's a little unclear. 5.0.49 is the last one signed by the original dev's certificate as Surtees Studios Limited, but it seems like the sale likely went through a couple months ago, so it's possible they were just using his certificate to sign versions they now controlled. Or if you want any of the newer bug fixes urgently, the new devs say Test Build 5.0.53 removes the Amplitude analytics at least.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

The only thing I use Bartender for is to hide some Menu Bar icons (because I don't have enough space for them on my MacBook Pro) and then access them by clicking on the three dots to show them. Do any of these replacement apps do that?

 

[doublep]

The only thing I use Bartender for is to hide some Menu Bar icons (because I don't have enough space for them on my MacBook Pro) and then access them by clicking on the three dots to show them. Do any of these replacement apps do that?

iBar does, that's personally why I chose it.

 

[AZhappyjack]

The only thing I use Bartender for is to hide some Menu Bar icons (because I don't have enough space for them on my MacBook Pro) and then access them by clicking on the three dots to show them. Do any of these replacement apps do that?

Hidden Bar does this perfectly. That was pretty much all I used Bartender for, and HB is free, requires no special permissions and allows me to set up my icons how I want them (show/hide).

The first post in this thread shows my menu bar with HB both showing all and hiding (most).

Post your Menu Bar

Given the recent swirl of activity surrounding the Bartender/Surtees/Applause thing, I'm curious to see what everyone has in their menu bar. Here's mine. I use Hidden Dock to hide many icons. Full menu bar: The icons are (left to right): Dropbox, Time Machine, Focus/DND, Bluetooth, Arial...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[doublep]

Hidden Bar does this perfectly. That was pretty much all I used Bartender for, and HB is free, requires no special permissions and allows me to set up my icons how I want them (show/hide).

The first post in this thread shows my menu bar with HB both showing all and hiding (most).

Post your Menu Bar

Given the recent swirl of activity surrounding the Bartender/Surtees/Applause thing, I'm curious to see what everyone has in their menu bar. Here's mine. I use Hidden Dock to hide many icons. Full menu bar: The icons are (left to right): Dropbox, Time Machine, Focus/DND, Bluetooth, Arial...

forums.macrumors.com

Maybe I missed something, but I have many items in my Menu Bar which do not display because my screen is too small (I use a 14" MacBook Pro). How does Hidden Bar enable me to see the items which do not display because they don't fit in? With iBar, they appear on a line below the menu bar when I click on the iBar icon. Thanks !

 

[AZhappyjack]

Maybe I missed something, but I have many items in my Menu Bar which do not display because my screen is too small (I use a 14" MacBook Pro). How does Hidden Bar enable me to see the items which do not display because they don't fit in? With iBar, they appear on a line below the menu bar when I click on the iBar icon. Thanks !

I'm not sure, as all my icons do fit (I just don't need/want to see them all all of the time). In my case, clicking the caret symbol displays the hidden icons... not sure what happens if they don't all fit.

 

[jbellanca]

Tried hidden bar, wasn't impressed. Went back to Bartender, have Little Snitch blocking all outgoing connections though.

Hopefully Apple address menubar management at some point.

Btw if anyone wants a free alternative to Little Snitch – LuLu is also excellent. Not pretty, but does the job great.

 

[laptopllama]

The only thing I use Bartender for is to hide some Menu Bar icons (because I don't have enough space for them on my MacBook Pro) and then access them by clicking on the three dots to show them. Do any of these replacement apps do that?

As Doublep mentioned, iBar does this:

And Barbee does too:

And Ice is working on the same kind of thing. Similar with BetterTouchTool (I think releasing in the next few days?) if you have that.

 

[HouseofG]

I'm in the same boat as both of you. If it's of any help, I've made a big ol' table here of all the Bartender alternatives I've found so far, with the "extra bar support" column being the feature we're wanting. Though I'm not quite willing to switch to the alternatives I've found so far.

Thtat's an incredibly helpful table. Thank you! If I had seen this before installing Ice I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to figure out how to see my excess items. Hope they add that extra line soon, though for now it forced me to determine what's truly important to me.

 

[eclipse525]

iBar does, that's personally why I chose it.

iBar is a Chinese-based company if that is of concern to you or anyone else. The developer is Better365 team of Ningbo Shangguan Technology Co., Ltd