Download Bartender for Mac

In the edit

The Mac menu bar has a habit of filling up. Before long, icons you barely use crowd out the ones you actually need. Bartender gives you a way to decide what shows, what hides, and when.

1. Set a trigger for each icon

You can tell Bartender to show an app icon only during an update, a sync, or when something goes wrong. The rest of the time it stays tucked away. That alone keeps the bar clean without losing visibility on what matters.

2. Use the Command Bar for quick actions

Version 7.0.4 updates the clipboard helper inside the Command Bar, which is the fastest way to reach hidden items without clicking through menus. Type what you want, and it appears.

3. Navigate with the keyboard

Arrow keys and Enter let you move through menu bar items without touching the trackpad. If you prefer, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to open the whole menu at once.

Bartender also supports Shortcuts through app intents, so you can fold it into an automation if that is your style. Built for macOS 27, it runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

For designers, developers, and writers who live in the menu bar

Anyone who lives in the menu bar will find Bartender useful fast. That includes designers who keep Dropbox, Skitch, and a colour picker running all day, developers with multiple server status apps, and writers who toggle between focus modes and dictionary tools. The more apps you have fighting for space up top, the more sense Bartender makes.

It is especially good for people who prefer keyboard-driven workflows. If you reach for the arrow keys more than the mouse, the ability to navigate menu bar items without lifting your hands off the keyboard changes how you use that strip of screen. It stops being a clutter zone and becomes another palette you can control quickly.

Bartender also suits anyone who shares their screen in meetings.

Emma's day with a dozen apps in a Hackney co-working space

Emma works from a co-working space in Hackney. She keeps a dozen apps running through a project: Figma, Slack, Notion, a time tracker, a VPN, Dropbox, a colour picker, and a few utility menu bar apps for weather, calendar, and clipboard history. Before Bartender, her menu bar was a solid block of icons, and she would accidentally click the wrong one several times a week.

She set triggers so her VPN icon only appears when the connection drops, and her time tracker shows only while the timer is running. Slack and Notion stay in the Bartender Bar until a notification badge appears. Her menu bar now holds four or five icons, and she reaches the rest with a single keyboard shortcut or through the Command Bar when she needs to check something specific. She says it feels like reclaiming a bit of screen space she had written off.

More than just hide and show with triggers and a command bar

Bartender vs. iBar. iBar does the basics — hide and show menu bar icons — but it does not offer triggers for showing icons during updates or errors, and it lacks a command bar for searching. Bartender’s keyboard navigation and Shortcuts support make it the more flexible option for users who want to automate parts of their workflow.

Bartender vs. Hidden Bar. Hidden Bar is free and lightweight, which is appealing if you only want to toggle visibility for a few icons. But it does not support triggers, reordering, or keyboard shortcuts. It is a simpler tool for a simpler need. Bartender covers that use case and then keeps going.

Bartender vs. Dozer. Dozer is another free option that lets you hide icons with a click, but it has not seen active development in a while. Bartender’s current version runs on macOS 27 with regular updates, and the developer has a track record of fixing issues like items failing to appear or shifting after a restart, which suggests ongoing support.

No screen recording permission needed and full reordering control

Does it need screen recording permission? No. Bartender 7 works without requiring screen recording access, which simplifies setup and avoids the privacy prompt that some similar tools ask for.

Can I reorder menu bar items? Yes. Bartender lets you change the order of items, so you are not stuck with whatever order apps loaded in. You can put the ones you check most often at the front.

Will it hide its own icon? It can. If you prefer a completely clean bar, Bartender can hide its own menu bar icon once you have it configured the way you want.

What happens when an app updates or syncs? You can set triggers so that the icon appears only during those moments. Once the update or sync finishes, it goes back into the Bartender Bar automatically.

Is it built for the latest macOS? Bartender 7 is built for macOS 27 and runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, so it should work on current hardware without issues.

Mac it needs

• macOS 27
• Intel or Apple Silicon
• English interface language