Menu Bar Manager: Why the Old Approach Is Dead

The menu bar manager has been a Mac essential for over a decade. Apps like Bartender, Ice, and Hidden Bar gave users something Apple never did — the ability to hide, organize, and control the chaos of icons accumulating at the top of their screens. For power users running dozens of apps, a menu bar manager wasn't optional. It was survival.

Then macOS Tahoe arrived and changed everything.

Apple finally added native menu bar controls. You can now hide icons directly in System Settings. The Control Center is fully customizable. Third-party apps that built their entire existence around managing your menu bar suddenly had to justify why they still matter.

Some adapted. Some broke. And some users started asking a different question entirely: why are we still hiding icons instead of replacing them with something better?

What A Traditional Menu Bar Manager Actually Does

Bartender launched in 2013 and defined the category. The concept was simple — take the icons cluttering your menu bar and hide them behind a secondary bar that appears on demand. Click to reveal, click to hide. Your menu bar stays clean while all your apps remain accessible.

Ice emerged as the free, open-source alternative after Bartender's controversial 2024 acquisition raised privacy concerns. Hidden Bar offered a minimalist approach. Barbee positioned itself as the modern, permission-light option. All of them solved the same fundamental problem: too many icons, not enough space.

These tools worked by creating hidden sections in your menu bar. Icons you didn't need constantly — backup status, VPN indicators, utility apps — would live in the hidden section. Icons you needed visible — battery, Wi-Fi, time — stayed in the always-visible section. Essentially, these apps became a filing system for the top of your screen.

For years, this was the only solution. Apple provided no native way to hide third-party menu bar icons, and the notch on newer MacBooks made the space problem even worse. Bartender or a similar tool became standard equipment for any serious Mac user.

How macOS Tahoe Changed the Game

When Apple released macOS Tahoe in September 2025, this category got its biggest shakeup in over a decade. The update introduced native controls that eliminated the need for third-party tools — at least for basic hiding.

System Settings now includes a dedicated Menu Bar section. You can toggle individual icons on or off. The "Allow in Menu Bar" feature lets you control which third-party apps can display icons at all. Command-drag reordering finally works consistently. The transparent Liquid Glass design even makes the menu bar feel less cluttered visually.

The Control Center received an iOS-style overhaul. You can add controls, remove them, resize them, and create multiple Control Centers with different icons. Items can live in Control Center instead of the menu bar, accessible on demand without taking permanent space.

For users who just wanted basic hiding, macOS Tahoe delivered. No third-party app required. No screen recording permissions to grant. No subscription to maintain.

The Fallout of the Menu Bar Manager

The transition hasn't been smooth. Bartender 6 launched with macOS Tahoe compatibility but brought a wave of complaints — high CPU usage, lost settings after migration, and a persistent bug where the Apple menu randomly opens by itself. Users on forums reported switching to Ice just to escape the issues.

Ice fared better initially, but macOS Tahoe's tighter permissions created problems. Users reported "Unable to display menu bar items" errors that required complete reinstallation. The screen recording permission that menu bar managers need — to see and capture your menu bar icons — now triggers more frequent purple dot indicators, reminding users that something is watching their screen.

Barbee, which marketed itself as Tahoe-compliant, was described as "a mess" by users on Mac Power Users forums. The permissions tightening affected every app in the category.

The fundamental issue is architectural. Traditional tools work by constantly capturing screenshots of your menu bar to display icons in their hidden sections. Apple's increased focus on privacy makes this approach increasingly uncomfortable. Granting screen recording access to any app requires trust, and the 2024 Bartender acquisition — where the app was sold quietly to new, less transparent owners — eroded that trust for many users.

The Problem Nobody Talks About

Here's what most discussions miss: hiding icons doesn't actually solve the underlying problem.

You still have twenty apps running menu bar items. They're still consuming resources. They're still there — you've just made them invisible. When you need one of those hidden icons, you still have to remember it exists, click to reveal the hidden section, scan through everything, and find what you need.

A traditional hiding tool treats the symptom, not the disease. The disease is that most menu bar icons aren't useful. They're passive indicators for apps you rarely interact with through the menu bar anyway. That backup app showing a checkmark? You probably check its status once a week. The VPN icon? You toggle it once when you connect. The clipboard manager, the screenshot tool, the color picker — all sitting there, all the time, for occasional use.

What if instead of hiding the clutter, you eliminated it entirely and built something purpose-designed for how you actually work?

ExtraBar: A Different Menu Bar Manager Approach

ExtraBar takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of managing existing menu bar icons, it lets you create your own custom menus filled with deep links and actions that replace the functionality of those icons entirely.

Think about what you actually use those icons for. You click the Zoom icon to join a meeting. You click the Slack icon to check messages. You click the Notion icon to open a page. These are actions — and actions can be triggered directly through deep links without any icon sitting in your menu bar.

ExtraBar lets you build custom action groups. A "Communication" group might contain deep links to specific Slack channels, your daily standup Zoom meeting, and your team's Notion workspace. A "Development" group might link to your GitHub notifications, VS Code projects, and terminal configurations. Instead of hunting through hidden menu bar icons, you press a hotkey, see your organized groups, and execute with a keystroke.

The app supports two modes. Inline mode places your custom menus directly in the native menu bar. Floating Bar mode creates a separate bar that appears on demand with a global hotkey — Cmd+Opt+F by default. The floating bar doesn't compete for menu bar space at all, making it particularly useful for notch MacBooks where real estate is already limited.

Every action supports full keyboard navigation. Summon the bar, press a number to select a group, press another number to execute an action. No mouse required. For users who chose Raycast or Alfred specifically for keyboard-driven workflows, ExtraBar brings that same philosophy to the menu bar.

How ExtraBar Replaces Traditional Icon Management

The transition from hiding icons to building custom actions requires a mental shift, but the payoff is significant.

Start by auditing your current menu bar icons. For each one, ask: what do I actually click this for? Most icons serve one or two specific purposes. The Spotify icon opens Spotify. The 1Password icon searches your vault. The Calendar icon shows upcoming events. Each of these can become an ExtraBar action that triggers the same result without the permanent icon.

ExtraBar includes 36+ app presets covering development, design, communication, and productivity tools. These presets generate the correct deep links automatically — you select your Slack workspace, Figma project, or Notion database, and ExtraBar creates the action. For apps without presets, you can create custom URL scheme actions or Apple Shortcuts integrations.

The organizational flexibility exceeds what any traditional tool offers. Icons in Bartender or Ice maintain their original functionality — you're just hiding them. ExtraBar actions can do anything: open a specific file, trigger a shortcut, launch a URL, run an Apple Script. Your "menu bar" becomes a command center rather than a collection of app indicators.

Right-click menus add another layer. Each icon in ExtraBar can have a contextual menu with multiple related actions. Your Zoom icon might show your three recurring meetings. Your Slack icon might list your five most-used channels. This isn't possible with traditional hiding tools — they show you what apps provide, not what you design.

The Permission Difference

Traditional hiding tools require screen recording permission to function. They need to capture images of your menu bar to display hidden icons. This permission grants broad access — technically, an app with screen recording can see anything on your screen.

ExtraBar requires zero permissions. It doesn't need to see your menu bar because it's not hiding existing icons — it's creating new actions that trigger directly through deep links and URL schemes. Your privacy stays intact. There's no purple dot indicator, no permission prompt, no trust required.

For users who left Bartender after the 2024 acquisition specifically over privacy concerns, this architectural difference matters. ExtraBar stores everything locally with no analytics, no telemetry, and no data leaving your machine.

ExtraBar vs Traditional Tools

The choice depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

If you need to hide existing menu bar icons while preserving their exact functionality, traditional tools like Ice or Bartender still serve that purpose. Some apps require their menu bar presence for core features — system monitors that display live stats, for example.

If you want to eliminate menu bar clutter entirely and build a custom command center with only the actions you actually use, ExtraBar is the better fit. You're not managing clutter — you're replacing it with a purpose-built system.

The business models differ too. Bartender requires a new paid upgrade for each major macOS version. Ice is free but depends on volunteer development. ExtraBar costs €9.99 (regular €24.99) as a one-time lifetime license — no subscriptions, no upgrade fees.

Many users combine approaches: Ice handles the remaining icons they can't eliminate, while ExtraBar provides the organized command center for daily actions. The tools complement rather than compete.

The Future of Menu Bar Management

The traditional approach solved a real problem, but the solution was always a workaround. Apple didn't provide native controls, so third-party tools filled the gap. Now that macOS offers basic hiding natively, the value proposition of traditional tools has narrowed.

ExtraBar represents where this category is heading — away from hiding clutter and toward building purpose-designed command centers. Your menu bar shouldn't be a dumping ground for every app's icon. It should be a curated set of tools that match how you actually work.

ExtraBar runs on macOS 12.4 through macOS 26 Tahoe, requires zero permissions, and stores everything locally. For users tired of managing menu bar chaos and ready to replace it with something better, it's the tool built for that future.