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Show HN: Badgeify – Add Any App to Your Mac Menu Bar
- thesuitonym 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mlangenberg 1y agoI 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?
- monkey_monkey 1y agoThere are several 3rd party utilities (free and paid) that allow status bar icons to be hidden
- ndegruchy 1y agoYou 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.
- fullam 1y agoim a big fan of https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/ https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/
- 7839284023 1y agoI 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.
- alook 1y agoThere 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 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hidden-bar/id1452453066?mt=12
- sangeeth96 1y agoFOSS solution that's actually really good: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice
- hombre_fatal 1y agoYou 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.
- sangeeth96 1y agoIf you see some other way to resolve this, I'm sure Ice welcomes contributions.
- hombre_fatal 1y agoI 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.
- hbn 1y agoAs 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.
- hombre_fatal 1y agoI 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.
- 1y ago
- oneeyedpigeon 1y agoInterestingly, the site in question contains a relevant article: https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-disappearing-behind-notch/ https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-disappear...
- typeofhuman 1y agoI 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 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hidden-bar/id1452453066?mt=12
- PTRFRLL 1y agoAlso available via Homebrew
- neerajdotname2 1y agoI've been using hidden bar for over a year and it's working beautifully.
- harlanlewis 1y agoLots 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-under-new-ownership-but-lack-of-transparency-raises-concerns.2428159/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/psa-bartender-mac-app-u... A specific and relevant reminder why open source is so important for system utilities.
- rpgbr 1y agoMany 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 https://i.imgur.com/0AFL1rU.png [2] https://awaremac.com/ https://awaremac.com/
- lobsterthief 1y agoThere’s a great app called Bartender that does this. I’ve been using it for over 10 years. Very stable.
- hbn 1y agoYou 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.
- lobsterthief 1y agoThanks for the tip! I’ll check into this for sure
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- luigicaveli 1y ago[dead]
- lukeholder 1y agoSince other people are sharing their fav menu bar manager, shoutout to bartender app: https://www.macbartender.com https://www.macbartender.com
- bww 1y ago[flagged]
- ahonn 1y agoIt’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.
- ahonn 1y agoPlus, it can stay quiet and only show icons when there’s a message, so it’s not in your face all the time.
- amelius 1y agoReminds me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
- freewizard 1y agoI 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 https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice [2] https://github.com/xiaogdgenuine/Doll https://github.com/xiaogdgenuine/Doll
- crossroadsguy 1y agoIce never worked for me. https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden 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 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.
- touristtam 1y agoI have just started to use hidden, and although it isn't pretty by any means, it works fine (MBP M3 Pro 15.4)
- supermatt 1y agoMaybe you should rename your "lifetime duo" to "lifetime trio"?
- supermatt 1y ago[flagged]
- altairprime 1y agoPerhaps 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.
- supermatt 1y agoIts 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.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Mystery-Machine 1y agoGreat app! I'd love to support it through https://setapp.com/ https://setapp.com/
- belthesar 1y agoThis 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/ https://xbarapp.com/ [2] https://swiftbar.app/ https://swiftbar.app/
- guzik 1y agoglad 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.
- belthesar 1y agoI 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).
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Nezteb 1y agoAnother 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 https://github.com/matryer/xbar [2] https://menubarx.app/ https://menubarx.app/ [3] https://github.com/exelban/stats https://github.com/exelban/stats
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mdasen 1y agoI 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?
- gwbas1c 1y agoWhen 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.)
- jedberg 1y agoThe 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.
- savolai 1y agoRelevant? https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-disappearing-behind-notch/ https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-disappear...
- latchkey 1y agoBartender was sold off and became dubious in nature. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606 Ice (mentioned several times on this page) is the open source replacement.
- dtgriscom 1y agoFrom ten months ago: https://www.macbartender.com/b5blog/Lets-Try-This-Again/ https://www.macbartender.com/b5blog/Lets-Try-This-Again/
- latchkey 1y agoIt 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.
- andrei_says_ 1y agoA 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.
- ahonn 1y agoIt’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.