Bartender Alternatives
Bartender was the gold-standard Mac menu bar manager for a decade. The 2024 ownership change scrambled trust in the project. Six alternatives ranked.
For a decade, Bartender was the answer to a cluttered Mac menu bar. Surtees Studios shipped a polished, reliable, one-time-purchase utility that hid icons behind a chevron, organized them, handled the notch, and stayed out of the way otherwise.
In 2024, Surtees Studios sold Bartender to a holding company. The new owners shipped Bartender 5 with a feature initially called Profile Sync that uploaded menu bar configuration to a remote server by default. The community caught the change, the developers walked it back, but the trust hit was real. Bartender still works. Some users have moved on principle. Some have stayed.
Either way, the menu bar manager category has more entries than it used to. Here's what each one is good at.
The alternatives
Ice, best free Bartender alternative
Free · Open sourceIce by Jordan Baird emerged as the de facto Bartender replacement after the 2024 ownership change. Native Swift, free, MIT licensed. Handles hide/show divider, notch awareness, basic spacing controls. The maintainer is one developer (Jordan) but the project has been steady through 2024 and 2025.
Ice covers about 80% of Bartender's feature set. What's missing: dynamic show/hide rules (e.g., show Wi-Fi only when not connected), per-display configurations, and the tightest UI polish. None of these are dealbreakers for most users.
From github.com/jordanbaird/Ice or via Homebrew. icemenubar.app
Best for: people leaving Bartender on principle and wanting a free open-source alternative.
Bartender 5, still the most polished, with caveats
$20 onceBartender itself is still good software. The team behind it post-acquisition has been responsive to community feedback and has reverted the most controversial Profile Sync defaults. Bartender's notch handling, dynamic rules, and overall polish remain better than the alternatives. The reason to skip it is the trust hit, not the software quality.
If the ownership history doesn't bother you and you want the most polished menu bar manager, Bartender 5 is still the best choice for many users.
From macbartender.com
Best for: people who don't follow Mac community drama and just want the best tool.
Hidden Bar, simplest free option
Free · App StoreHidden Bar is the bare minimum: a chevron in your menu bar, drag-and-drop divider, click chevron to reveal hidden icons. No rules, no per-display, no notch-specific handling. For a lot of users this is exactly enough.
Hidden Bar's reorder logic gets confused when apps re-add their icon on launch. If you have apps that frequently restart, you may notice icons drift back into the visible area.
Best for: minimalists who don't want to learn another preferences pane.
Dozer, the original open-source alternative
Free · Open sourceDozer predates Ice. Less actively maintained but still works on current macOS. Worth knowing about if Ice somehow doesn't suit you, but Ice has overtaken Dozer in mindshare since 2023.
Best for: niche use. Most people should pick Ice.
One Switch, different category, also helps
$9.99 once · App StoreOne Switch consolidates many tiny menu bar utilities (dark mode toggle, hidden files toggle, screen lock, screensaver, hover desktop) into a single icon. It's not a hide-other-apps tool, but if your menu bar is crowded with toggle utilities, replacing them with One Switch buys you 5-7 menu bar slots back.
Best for: people whose menu bar problem is too many tiny toggle apps.
Vanilla, the freemium option
Free / $4.99 Pro · App StoreVanilla is older than Ice and Dozer. The free tier hides icons behind a chevron, the Pro tier ($4.99) adds spacing, two-row chevron, and password-protected hide. Maintenance has been slower than Ice's. Listing for completeness.
Best for: legacy users. Ice has overtaken Vanilla in active development.
Side-by-side comparison
| App | Price | Open source | Notch handling | Dynamic rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bartender 5 | $20 once | No | Excellent | Yes |
| Ice | Free | Yes | Good | Limited |
| Hidden Bar | Free | No | Basic | No |
| Dozer | Free | Yes | Basic | No |
| One Switch | $9.99 once | No | N/A (different tool) | N/A |
| Vanilla | Free / $5 | No | Basic | No |
How to choose
Three quick decision rules:
If you don't care about the Bartender ownership history: get Bartender 5. Best polished tool in the category.
If you want to leave on principle and don't want to pay: Ice is the answer. Active development, MIT licensed, capable enough.
If you only want a chevron to hide icons and nothing more: Hidden Bar.
If your problem is too many toggle utilities: One Switch instead of (or in addition to) the above.
Bonus: the consolidation strategy
A menu bar manager hides icons. Another approach is to install fewer menu bar apps in the first place by picking utilities that consolidate functions. TeenyShelf replaces a Stickies/AirDrop/Desktop workflow with one icon. TeenyStat consolidates multiple system-stats apps into one.
The clean menu bar article covers the consolidation philosophy in detail.
The 2024 Bartender incident, briefly
For context, since this article keeps referencing it: Surtees Studios sold Bartender in mid-2024 to a holding company without prior community announcement. Shortly after, Bartender 5 shipped with a feature called Profile Sync that uploaded menu bar configuration to remote infrastructure by default. The Mac community noticed quickly. The new owners apologized, made the feature opt-in, and have been more communicative since.
The software still works. The trust signal of "this developer has been around forever and won't pull this on you" was lost. Whether that's a dealbreaker is a personal call. The fact that it triggered a wave of indie alternatives (Ice's growth especially) is a healthy market response.
Or hide fewer icons by using fewer utilities.
The TeenyApps family is built single-purpose, each app intentionally smaller than the alternatives it replaces. TeenyShelf and TeenyStat are deliberate consolidators.