{"slug": "bartender", "name": "Bartender", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 8, "warners": 4, "score": -0.536, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-01-08", "latest": "2026-04-02", "why": "Apple should have bought Bartender and made it part of the OS 10 years ago", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 5}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Apple should have bought Bartender and made it part of the OS 10 years ago", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "macbartender.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.macbartender.com/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Bartender"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 761972737, "item_id": 47623296, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47623296", "by": "al_borland", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tame the clutter, by using another menubar app to hide the overflow.", "excerpt": "Tame the clutter, by using another menubar app to hide the overflow. Examples: https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden https://www.macbartender.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 761951521, "item_id": 47621970, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47621970", "by": "princevegeta89", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I heard great things about bartender as well.", "excerpt": "I use an app called BarBee for this. I heard great things about bartender as well. There are a few other decent options. But, yeah, the bottom line is, it's kind of crazy how Apple did not think about this, about the overcrowding of the menu bar and implement an auto-collapse mechanism or something like that. The true short-sightedness Apple has had becomes really obvious in the latest liquid glass UI, whatever the f", "context": "", "use_case": "Menu bar organization", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 761924624, "item_id": 47620289, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47620289", "by": "xp84", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Apple should have bought Bartender and made it part of the OS 10 years ago", "excerpt": "I have a 16 inch and even I moved to the \u201cno notch\u201d resolution last year because a ton of apps don\u2019t let you choose whether to have a menu icon, and many of them are required corporate crapware. Apple should have bought Bartender and made it part of the OS 10 years ago, or at least before shipping this stupid notch. Apple\u2019s \u201cwe know what you need better than you do\u201d approach is so exhausting.", "context": "", "use_case": "Menu bar management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 761914016, "item_id": 47619626, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619626", "by": "alin23", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the Bartender app, was completely broken by Apple's internal API changes in macOS Tahoe", "excerpt": "The notch hiding menubar icons is such a stupid problem to have. I waste hours every week trying to help people who send me frustrated emails because they bought one of my apps and they say: \"it doesn't launch\" or \"why doesn't it have any interface??\" No amount of FAQ will help these people. And this also results in hasty refund requests and even worse, chargebacks that take 2x the amount the users paid out of my poc", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 761898592, "item_id": 47618662, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618662", "by": "latchkey", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Bartender, was sold to a third party", "excerpt": "One of the mentioned apps, Bartender, was sold to a third party [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606 I think they've cleaned it up since then [1], but in the age of supply chain attacks, very concerning. Personally, even as a paying user of Bartender, I moved to the open source solution, at least I can watch the github for changes. [1] https://www.macbartender.com/b5blog/Lets-Try-This-Again/", "context": "paying Bartender user", "use_case": "macOS menu bar management", "switched_from": "Bartender", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 745411616, "item_id": 46588226, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46588226", "by": "rufo", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The Tahoe issues are making me rethink that heavily now", "excerpt": "Yep, I\u2019m aware of the (incredibly-poorly-handled) change of ownership. I\u2019ve been using it through a SetApp[1] subscription, and they stayed on the pre-acquisition version for quite a while; long enough that enough details came out about the new owner and I felt _relatively_ okay with continuing to use it after it got updates, especially going through another party. The Tahoe issues are making me rethink that heavily ", "context": "", "use_case": "Mac menu bar management", "switched_from": "", "story": "The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe"}, {"id": 745362416, "item_id": 46585151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46585151", "by": "lurkersince2013", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Avoid using Bartender:", "excerpt": "Avoid using Bartender: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1d8a0wv/if_you_are_a_mac_user_and_use_bartender_stop/ https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/bartender-change-of-ownership-potential-security-issue/37431/161?page=9", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["menu bar management", "menu bar organization", "macos menu bar management", "mac menu bar management"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618189", "title": "Tailscale's New macOS Home", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46579864", "title": "The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46544524", "title": "Show HN: macOS menu bar app to track Claude usage in real time", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"warn": 3}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"warn": 2, "recommend": 3}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 761972737, "item_id": 47623296, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47623296", "by": "al_borland", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tame the clutter, by using another menubar app to hide the overflow.", "excerpt": "Tame the clutter, by using another menubar app to hide the overflow. Examples: https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden https://www.macbartender.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 761951521, "item_id": 47621970, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47621970", "by": "princevegeta89", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I heard great things about bartender as well.", "excerpt": "I use an app called BarBee for this. I heard great things about bartender as well. There are a few other decent options. But, yeah, the bottom line is, it's kind of crazy how Apple did not think about this, about the overcrowding of the menu bar and implement an auto-collapse mechanism or something like that. The true short-sightedness Apple has had becomes really obvious in the latest liquid glass UI, whatever the f", "context": "", "use_case": "Menu bar organization", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 761924624, "item_id": 47620289, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47620289", "by": "xp84", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Apple should have bought Bartender and made it part of the OS 10 years ago", "excerpt": "I have a 16 inch and even I moved to the \u201cno notch\u201d resolution last year because a ton of apps don\u2019t let you choose whether to have a menu icon, and many of them are required corporate crapware. Apple should have bought Bartender and made it part of the OS 10 years ago, or at least before shipping this stupid notch. Apple\u2019s \u201cwe know what you need better than you do\u201d approach is so exhausting.", "context": "", "use_case": "Menu bar management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 761914016, "item_id": 47619626, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619626", "by": "alin23", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the Bartender app, was completely broken by Apple's internal API changes in macOS Tahoe", "excerpt": "The notch hiding menubar icons is such a stupid problem to have. I waste hours every week trying to help people who send me frustrated emails because they bought one of my apps and they say: \"it doesn't launch\" or \"why doesn't it have any interface??\" No amount of FAQ will help these people. And this also results in hasty refund requests and even worse, chargebacks that take 2x the amount the users paid out of my poc", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 761898592, "item_id": 47618662, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618662", "by": "latchkey", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Bartender, was sold to a third party", "excerpt": "One of the mentioned apps, Bartender, was sold to a third party [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606 I think they've cleaned it up since then [1], but in the age of supply chain attacks, very concerning. Personally, even as a paying user of Bartender, I moved to the open source solution, at least I can watch the github for changes. [1] https://www.macbartender.com/b5blog/Lets-Try-This-Again/", "context": "paying Bartender user", "use_case": "macOS menu bar management", "switched_from": "Bartender", "story": "Tailscale's New macOS Home"}, {"id": 745414144, "item_id": 46588384, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46588384", "by": "rufo", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used it through a subscription service that specifically didn\u2019t update until the ownership issues were clarified", "excerpt": "I replied to the parent post, but in short, I used it through a subscription service that specifically didn\u2019t update until the ownership issues were clarified to their (and ultimately my) satisfaction. The screen recording permissions are needed for it to be aware of when menu bar icons update so it can move them in and out of the menu bar; I believe later versions allow you to skip screen recording permissions if yo", "context": "", "use_case": "Menu bar management", "switched_from": "", "story": "The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe"}, {"id": 745411616, "item_id": 46588226, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46588226", "by": "rufo", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The Tahoe issues are making me rethink that heavily now", "excerpt": "Yep, I\u2019m aware of the (incredibly-poorly-handled) change of ownership. I\u2019ve been using it through a SetApp[1] subscription, and they stayed on the pre-acquisition version for quite a while; long enough that enough details came out about the new owner and I felt _relatively_ okay with continuing to use it after it got updates, especially going through another party. The Tahoe issues are making me rethink that heavily ", "context": "", "use_case": "Mac menu bar management", "switched_from": "", "story": "The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe"}, {"id": 745362416, "item_id": 46585151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46585151", "by": "lurkersince2013", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Avoid using Bartender:", "excerpt": "Avoid using Bartender: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1d8a0wv/if_you_are_a_mac_user_and_use_bartender_stop/ https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/bartender-change-of-ownership-potential-security-issue/37431/161?page=9", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe"}, {"id": 744755792, "item_id": 46547237, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46547237", "by": "RichHickson", "date": "2026-01-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "until the newest version, which had so many issues", "excerpt": "I used to use Bartender, which worked really well, until the newest version, which had so many issues. Since then, I've just basically put up with it.", "context": "", "use_case": "Menu bar management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: macOS menu bar app to track Claude usage in real time"}]}