I've been using Bartender for a long time, and I just updated my MBA to 27, and even the beta is totally broken. I tried a couple of other menu bar apps that have betas, and none of them work either. I've been reading some posts saying that menu bar apps won't work any more, but apparently if developers are releasing betas then there must be some way for them to do what they did in the past.
I kind of need this, because I create screencasts for a couple of Mac apps, and it's a pain to have to manually hide menu bar icons for the apps I use regularly whenever I want to record.
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The update published yesterday (2.0.1 RC1) is not for MacOS 27.
Have a look at this thread and download the file at the bottom of the comments section : https://github.com/thaw-app/Thaw/issues/687
It's the MacOS-27-Preview-6 that is not listed in the releases section
And this is why I don't bother with apps hosted on GitHub. There is so much fluff to sort through to find out which version is up to date or how to configure the apps.
Stop complaining. Thaw regular releases support macOS 26, it is clearly stated.
You are on macOS beta, that is basically a contract with the app makers, that until the macOS 27 is officially released AND the apps supporting macOS 27 are officially released, YOU WILL BE FLUFFING. 🤣
Valid but your statement was a bit more general than that. Apologies if thats your complaint. I took your comment to be a “give me exe” style complaint about opensource projects on github.
And for the record I didnt mean the “mate” sarcastically.
That's the latest one; it's also under Releases. Anyone having any other build, it's because we had to provide support 1:1 to address issues for over 80 users that helped us test and develop it.
I read somewhere here on Reddit, from one of the menu bar app developers that Golden Gate has shut down the ability to use a menu bar app. Then, I think that statement was refuted a few weeks later.
I can tell you, the Bartender beta is a mess. It hasn't been updated in a bit of time. They probably have their hands full with trying to get their app to work with Golden Gate.
So, there's question as to whether menu bar apps are still possible.
Bartender is always a mess. I stopped using it because of how that handled the last OS upgrade. Used to be one of my favorite apps, now I just don’t think they have any urgency to fix things.
Bartender hasn’t been working reliably for me for about 18 months on the 2 previous versions of MacOS. I switched to Ice and then Thaw when Ice went dormant. Thaw has been much better than Bartender.
same journey (bartender, ice, thaw). but with macos 27, the overflow region (which is why i was using these in the first place) now works natively, and so i removed thaw as well.
It looks like the issues might be caused by structural changes Apple made to the menu bar architecture in the macOS 27 beta.
Developer discussions, such as those in the BetterTouchTool Community, suggest that macOS 27 handles menu bar icons differently, shifting them away from individual window elements toward a unified system layout. Because of this, traditional hooks used by apps like Bartender or Ice to hide or rearrange icons no longer work the same way. Apple is also testing its own native overflow toggle, which seems to conflict with third-party tools.
Since the OS is still in beta, developers likely need more time to find alternative APIs or workarounds to restore stability.
As a quick fix for your screencasts, you could try setting up a clean, secondary user profile just for recordings, or set the menu bar to "Automatically hide and show" in your System Settings while capturing your screen.
Menu bar apps still work fine on 27 — what broke is the stuff Bartender-style apps rely on to hide other apps' items. That path has always been unofficial (Accessibility + poking at other processes' status items), so every OS bump breaks it until the devs re-adapt, and on a beta they're often waiting to see what Apple settles on before shipping a fix.
Two things that helped me in the meantime:
For screencasts, don't fight the menu bar — record a clean second user account. New user, log in, only the apps you actually want running, no third-party status items at all. Way less fragile than hiding icons per-recording.
Most well-behaved menu bar apps have a "hide icon" or launch-at-login toggle of their own, or you can Cmd-drag their item off the bar. Tedious once, but it sticks.
Also check Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions after the update — the upgrade tends to reset TCC entries for beta builds, and an app whose Accessibility grant silently dropped looks exactly like "totally broken."
I'd rather not use a different user account, because my account is set up for screencasts. I guess I'll just have to go into Settings > Menu Bar each time I need to record.
I've tried turning those permissions off then on, and they still don't work.
Kind of a bummer for those who shelled out for a lifetime license to Bartender "Pro."
Yeah, a second account is a non-starter if that one's wired up for screencasts.
Toggling the Privacy checkboxes often doesn't actually re-issue the grant — the app can still be stuck on a stale TCC entry. Worth trying once:
Fully quit the menu-bar app (menu bar icon → Quit, then confirm it's gone in Activity Monitor).
In Terminal: tccutil reset Accessibility (and if it uses Screen Recording, tccutil reset ScreenCapture too).
Relaunch the app and approve the prompt(s) fresh.
If it's a Bartender / similar "lifetime" build that was last updated before Tahoe's TCC changes, that reset still won't help — those unofficial Accessibility tricks for icon hiding are what broke, and only a Tahoe-updated build from the vendor fixes it. For recordings in the meantime, Cmd-drag icons off the menu bar (or the built-in Control Center rearrangement) is the ugly-but-works fallback so you're not blocked waiting on an update.
They released today a beta version, and it's working not so bad. Still bugs, but much better than what they released before. https://www.macbartender.com/goldengate/
Until the hiding apps catch up, quitting the noisy apps works better than hiding them anyway. I record app demos too and got burned by this once, so now it's a dumb two liner before a take:
then open -a them again after. Nothing for the OS to break, and the icons are actually gone instead of hidden, so nothing pops back in the middle of a long recording.
Is the failure specifically icon hiding, or does the menu bar layout itself move while you're recording? That detail might narrow down whether the problem is the utility or a broader macOS 27 compatibility change.
I can't do anything with the icons in the menu bar layout section. Also, some display with the correct icons, others as groups of icons with weird displays.
Getting so tired with Bartender on MacOS26, if it will be broken on MacOS27 maybe it's time to code something on my own. I did it for the notch app as well.
I’ve given up. I now just use any given app’s menu bar preferences when available, and otherwise the native Mac menu bar system settings to hide and show apps. It’s clunky but free and the things that suck about it are fairly consistent.
Yeah, it looks like that's the only solution. I wish there was a way to script the Settings > Menu Bar options to show and hide icons, to do them all in one fell swoop. Maybe there is with GUI scripting, but it's probably not worth trying.
For the screencast case specifically there is a way round this that does not depend on any of it surviving the next macOS update. Record from a second user account.
Make a plain local account and log into it. Its menu bar starts empty, because none of your third party stuff is running there. Nothing to hide because nothing is there. Install or sign into only the app you are demoing. Fast user switching gets you in and out in a few seconds, and you also get a clean desktop and fresh app windows, which usually looks better on camera anyway.
System icons like Wi-Fi and battery are still there, but those you can trim in Control Center settings, and it is the third party pile that ruins a recording anyway.
The cost is that the first recording in a new account is annoying to set up. After that it is free. I keep one around purely for captures.
Sideways answer, but it's the one that survives every OS update: make a second user account and record in that.
A fresh account has a bare menu bar, an empty Desktop and no notifications, because none of your login items exist there. Fast User Switching gets you in and out in a couple of seconds, and there's nothing in it that a beta can break – it's just an account.
Heavy-handed for the odd screenshot. But if you're producing screencasts regularly it's a good deal less fiddly than hiding icons one at a time and hoping the hider still works next month.
Everyone says it's safe to update to Tahoe / Golden Gate but in filed you see these kinds of testimonials that feel like it would be a mess.
On Sequoia I got Hidden Bar app installed (to hide less utilized icons) + I minimized the gap between icons via Terminal. To not be able to use that on GG...not so fun because of the notch.
It is safe, but probably the understanding of the word "safe" is different.
Safe in beta context more or less stands for: Mac is not bricked, iCloud and networking seems to be working, Bluetooth devices connect, you can perform your typical day to day tasks. But things WILL fail, weird issues might pop up and apps will have problems.
I build a macOS menu bar app, so this one is close to home, but I haven't run the 27 beta yet. The useful distinction is between apps that sit in the menu bar and apps that rearrange the menu bar.
A normal status item app should still work, because that's public API and Apple uses it themselves. What broke is the managers: Bartender, Ice, Thaw, Hidden Bar. Hiding and reordering other apps' icons was never a supported API, it was a private hack. Golden Gate closed that hole, which is why every manager is scrambling while regular menu bar apps keep working.
My guess is the managers come back in some form, but the era of treating the menu bar as fully user-rearrangeable is done. For your screencasts, plan around not depending on one.
Two scripts, one that sets your recording state and one that puts it back, and the icons you cannot quit stop being a manual click-through before every take. Diff the domain before and after flipping one switch by hand first, since the key names do not always match the UI label, and "NSStatusItem Visible X" and "NSStatusItem VisibleCC X" are different toggles (shown in the menu bar vs shown inside Control Center).
Caveat: this only reaches Apple's items. Third party status items belong to their own apps, so it is their own hide setting or quitting them.
That split is also the answer to your original question. A normal status item app is public API and still fine on 27. The managers were reaching into other apps' status items, which was never supported, and that is the part that broke.
It was inevitable at some point that the menu bar was going to become a problem serious enough for Apple to have to deal with it. I think it's probably revealed that making the menu bar accessible to any apps was a huge mistake on Apple's part.
I don't use them (3rd party menubar icon hidding app) before macOS 27 because I know the underlying technology they used which is kind of tricky and ugly (i mean the screen capture thing). I can't stand with it.
(If you don't believe me, just ask your AI agent to inspect code. You will get the answer.
Actually i've used Bartender for years and then Ices and Thaw until i know the impl under the hood.
I didn't mean to blame them, Apple didn't provide any API for manipulating icons in the menu bar, so the tricky way comes out… Only Apple can fix this situation.
Do you have any intention of adding things such as multiple spacers, groups, and group names, like Bartender has? I am very spoiled by those features in Bartender and no other menu bar manager I have seen has them.
- Item groups: a few items marked as a group stay together and move as one
- Item triggers: hide or move an item automatically on battery, energy mode, frontmost app, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, audio output, a schedule, a Focus mode, location, camera or mic use, or a script's result, combined with All of / Any of / None of
- Zen mode on a hotkey, or automatically while you're mirroring or screen sharing
- Per-Space profiles and per-Space appearance, so each desktop gets its own layout and look
- Simple Mode (one settings page instead of the sidebar), spacers you make yourself, a Tools pane for resets, one display picker instead of a repeated block per display
- Screen Recording is effectively optional now: items without it fall back to their app's icon in the Thaw Bar, the layout pane and Search
3.0 (macOS 27, alpha)
- Item palette: a centered launcher, type a name, hit Return, that item's menu opens, concealed ones included
- A magnifier: rest the pointer on the bar and it appears four times larger below, every icon named and clickable
- Camera and mic watch that names the app that took your microphone instead of just showing a dot
- Menu bar history: when each icon first appeared, and which ones you've never once clicked
- Control Center buttons, Shortcuts actions, and thawctl for the terminal
- A panel that descends from the menu bar with media controls, and an overlay mode that draws items in Thaw's own strip
I mean, before macOS 27. I think everybody here should have known that macOS 27 introduced its
own native implementation for this, right?
Declaration: I'm here just to talk about the fact, not to blame anyone or any app. For myself, I just don't like tricky implementation for any feature, even it looks very good.
It doesn’t work the same; it’s just a chevron that allows you to hide items overflowing the menu bar once they reach a certain number of items. You can’t even manipulate it or force it to do what you need. There’s no trick here, it’s Apple’s own thing that allows you to do it natively without all the problems 26 has. If anything, I think it’s easier, no more hiding outside the screen.
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