I have been using the Bartender app for longer than I can honestly remember. The main issue with macOS for heavy users has always been the menu bar — the one in the top right corner of your screen.
The more apps you add, the more cluttered it becomes. If you have a Mac with a notch, it becomes even more annoying, as some icons are not displayed at all.
Bartender sorted the issue for me for quite some time.
After years of managing different versions and the hurdles that the creators faced due to constantly changing permissions in macOS, they settled on using screen recording to let the app work as it should.
Bartender allows you to hide icons that do not need to be displayed prominently all the time. Similar to how it used to be in the Windows operating system, macOS is still lacking that native feature.
In Bartender, you can opt to show hidden icons to the left, or as a separate shelf (a drawer or bar) under the menu bar. I opted for the second option, as it worked much better for me.
Apart from hiding icons, Bartender incorporates a very handy feature that allows you to change the spacing between icons. By default, the spacing is very wide. With lots of icons, you quickly find yourself looking for a solution, and most of the time you head straight for Bartender.
I paid for Bartender, and then for consecutive updates for years whenever a new macOS was released to maintain compatibility with the newest operating system — but not this time.
We are already waiting for macOS 27 Golden Gate, so yet again I was expecting an email from Bartender stating that I would need to pay and upgrade to keep everything running swiftly on the latest OS.
This happened exactly as expected when an email landed in my inbox titled Bartender Pro is Here.