[HN Gopher] Show HN: Badgeify - Add Any App to Your Mac Menu Bar
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Show HN: Badgeify - Add Any App to Your Mac Menu Bar
Author : ahonn
Score : 87 points
Date : 2025-04-08 11:32 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (badgeify.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (badgeify.app)
| mlangenberg wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| There are several 3rd party utilities (free and paid) that
| allow status bar icons to be hidden
| ndegruchy wrote:
| You 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 wrote:
| im a big fan of https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/
| 7839284023 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| There 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
| sangeeth96 wrote:
| FOSS solution that's actually really good:
| https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| You 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 wrote:
| If you see some other way to resolve this, I'm sure Ice
| welcomes contributions.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| As 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| victor106 wrote:
| Interesting. do all these apps work the same way? Apple
| does not provide any API's to modify the menubar?
| hbn wrote:
| Unless we're just waiting on someone to figure out
| another genius workaround, that's the case, yes. Macs are
| not Linux, for better and for worse.
|
| To be honest it seems crazy at this point an overflow for
| menu bar items isn't built into macOS, especially now
| that all their laptops have this notch that can hide menu
| bar items if you have too many. Plus it competes with
| space with the dropdown menu items on the left since if
| an app has too many they'll wrap to the other side of the
| notch.
| sunaookami wrote:
| Theoretically it would work without this permission but it
| wouldn't be convenient:
| https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice/discussions/362
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Interestingly, the site in question contains a relevant
| article:
|
| https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-disappear...
| typeofhuman wrote:
| I 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
| PTRFRLL wrote:
| Also available via Homebrew
| neerajdotname2 wrote:
| I've been using hidden bar for over a year and it's working
| beautifully.
| harlanlewis wrote:
| Lots 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-u...
|
| A specific and relevant reminder why open source is so
| important for system utilities.
| rpgbr wrote:
| Many 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 [2] https://awaremac.com/
| lobsterthief wrote:
| There's a great app called Bartender that does this. I've been
| using it for over 10 years. Very stable.
| hbn wrote:
| You 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.
| lukeholder wrote:
| Since other people are sharing their fav menu bar manager,
| shoutout to bartender app: https://www.macbartender.com
| jtokoph wrote:
| Some people are worried about the new ownership:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606
| kstrauser wrote:
| Yeah. I've moved all my stuff to Ice, and that's what I
| recommend to friends now.
| freewizard wrote:
| I 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
|
| [2] https://github.com/xiaogdgenuine/Doll
| supermatt wrote:
| Maybe you should rename your "lifetime duo" to "lifetime trio"?
| Mystery-Machine wrote:
| Great app! I'd love to support it through https://setapp.com/
| belthesar wrote:
| This 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/
|
| [2] https://swiftbar.app/
| guzik wrote:
| glad 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 wrote:
| I 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).
| Nezteb wrote:
| Another 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
|
| [2] https://menubarx.app/
|
| [3] https://github.com/exelban/stats
| mdasen wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| When 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 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| Relevant? https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-
| disappear...
| latchkey wrote:
| Bartender was sold off and became dubious in nature.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606
|
| Ice (mentioned several times on this page) is the open source
| replacement.
| thejohnconway wrote:
| There's an open source menu bar manager called Ice. Works well.
| https://icemenubar.app/
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(page generated 2025-04-08 23:01 UTC)