A tidy, transparent menu-bar manager for macOS. Collapse the clutter, reveal what you need, and see every icon — including hidden Control Center items — in a floating, notch-safe panel.
Built because the MacBook notch keeps swallowing menu-bar icons and the menu bar gets cluttered fast. SystemBar is free, open source, and keeps Screen Recording strictly opt-in.
Collapse the clutter — one click hides everything left of the divider:
Show All Icons — a floating, notch-safe panel lists every status item, hidden and visible, with their real captured images:
Illustrations above are diagrams; a real screen-recorded GIF will replace them in a later release.
- Collapse & reveal menu-bar icons with one click (or
⌃⌥⌘B) — the proven expanding-separator trick, no special permissions needed. - Show All Icons — a floating panel that lists every status item, hidden and visible, with their real captured images. Notch-safe (it's its own window).
- Auto-collapse again after a configurable delay (default 10s).
- Global hotkey, launch at login, per-screen aware.
- Stable code signing so granted permissions survive every rebuild.
brew install --cask systembarDownload SystemBar.app from Releases, move it to
/Applications, and open it.
| Feature | Permission | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Collapse / reveal | none | expanding-separator trick |
| List items in the panel | none | reads the public window list |
| Capture real icon images | Screen Recording | the only way to image another app's status item; opt-in, only for the panel |
| Click an item from the panel | Accessibility | synthesizes a click into the owning app |
macOS has no public API to hide another app's menu-bar icon. The only working technique is the expanding separator: SystemBar adds a divider; you ⌘-drag it to the right, past the icons you want to hide; collapsing expands the divider so everything to its left slides off-screen.
Note: Control Center items (Wi-Fi, Battery, Sound…) can't always be dragged past, so use Show All Icons to see and click those.
./scripts/bundle.sh # → build/SystemBar.app (Apple-Development signed)
open build/SystemBar.appSwift 6 / Xcode 26+, macOS 14+. No external dependencies.
SystemBar is free and will stay free. If it earns a spot in your menu bar, ☕ buy me a coffee — it keeps the project going. Thank you!
GPLv3. Contributions welcome.