Show HN: Badgeify – Add Any App to Your Mac Menu Bar
63 comments
·April 8, 2025freewizard
crossroadsguy
Ice never worked for me. https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden is the only thing I could make on my Mac work for some reason. I think https://github.com/Mortennn/Dozer didn't work either for me (well, it used to then it stopped after a Mac update or so).
Anyway, after 15.4 update yesterday a lot of things are misbehaving for me including miraculous battery drains.
touristtam
I have just started to use hidden, and although it isn't pretty by any means, it works fine (MBP M3 Pro 15.4)
jedberg
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.
thejohnconway
There’s an open source menu bar manager called Ice. Works well. https://icemenubar.app/
wappieslurkz
Tried reducing the space between the icons?
https://community.folivora.ai/t/reduce-menu-bar-icon-spacing...
savolai
latchkey
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.
dtgriscom
From ten months ago: https://www.macbartender.com/b5blog/Lets-Try-This-Again/
mdasen
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
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.)
ahonn
It’s super hard to make menubar show just the stuff I care about. Tons of apps like Bartender or Ice can hide icons, but adding the ones I actually want? That’s what Badgeify do.
Plus, it can stay quiet and only show icons when there’s a message, so it’s not in your face all the time.
Mystery-Machine
Great app! I'd love to support it through https://setapp.com/
belthesar
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.
guzik
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
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).
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mlangenberg
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?
typeofhuman
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)
neerajdotname2
I've been using hidden bar for over a year and it's working beautifully.
PTRFRLL
Also available via Homebrew
ndegruchy
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.
sangeeth96
FOSS solution that's actually really good: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice
hombre_fatal
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
If you see some other way to resolve this, I'm sure Ice welcomes contributions.
sunaookami
Theoretically it would work without this permission but it wouldn't be convenient: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice/discussions/362
harlanlewis
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.
alook
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
rpgbr
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
There’s a great app called Bartender that does this. I’ve been using it for over 10 years. Very stable.
hbn
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.
lobsterthief
Thanks for the tip! I’ll check into this for sure
monkey_monkey
There are several 3rd party utilities (free and paid) that allow status bar icons to be hidden
luigicaveli
[dead]
lukeholder
Since other people are sharing their fav menu bar manager, shoutout to bartender app: https://www.macbartender.com
jtokoph
Some people are worried about the new ownership: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606
kstrauser
Yeah. I've moved all my stuff to Ice, and that's what I recommend to friends now.
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Nezteb
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.
null
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