Your menu bar collects icons faster than you can use them. Barkeeper keeps the ones you actually reach for and moves the rest out of sight until you ask.
One divider, that is the whole idea
Barkeeper puts a small dot in your menu bar. Hold Command and drag any icon to the left of that dot: it is now hidden. Click the chevron, press the shortcut, and everything comes straight back. Nothing is quit, nothing is disabled, the apps keep running exactly as before.
Two ways to get to a hidden icon
- In place - the menu bar simply expands again for as long as you need it. This mode asks for no permissions at all.
- Barkeeper Bar - a floating row right under the menu bar showing only the hidden icons. Click one and the app opens its own menu, exactly as if you had clicked it up top.
What else is in there
- Always-hidden group for the icons you want gone for good. Option-click when you do need one.
- Auto-hide after 5, 15 or 30 seconds. It waits while your pointer is still on the menu bar instead of collapsing under your hand.
- Global shortcut, set to Control-Option-B out of the box, changeable to any combination.
- Menu Bar Items window lists every item by its real name, grouped into always hidden, hidden and visible, with live values like battery percentage and volume. A collapsed menu bar is never a mystery.
- Arrange mode holds the menu bar open while you drag icons around, then puts everything back.
- Launch at login, one toggle.
Permissions, and why
The in place mode needs nothing. Barkeeper Bar needs two, and only asks when you switch it on: Screen Recording to draw the hidden icons in the floating bar, and Accessibility to read what is on the menu bar and to click an item on your behalf. Barkeeper sends nothing anywhere. There is no account to create and no cloud in the picture.
Requirements
macOS 14.2 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. Signed and notarized by Apple.
