Bartender for Mac

I have been a long-time user of Bartender, however it's been a total disaster since it's changed developers. I was an alpha tester for version 6, but developers have not done much of anything to fix a multitude of problems with icons disappearing, or moving around in the menubar, having the cursor completely disappear while using it, etc. I updated to version 6 in hopes that it would be eventually fixed, but it doesn't seem like it ever will be. I have completely switched over to Barbee (on the App Store), and while Barbee isn't perfect, it has most of the features of Bartender, but doesn't implode every time I use it.

STAY AWAY I rarely get truly upset at an app. I always hoped that all the bugs would be cleaned out, but it never happened, this feels like a beta version, perpetually It was already like this with version 5, version 6 is not better (I was stupid enough to update). I keep losing my presets. You can't even duplicate a preset, that could at least be used as some sort of backup for when Bartender decides to lose all customization or mangle things around or whatever other thing it does that makes no sense. I'm stupid enough to hate trashing something that I paid for, but this time this thing is going in the trash and I'm never ever ever ever looking back. It's completely insane how it completely loses any sort of setup I prepared over and over and over again. Insane. This thing should not even be on sale. It should be in beta and nobody should sell a product like this, especially when you have a page dedicated for that product.

And meanwhile... v5.5.8 is out. It solves a sPooKy problem, one that made the Mac appear to have been taking over by malware ghosts! 👻 "This update to Bartender includes a change to how we handle the mouse, aimed to stop Bartender getting in the way. We now won't perform any actoins whilst you're moving the mouse around, and we'll quickly fire them off as soon as you're idle. This may result in your bar layout being slightly out of date whilst we wait for you to stop moving the mouse, but will prevent the mouse from being hijacked whilst you work." - - Also: "• Fixes a crash when coming from the lock screen or using start at login ▪ Updates handling of Little Snitch so it will no longer be labelled “Menu Item” and should keep its location across macOS restarts ▪ Some apps with multiple items that don’t have unique labels should now keep the same positions across restarts, i.e OneDrive Personal & Work ▪ Improved performance of menu item lookups & time to start a move after adjusting your profile ▪ Fixes items in triggers not re-hiding after they de-activate, including image triggers ▪ Prevents the launch at login toggle showing enabled on first launch"

Meanwhile... v5.5.7 is out. "Improvements & Bug Fixes: • Fixes an issue where the cursor could potentially stay hidden • Stopped items from bouncing back in the profile editor • Stopped items temporarily shown after clicking in Bartender bar from being instantly hidden by triggers • Prevented triggers from interrupting clicking in the bar • Updates handling of duplicate items for a given app, so they now maintain their own spots and won't jump around • Improved energy efficiency when performing large move" 😋

v6.x is *ONLY* for macOS 26 Tahoe and above. It's a MESS on macOS 14 and 15, so don't. Use v5 instead. See the dev site for details. Tahoe. <- Only.