Bartender and macOS Screen Recording Permission
Bartender does not record your screen.
Bartender needs this permission for 3 reasons;
● To get information about your menu bar items (name, location) this is just text but Bartender can only get this if it has this permission
● To get images of the menu bar items to show in Bartender Settings, the Bartender Bar and Search.
● To get images of the menu bar itself for Menu Bar Styling and get correct Background color for Bartender Settings and the Bartender Bar
Bartender does not capture any personal information and only captures images of the menu bar.
Bartender does not store or transmit any of the captured images, they only exist in memory while Bartender is running.
Bartender is capturing your screen purple menu bar item
Whenever Bartender does get images of menu bar items macOS will show the screen capture menu bar item letting you know Bartender is getting an image of your menu bar items, so you always know when Bartender does this.
This menu bar item cannot be hidden, or disabled by Bartender and is put there by macOS, this is a purple menu bar item saying “Bartender 5 is capturing your screen” like the image below:
Bartender and macOS Accessibility Permission
Bartender needs this permission for;
● To be able to control (move) menu bar items, so Bartender can arrange them, show and hide them or click them for you
● To know when you click, swipe or hover over the menu bar