Bartender 6

Bartender 6 Alpha Releases

Bartender 6 Alpha 7

Latest

Alpha 7 brings updates to mouse handling, and continues to work around system limitations on Tahoe.

You should see that your mouse doesn't flicker during moves (it just hides, as expected), and that arrangement loops are prevented. We've improved our way of detecting items we can't move, and added a warning for users who disable Bartender in macOS Settings.

Fixes
  • WindowServer CPU usage should now barely increase whilst Bartender runs. If you see this continue to occur, please reach out to us!
  • Layout should now settle faster. If you see items in the wrong position, you can tap the refresh icon in "Menu Bar Layout" to force a re-layout
  • When we detect we can't move an item, we now ignore it faster
  • When a Live activity is showing, instead of getting stuck in a loop, we now prevent movements temporarily
    • We're working on finding a workaround for allowing movements whilst they show
  • General performance should be improved
  • When two items have conflicting positions, we'll now just pick a new one, instead of trying to repeatedly re-arrange
  • Restored moving "NowPlaying"
  • When you apply a profile with groups and/or spacers, we'll now wait for them to show before we fully arrange the profile
Known Issues
  • On first launch, some layouts take longer than we'd like to settle. In this case, you can force a refresh once indexing finishes, by tapping the refresh icon on the layout page
  • Whilst we're moving items, if there's a lot of them, it's possible to see the items moving around in the top left of the screen
Download Bartender 6 Alpha 7

Bartender 6 Alpha 6

Archived

This time around we've focused entirely on improving performance, fixing menu item arrangement loops, and handling issues with sub bars.

Fixes
  • CPU usage has been dramatically reduced after first layout, and future layout passes are required less often
  • When Bartender can't move or index an item, it will mark it as failed, and no longer try to move it
  • Widgets will no longer cause layout to jump around
  • When items are in an item group, they will no longer repeatedly move from next to the group item, to their standard position
  • When hovering over an item group in layout, it will no longer trigger the group to open
  • Items that are in item groups can no longer be also inside the shown/hidden sections, as they're always hidden until you click the group
  • If you upgraded from BT5 and had a shadow enabled, it will no longer draw on Tahoe without re-enabling it
  • Fixed a crash in the style screen
  • Clicking menu bar items in Bartender Bar should now work more consistently
Known Issues
  • If you previously used Bartender, and had items in a group, you'll need to head into the layout page for them to correct themselves
  • If you have multiple OneDrive items in the menu bar, it will cause a constant re-arrange ( this will result in mouse flicker ). A Temporary workraround is to disable the extra items
  • If you add an item from control center into your Bar, Bartender can't re-arrange it consistently
  • There's a slim chance an item or two will be out of place - if you move one item in the layout page, or re-apply your preset, it will run another layout pass and resolve it
  • Live Activities being present in the bar will prevent Bartender from re-arranging anything
Download Bartender 6 Alpha 6

Bartender 6 Alpha 5

Archived

It's time for another Alpha!

We've made further improvements to the indexing system that enables hotkeys & profiles on Tahoe. The process will run slightly slower, but will need to run less often, and not cause strange mouse behaviour. We expect this should resolve most issues that have been reported to us - thank you for continuing to send us feedback!

For users seeing issues with items moving, or the indexing process, you can tap the debug logs option in settings and send us a debug log that will help us narrow down the issue on your device.

You can also head into advanced settings and disable indexing, which will disable hotkeys & presets on Tahoe.

We reccomend using the latest macOS Tahoe beta when running this build of Bartender 6 due to system level improvements.

Fixes
  • Continued improvements to indexing process on Tahoe
    • This process can be disabled if you're facing issues.
  • The mouse should no longer behave eratically when Bartender has finished moving items
  • Items temporarily shown via triggers or Bartender Bar will now persist for long enough to interact with them & their menus
  • When using fullscreen apps, the mouse will no longer jump to the menu bar
  • When using the Vision Pro virtual display, the mouse will no longer behave eratically
  • Items should no longer "loop" around and continuously change
Download Bartender 6 Alpha 5

Bartender 6 Alpha 4

Archived

Alpha 4 is here! This time we've focused entirely on performance and compatibility. You should see everything runs a little faster, there's far less system pressure, and the screen recording indicator displays a little less often.

We've tested extensively on macOS Tahoe Beta 5 - we'd highly recommend upgrading, as this beta does fix a couple issues where the menu bar itself could crash.

Fixes
  • When items move from one section to another, they now move straight to the correct spot, rather than moving into the correct section & then the correct spot
  • The indexing process should now no longer cause system instability, and finishes much faster
  • Bartender won't try to move items until it finishes indexing them, so it will no longer default to just system items, and instead wait till it knows what to move where
  • Indexing should now work consistently, and will retry if it fails
  • Menu items should no longer jump around in the layout editor, and your bar
    • If you continue to see this, please get in touch, and share with us your menu bar layouts! We've tested with some fairly extreme setups ( so many items they don't fit on the vision pro ultrawide ), but there could be a couple stragglers that cause jumping about
    • If this does happen, you can close & re-open Bartender to force it to re-index, which will likely fix it
  • iStat menus should no longer cause menu item jumping
  • Groups in the menu bar no longer cause excessive screen capture indicators
  • Having a custom menu bar will no longer affect system performance, and will show the screen capture indicator less frequently
Known Issues
  • If you leave the "menu bar layout" screen open, your mouse flickers every couple seconds
    • We've temporarily made it so that if Bartender goes in the background and you leave this page open, you'll be auto-switched to general
    • This also caused an increase in frequency of the screen recording indicator, as the layout screen live-updates its images
  • There's a slim chance that opening the hotkeys screen can cause a crash.
Download Bartender 6 Alpha 4

Bartender 6 Alpha 3

Archived

Thanks for checking out the Bartender 6 Alpha! We've loved your feedback, and we're continuing improving the product thanks to you.

We're happy to announce we've restored all the features that were temporarily disabled in previous builds, so you can do everything you loved with Bartender, on Tahoe.

If there's something new you'd love to see on Tahoe, let us know!

New
  • Triggers, Hotkeys & Presets are fully available on Tahoe
    • Hotkeys has a brand new UI, and Triggers will get the same in a future build
  • On Tahoe, Bartender can now move Siri
  • Widgets now have a quick tutorial to explain how they work
    • A future build will add template widgets for you to start with
Fixes
  • The app will wait to index all your items before it tries to move them
  • The indexing process now finishes substantially faster on first launch, and is near instant after the first run
  • Moving bar items is now more efficient & should require less moves to get everything into place
  • Bartender Bar will now click all items more reliably, that were previously not triggering, such as Wi-Fi
  • Menu Bar Style's should update faster
  • A couple crashes that would happen sporadically have been removed
Download Bartender 6 Alpha 3

Bartender 6 Alpha 2

Archived

We're excited to share our next build of Bartender 6 with you all. This time around we've restored a couple disabled features from the initial build, and fixed a lot of bugs. Thank you to everyone who wrote in, we've read every single one of the reports, and they're a huge help.

The biggest improvements are a whole new widget experience, the return of search, and your menu bar order persisting reliably across restarts.

Our next build will restore presets & triggers, and we'll be introducing the new UI at the same time.

New
  • Search is back!
    • Items may take a couple of seconds to populate on first open, but once populated, will work correctly. Future builds will temporarily disable the search screen whilst populating.
  • Hotkeys have been restored, with per-app hotkeys coming soon
  • Widgets have a new editor, with a simpler UI
  • You can now round the corners under the menu bar, and at the bottom of the screen, on Tahoe
  • Our brand new lovely glassy icon is here! Thanks to @matthewskiles for giving our Bartender a fresh new look.
Fixes
  • The preferences window will now always show on launch for users who don't have another way to open it
  • Permissions on first open will now correctly update when you grant them
  • Bartender won't try to arrange things until it gets permissions to do-so
  • Widgets can now be re-arranged more reliably
  • Apps with large amounts of bar items will now behave correctly
  • Items shown via Bartender Bar should now auto-hide instead of staying in the bar
  • Spacers should now be live-resized in the bar when you edit them
Known Issues
  • On Sequoia, the icon doesn't show
  • Sometimes an item won't show up in search until the app is restarted
  • When you apply a bar style for the first time, this doesn't apply until you restart Bartender
  • When applying the rounded rectangle or capsule shape on Sequoia, the edge of the bar isn't clipped as expected
  • It's possible to make Bartender "un-openable" by disabling the menu bar item and all other methods to open it
    • You can get around this by changing your settings when the preferences window shows, which happens on every launch in this beta
  • Some specific apps can cause the app to fail to arrange its items properly
    • This only appears to affect some versions of iStat menus & rectangle
    • A workaround is to move these manually by holding CMD and dragging them to where they should be
Download Bartender 6 Alpha 2

Bartender 6 Alpha 1

Archived

This version of Bartender 6 is designed exclusively for macOS Tahoe. Future versions will support macOS Sequoia, so you can get the gorgeous new UI & improvements (but sadly no Liquid Glass).

New Features
  • Faster, more reliable menu layout system
  • Cleaner, simpler settings pages
  • Bring back the Sequoia bar styles, add materials, or even add a Liquid Glass bar
  • Localization to French, German and Chinese
Known Issues
  • The icon looks a little odd (there's something very special coming to replace this, we promise its worth it)
  • Triggers & Hotkeys are disabled in this build
  • Sometimes the mouse flickers & moves around whilst we re-arrange icons
  • Bar arrangement doesn't persist across macOS restarts
  • Live activities are compressed when Bartender is running, and can't be moved by Bartender
  • When you select the Menu Bar Layout screen, the settings page doesn't automatically resize
  • Some areas of Bartender don't respect the localization, such as the menu bar item, and various settings items
  • Bartender Bar can intermittently fail to click an item after moving it, specifically affecting the "Wi-Fi" menu bar item and similar
  • On launch, sometimes items are in the wrong position. Quickly move one item and they'll re-organize themselves
Download Bartender 6 Alpha 1

Alpha Testing Guidelines

Thank you for participating in the Bartender 6 alpha program. Please keep in mind:

  • This software is pre-release and may contain bugs
  • Always maintain backups of your Bartender preferences
  • Report issues through our feedback system