Your menu bar. Your rules. Only what you need.
A native macOS menu bar manager that hides the icons you don't need until you ask for them — fast, private, and dependency-free. Part of the Quiet Apps family.
Install · Features · Usage · Build from source · FAQ
You have twelve menu bar icons. You need three. The rest are noise — cluttering your screen, fighting for space near the notch, making the icons you actually use harder to find.
Quiet Menubar puts a < arrow and a | separator in your menu bar. Drag anything you don't need past the arrow, click to collapse, done. Your cleaned-up bar is one click away from the rest. No subscription. No cloud. No analytics.
Inspired by Hidden Bar. Rebuilt from scratch with the fixes users actually asked for — part of the free, open-source Quiet Apps family.
Current release: version 1.0.0, build 1 — see CHANGELOG for per-build notes
- Two-section menu bar — drag icons left of the
<arrow to hide them; icons right stay always visible - One-click toggle — click the
<arrow to show or hide your hidden section instantly - Global hotkey — remappable keyboard shortcut toggles the hidden section system-wide (requires Accessibility)
- Auto-hide — optionally collapse the hidden section after a configurable delay (defaults to Never so you always choose)
- New icons stay visible by default — when you install a new app, its menu bar icon appears in the always-visible section. The original Hidden Bar would silently swallow new icons — the #1 complaint in its App Store reviews. You can opt back in under Preferences → General
- 30-second grace window on launch — newly detected icons during startup land in the visible section automatically
- Arrow color — choose any color, including a low-alpha "blend with menu bar" option that makes the separator nearly invisible
- Auto-hide delay — Never, 3 s, 5 s, 10 s, 30 s
- Launch at login — via
SMAppService(macOS 13+) or manual on macOS 12
- Menu bar agent — no Dock icon, no Task Switcher entry
- 100% Swift + AppKit — no SwiftUI for status-item logic
- No external dependencies — Apple frameworks only
- Notch-aware — clamps the expander width so icons never get stranded under the MacBook notch
- Multi-display aware
Note: Quiet Menubar is not code-signed with an Apple Developer ID. macOS Gatekeeper will warn on first launch. The steps below work around it automatically.
brew tap quietapps/quietmenubar
brew install --cask quietmenubarThe cask strips the macOS quarantine attribute on install so Gatekeeper does not block launch. The tap is at quietapps/homebrew-quietmenubar.
- Grab the latest
QuietMenubar-*.zipfrom Releases - Unzip → drag Quiet Menubar.app into
/Applications - Strip the quarantine attribute (or right-click → Open once):
xattr -cr "/Applications/Quiet Menubar.app"- Launch Quiet Menubar — the
<arrow and|bar appear in your menu bar - Grant Accessibility access when prompted to enable the global hotkey
macOS silently blocks unsigned binaries on first launch. Fix it once with any of these:
Option A — Right-click open (no Terminal needed)
- Open Finder →
/Applications - Right-click Quiet Menubar.app → Open
- Click Open in the warning dialog
- macOS remembers your choice for every future launch
Option B — Terminal
xattr -cr "/Applications/Quiet Menubar.app"Option C — System Settings
- Try to launch the app — macOS shows a blocked notification
- Open System Settings → Privacy & Security
- Scroll to the message about Quiet Menubar
- Click Open Anyway
brew update
brew upgrade --cask quietmenubarDownload the newer zip from Releases, drag the new Quiet Menubar.app over the old one in /Applications, then run:
xattr -cr "/Applications/Quiet Menubar.app"Your preferences are stored separately and are unaffected by app updates.
# Remove the app and its preferences (via the cask's zap stanza)
brew uninstall --cask --zap quietmenubar
# Drop the tap
brew untap quietapps/quietmenubar
# Purge Homebrew's download cache
brew cleanup --prune=all -sOptional manual cleanup if you skipped --zap:
defaults delete app.quiet.QuietMenubar 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/app.quiet.QuietMenubar.plist \
~/Library/Caches/app.quiet.QuietMenubar \
~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/app.quiet.QuietMenubar.savedState# Move the app to Trash
rm -rf "/Applications/Quiet Menubar.app"
# Remove preferences
defaults delete app.quiet.QuietMenubar 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/app.quiet.QuietMenubar.plist \
~/Library/Caches/app.quiet.QuietMenubar \
~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/app.quiet.QuietMenubar.savedState| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Hide an icon | Hold ⌘ and drag it left of the < arrow |
| Show all hidden icons | Click the < arrow |
| Hide the hidden section again | Click the < arrow again |
| Toggle via keyboard | Global hotkey (configurable in Preferences) |
| Open Preferences | Click the | bar → Preferences… |
| Right-click menu | Right-click the < arrow for quick actions |
| Quit | Click the | bar → Quit |
[hidden icons ...] < [always-visible icons ...] |
↑ ↑
toggle arrow preferences / quit
Icons dragged left of < are in the hidden section. Icons right of < are always visible. The | bar is fixed on the right edge of your always-visible section.
Quiet Menubar requests Accessibility access on first launch.
- What it's used for: registering a global keyboard shortcut so the show/hide toggle works system-wide
- What it's NOT used for: the app does not read your screen, your input, or any other app's data. Zero network calls
On first launch you'll see an onboarding window with a button to open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Flip the Quiet Menubar switch on. The app polls every two seconds and re-enables features automatically — no restart needed.
If you decline, everything works except the global hotkey.
- macOS 12.0 (Monterey) or later
- Xcode 15.0 or later
- XcodeGen
No paid Apple Developer account required — the project uses automatic signing with any personal team.
git clone https://github.com/quietapps/QuietMenubar.git
cd QuietMenubar
brew install xcodegen
xcodegen generate
open QuietMenubar.xcodeprojPress ⌘R in Xcode. The < arrow and | bar appear in your menu bar.
Or from the command line:
xcodebuild -project QuietMenubar.xcodeproj -scheme QuietMenubar -configuration Release buildproject.yml is the single source of truth for the version. Edit MARKETING_VERSION there, then run xcodegen generate. Changes made in Xcode's Build Settings UI are lost on the next xcodegen generate.
QuietMenubar/
├── AppDelegate.swift # Lifecycle, hotkey registration, accessory policy
├── StatusBarController.swift # Three NSStatusItems + expander-hiding mechanism
├── PreferencesWindowController.swift # NSTabView preferences UI
├── HotKeyManager.swift # Carbon RegisterEventHotKey + recorder helpers
├── LaunchAtLoginManager.swift # SMAppService wrapper (macOS 13+) with fallback
├── AccessibilityManager.swift # AXIsProcessTrusted polling + deep-link
├── OnboardingWindowController.swift # First-launch explainer
├── AppSettings.swift # UserDefaults wrapper
├── NewItemWatcher.swift # New-icons-stay-visible grace window
├── Info.plist # LSUIElement = YES, AX usage description
└── QuietMenubar.entitlements # App Sandbox = NO
No external dependencies — Apple frameworks only (AppKit, Carbon, ServiceManagement).
macOS provides no API to enumerate, hide, or reposition other apps' NSStatusItems. The hiding mechanism is the same technique Hidden Bar pioneered: an invisible NSStatusItem of variable length is placed left of the < arrow. When you collapse, this expander grows wide enough to push everything left of it off the visible portion of the menu bar.
Practical implications:
- You must ⌘-drag your existing icons across the separators yourself — the app cannot move them for you
- The notch on MacBook Pro 14"/16" limits how far left the expander can push icons; Quiet Menubar clamps its width to
NSScreen.main.auxiliaryTopLeftArea.widthminus a safety margin to avoid stranding icons under the notch
All settings are in Preferences (click the | bar → Preferences…). Reset to defaults:
defaults delete app.quiet.QuietMenubar| OS | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| macOS 12 (Monterey) | Supported | Launch-at-login uses legacy SMLoginItemSetEnabled; prompts for manual enable |
| macOS 13 (Ventura) | Full support | SMAppService.mainApp for launch at login |
| macOS 14 (Sonoma) | Full support | nudgeRedraw() workaround for 1–2 pt residual gap on status item toggle |
| macOS 15 (Sequoia) | Full support | Same as Sonoma; notch width clamp more aggressively enforced |
Does Quiet Menubar send any data anywhere? No. Zero network calls. No analytics, no telemetry.
Why does it need Accessibility permission?
To register a global keyboard shortcut via Carbon's RegisterEventHotKey API. macOS gates this behind Accessibility. The app does not read your screen, input, or any other app's data.
Why can't it just hide icons automatically?
macOS provides no API for one app to enumerate or move another app's NSStatusItem. You have to ⌘-drag icons past the separator yourself. This is the same constraint every menu bar manager faces.
Why are my icons stuck under the notch? This happens when the expander grows too wide on a MacBook Pro with a notch. Quiet Menubar clamps the expander width to avoid it, but if you have an unusually large number of hidden icons the clamp may not be sufficient. Try moving a few icons back to the visible section.
A new app's icon appeared in the hidden section.
Go to Preferences → General and check Keep new icons visible by default. If the app launched before you could see it, drag the icon right of the < arrow to make it always visible.
How do I remove the | bar from my menu bar?
The | bar is Quiet Menubar's own control item — it's not removable while the app is running. Quit Quiet Menubar and it disappears.
Where is Launch at Login on macOS 12?
macOS 12 doesn't support SMAppService. Quiet Menubar shows an alert asking you to enable it manually in System Settings → General → Login Items. This is fixed on macOS 13+.
How do I quit?
Click the | bar → Quit.
MIT © Quiet Apps
Inspired by Hidden Bar. Independent implementation, rewritten from scratch.