You can also Command-drag to rearrange all menu bar items, something that isn’t possible without Bartender: third-party apps have to bypass Apple’s restrictions to allow re-ordering and only some do, while certain system items are fixed in place. Whenever there’s an update to the display of the icon or text, Bartender will promote it to the main system menu bar for a selectable period of time from 5 seconds to 10 minutes.īartender 2 lets you put menu bar items into its bar or hide them. This helps with some system items that otherwise lack a display control, like Spotlight, and some third-party apps that show a menu-bar item whether you like it or not.Ī nice sub-option for each item is that with it hidden or in the Bartender bar, you can check Show Item in Menu Bar for Item Updates. Hot keys can be set to bring those modes up regardless of your preference, and to use the keyboard to move through each item.įor each menu item, you can choose where and whether it appears: Each menu item can be displayed normally, moved to Bartender’s bar, or hidden. That one-time setup is a small price to pay for El Capitan compatibility.īartender’s icon can trigger one of three behaviors: dropping down its own bar, which can be repositioned as you like, its default behavior or hide application menus so that you can see all menu-bar items or just those you haven’t marked as hidden in per-item preferences. With Bartender 2, you exercise control over your menu bar items, though it may require a restart or disabling and re-enabling each control to let the app take charge after that initial setup, it manages them from then on. You can control how menu bar items appear: normally, in the Bartender bar, or hidden when not in use. It can be a mess: my basic set comprises 20 items! At the same time, third-party developers have found endless reasons to stick sometimes quite sophisticated controls up there as well.

Over time, Apple has larded on more drop-down options as monitors have stretched as much as the features you might want quick access to.

Early in OS X’s evolution, only a handful of system items appeared by default or by choice in the menu bar at the far right.

Bartender 2 commands