Bartender Reviews3.1.7

I've been using Bartender for years. I don't know why I hadn't reviewed it here yet. I have bunch of Menu Bar icons, mostly for work-related apps that run in the background, and to which I need quick access. I also hate clutter. Bartender solves that problem. I can tuck away all but the most essential icons, and hide things that I don't need up there because they're accessible via keystrokes (Spotlight, Notifications). I've tried similar apps, but Bartender has the best UI/UX by far. Having said that, occasionally icons get rearranged, and getting them to stay put isn't as easy as it should be. But that's the only reason I'm docking it a star.

I've been using Bartender for years. I don't know why I hadn't reviewed it here yet. I have bunch of Menu Bar icons, mostly for work-related apps that run in the background, and to which I need quick access. I also hate clutter. Bartender solves that problem. I can tuck away all but the most essential icons, and hide things that I don't need up there because they're accessible via keystrokes (Spotlight, Notifications). I've tried similar apps, but Bartender has the best UI/UX by far. Having said that, occasionally icons get rearranged, and getting them to stay put isn't as easy as it should be. But that's the only reason I'm docking it a star.

I was okay with the price, and liked the app for a long time, but now I realize they're 'recording the screen', I'm not so okay with it anymore. Don't care what they say, they shouldn't be recording the screen. Hope they 'fix' this and keep their screen recording an option for those who don't care about privacy.

I've tried them all. I kept coming back to Bartender for stability, ease of setup, and the fact that I've yet to have to wait for updates to work on an OS update. Vanilla, Dozer, and most all the other similar apps all work well, and some are even free. But they all lack what makes Bartender the king of the hill. As far as I'm concerned, with very little exception, the only people who wouldn't prefer to have Bartender are the ones who habitually claim an app is "too pricey for what it does" and that it needs to cost $X and let the sales volume offset the difference. No matter what the app does or what the price is, they claim it needs to cost less (usually about 30-50% less). They also tend not to know jack-sh!t about app development and sales.

Bartender is a great way to control the menu bar. Fast response to user questions and issues. solid product backed by solid costumer service.

Love this app. Cleans up my screen.

Highly recommended! Works under Sierra and High Sierra. You have control over all the Menu Bar items at the top of your screen. You can have as many or as few showing by default, with all the remaining items showing in the alternative menu bar under the menu bar (Sierra) or in the menu bar (High Sierra). Recommended - try it - and your Menu Bar will be decluttered, no matter how big or small your screen may be. Particularly useful on laptops.

Wonderful app to take the clutter out of the menubar <3

Dear developers, I bought Bartender version 1 some years ago. However, I stopped using it because I had too many menu bar apps and it was slowing down my computer. I recently bought a faster Mac and wanted Bartender to manage the menu again. Unfortunately, 1. There's no upgrade path for people with version 1 (only v2). $20AUD is a lot of money for a small utility to start over from scratch. I think it's important to look after people who've previously invested in the product. 2. The multiple rows facility no longer exists. I really like the UI of throwing the mouse curser up to the top of the screen and seeing a palette pop down. Much better than having to find the Bartender icon and click on it. Well done for implementing that. But I can't see the point of having Bartender if all it does is run your menu items across the top line. I already have 19 items and I'd like to add more. Over to you...

Be ware if using Tri-Backup you will suffer :) as this version seem to have a major problem with that application

Keeps the menu bar clean!

Bartender is something Apple should have implemented in OSX for a long time, can’t live without this little useful app, it uncluttered my top bar years ago and since then is a necessity.

Not bad and serves the need that I had. One question, though. Is there any way to set it up so that it will close after a certain amount of time? If I open the menu and select an item, the menu stays open until I select a different window. It would be great if there was a way to close it when an item is selected or after a certain amount of time. I looked, but didn't see any way.

This is a must-have! Could not live without it!

Worth every penny & totally indispensable for me. Brilliantly tidy menu bar now (-: App regularly updated, tech support good and working perfectly on High-Sierra 10.13.3 beta. Should be part of the OS IMHO.

The new Bartender 3 is a disaster, at least on Sierra, don't know how it does on High Sierra. The 2 is clean and any app is easy to spot when you need it, on its own bar. Bartender 3 is a mess, all the app you don't want hidden, disappear and if you decide you want them all in your menu without having a big display, you are better off Bartender completely. It was so good having the second menu bar, clean and organized and you could still keep an eye on the others apps. Please give us back the options to have the second menu bar !

Indispensable. A must-have. Picks up the ball that Apple has dropped regarding the management of Menu items.

Allows me to run 40+ menubar apps. Works great

I am very confused why it has a high rating... If you have a lot of menu-bar icons, this app cannot organize them very well. If you are an OCD patient, this app will drive you crazy about sequencing menu-bar icons, because this app has some bugs, for example, 1. before you used this app, you sequenced your menu-bar icons pretty well, and then you launched this app; then quit this app. Congrats! Your icons became messy. 2. before you used this app, you sequenced your ALL menu-bar icons pretty well, and quit few apps which show icons on menu bar, and then launched this app, and launched those few apps back. You will discover that those few icons are messy. 3. I am tired to tell about all the critical bugs... I really don't know why there is no any alternative app.

I didn't realize that Bartender 3 was a free upgrade for Bartender 2 users until I checked the license after installing version 3. Props for that. It should be noted on this page so as not to discourage people like me who hesitated, thinking I would have to pay full price all over again. That said, I won't miss the Bartender Bar. Given how much control Bartender gives me over the menu bar, a standalone bar always seemed redundant. But, hey, different strokes for different folks. Of course it you are enamored of it, with the new version you can replace your extant menu bar with the Bartender Bar if you wish. For what it's worth, since I have so many items in my menu bar (the 17" screen on my iMac makes this feasible) I took a screenshot of the menu bar after I got it arranged so that I could track how well Bartender was handling things. As it happens, it was doing a pretty good job. Maybe version 3 will do even better. Anyway, because it mostly works as advertised and also because the upgrade was free I'll give it lots of stars.

Considering their blog states, "Bartender 3 is a FREE update for all Bartender 2 users", the High Sierra compatibility and improved "look and feel" are great and much appreciated. The big change in how the Bartender Bar behaves is really not that big of a deal. Also, there are plenty of other apps & utilities I have that released paid upgrades for full High Sierra compatibility, so kudos to Surtees Studios for being generous. Completing rewriting an app from the ground up, and no upgrade charge? How can anyone complain about that?

Invaluable, especially when using a small screen with lot's of menubar apps.

V3 works fine on Sierra. Have not yet upgraded to High Sierra.

I have never had a problem with Bartender not working properly as some reviewers report here. And I am a power Mac user with many apps and many menubar based apps. The developer has always been responsive.

Wow... lot of hate for Bartender 3 accumulating here. Personally, I think it's great. I've been using Bartender for years, and it was a bit of an adjustment getting used to the new way of showing the icons in v. 3, but geez, it's not that big a deal. Also, my experience with the developer has been totally different. Very responsive the few times I've had issues.

Personnally, with dozens of MenuBarItems, I couldn't live without Bartender. The current version is 3.0.8.

Terrific! Version 2 somehow was interfering with my login items. Version 3 now allows login in items to start up automatically again. Revealing the hidden menu bar items by making the normal ones disappear works totally fine for me---in fact I like the new way more than the old way of showing the hidden ones below the menu bar. I almost never need to see the hidden items, which is why I hide them! And if I do need to see them, I don't need to see the normal ones for a few seconds!! Definitely one of my favorite utilities. Happy to see it works with Sierra now, and hopefully High Sierra also soon!

Does a wonderful job of cleaning up my menu bar! An essential for laptop users.

Bartender 3.0 beta at autoupdate now.
Good work on macOS High Sierra DP8.

Display style change hide items on to extract menubar from riginal bar.

Well, I bought Bartender months ago and I was happy with it. But as I changed the HD in my Macbook, it did not work anymore. I am trying now for weeks to get the problem resolved with the support. Sent several messages - no response. Finally the support responded, but it did not resolve the issue. And so it is going on... I can not recommend the app with such a support. You pay for it and it does not work for months now. See below, others have similar problems. This is a huge lack with a customer!

This used to be a great app and worked very well for me on El Capitan. Now however its nearly a year since the last update and its still a buggy mess on Sierra. Unless the developer decides to reappear again then this is essentially an abandoned app. An app called Vanilla by Matthew Palmer looks like a promising alternative (albeit less feature rich *at the time of typing). In the meantime, a fix for the app order not being remembered after each reboot is as follows: 1- Quit out of Bartender (right click on the bartender menu item for this option) 2- Locate and delete the following file from your user directory: Library/Preferences/com.surteesstudios.Bartender.plist (this will reset your menubar preferences for bartender) 3- Open Bartender. Launch all your apps with menubar icons and get to organising/removing them to your preference. 4- Once you're happy with how everything looks, head back to the newly generated file in your user directory: Library/Preferences/com.surteesstudios.Bartender.plist 5- Right click/control click on the file and check the 'locked' checkbox. This locks the file to prevent any further changes taking place. You will need to locate the file and uncheck the 'locked' checkbox everytime you wish to make menubar changes, and recheck it again afterwards. This worked for me except for 1 menubar item which insists on appearing on the far left hand side. Which for the time being I'm working around by ordering menubar items with that in mind.

The app itself is excellent, but the support of this company is ridiculous. In the last couple of weeks, I sent 3 messages without any response. I bought the app, but after installing a new HD, it won;t work anymore. Reinstalling etc. did not help. So, what matters that the app is good, if it doesn't work and the developer treats you like an idiot?

★★★★★
Bartender is one of a few features that Apple should've included as a part of the OS yet neglected to do so. It allows us to have quick access to a wide range of features while keeping clutters to minimal. It's a must-have gem. I hope the developer will continue to keep up with the OS updates. Although High Sierra has disabled the ability to move system items around, it is still able to control other menubar items, and I'm sure the developer will eventually resolve any issues currently present in High Sierra Beta, just as they did with all the previous versions of OS.

If you choose "Display All Items in Menu Bar" and arrange a menubar icon near the end, for example, Searching Location Icon, there is a very high opportunity to make all icons messy again. I am very tired to arrange, and sort my lots of icons logically, organizedly again and again.

Brilliant app I use to hide crappy apps that insist on staying in the menu bar (Adobe I am looking at you) and keeping the most useful icons separate.

I used it for a while, but I eliminated the “need” for this utility simply by reducing the number of menubar icons to bare minimum essentials. I found that most things people consider essential actually aren’t. Bartender is one of those things. Although the developer has maintained this utility even through the SIP transition, I contend that it is a matter of time before the developer finds it either impossible or not worth the trouble to maintain it. TotalFinder, TotalSpace, Zooom2, Optimal Layout, FinderPop, to name a few. You might think it’s all Apple’s fault, but even Linux have something similar to SIP on OS X now. System-level protection is going to be tighter and tighter in the future, and it is evident that OS vendors don’t particularly appreciate third-party developers messing with something as fundamental as the menubar. It’s not a good idea from security standpoint even in a general sense. The enthusiastic minority Mac fans will always say stuff like “I can not live without this utility!” But the reality is that the vast majority of users, even so-called power/professional users, don’t even care to have something like this. Here is how it always turns out; You buy a piece of software like this thinking you can miraculously improve the user experiences. Then, you start spending more time tinkering and troubleshooting as you use it more. Soon, you become a volunteer beta tester for the developer while you also become unnecessarily attached to its novel, optional functionality. After a while, you stop seeing updates and bug fixes, and then you painfully realize that the developers of the utility abandoned it for one reason or another. You will be left with a lot of frustration as a result of your novel setup ripped apart only because some developers no longer felt like doing anything with it. I'm sick and tired of this classic pattern with indie developers and wasting my time and money in the process. I found that, in the long run, these “system enhancements” added more complexity, frustration and “needs” to tinker with, and that I was much better off just making good use of all the default features on my Mac. Any small gains in user experience are not worth the massive trade-off of depending on this type of utilities.

I was a great fan of Bartender with Yosemite and earlier, but when El Capitan came along with SIP, Bartender became more trouble than it was worth, even, at that time with version 2, and I uninstalled it. Today I decided to try it again. To my surprise and delight Bartender 2 now works perfectly for me with Sierra on both my laptops.

To all you who have the problem with rearrangement of icons in the Mac menu bar, not Bartenders hidden bar, try this:

I disabled SIP, rebooted, and rearranged the icons in my preferred order. Then i rebooted and enabled SIP again. This seems to have remedied my problem with Bartender not remembering icon positions over a reboot. Hope this helps others. Please confirm if it helps on your machines guys. Dropbox still isn't behaving nicely though.

BTW I only give it a 4 rating since it has been such a hassle figuring this out, otherwise it would have gotten 5 stars.

Recently purchased this app and it serves me very well. Many people think that this app is useless given that since Sieara we can remove icons by holding cmd key and drag them. However, the point of this app is not reducing the icons we have in the menu bar but to have a second one with still handy accessibility. For this I give this app 4.5 out of 5. Thanks for the developers.

Nope... Still unable to recommend this app as it is too damned expensive given the functionality. $6.00 would be a no-brainer. Nice as the app is it is let down by the developers avarice. A holding down of the Cmd key allows anyone to swap around each of the activated Apple made menu items, the inability to order around several other Menu Items is not about to make me lose sleep.