Bartender, one of the best third-party apps for your Mac, seems to have silently sold to new owners in a move that has users worried. At the moment, there’s no evidence to suggest that Bartender is doing anything shady, but the lack of transparency about the change in ownership is a concerning development for everyone who uses the app. If you have Bartender version 5.0.52 or newer, you might want to downgrade to an older version, or use an alternative, until this issue is sorted out.
What is Bartender and why do people use it?
Bartender helps you keep your Mac’s menu bar clutter-free by hiding icons that you don’t need to see. The app has been a staple for Mac users for a long time, helping them cut down on the messy look that can come with extended computer use. With Bartender, people could choose to show or hide apps in the menu bar based on certain triggers. For example, I’d asked Bartender to show the battery icon only if my MacBook’s charge was at or below 25 percent.
It’s an incredibly simple and versatile tool that has been around for over a decade, and has always been among the first apps I’d install on a new MacBook.
How the Bartender ownership change was discovered
According to a recent Reddit post, Bartender’s owners appears to have sold the app to a different company. The Reddit user discovered the ownership change through MacUpdater, which is an app that helps you update all your Mac apps. The folks at MacUpdater discovered this issue because the name of the app’s owner changed twice without any explanation. Their attempts to reach Bartender’s original developer—Ben Surtees—were unsuccessful.
Why this change of ownership is concerning
When there is no transparency around an app’s ownership, you don’t know what the new management is going to do with your data. In order to function, Bartender requires permission to record your Mac’s screen at all times. With an unknown developer, giving this kind of blanket access to your Mac is a big no-no. Until the new owners offer some clarity about who they are, their history with app development, and a transparent roadmap for what they plan to do with Bartender, it’s a good idea to stay on an older version of the app or to switch to alternatives.
Why would downgrading protect you?
Downgrading to version 5.0.51 or older of Bartender will protect you from all the changes to the code brought on by the new ownership. Since this is a paid app that costs between $16 and $30 depending on the license you’ve paid for, you could safely continue using the older version until it stops working. That shouldn’t happen for some time, at least until the next version of macOS is released in a few months.
You can easily downgrade to an older version of Bartender by going to an older version of the app’s website. This Wayback Machine link should take you to a version of the page from April 2024. Download the installer from there, which will take you to Bartender’s 5.0.49 version, which was released before the owners changed. Be sure to skip all updates whenever the app prompts you to do so—you can even use a firewall app such as Lulu or LittleSnitch to block Bartender’s access to the internet entirely. This should allow you to safely use an older version of the app.
Bartender alternatives that you should consider
Credit: Hidden Bar
These are a few good Bartender alternatives out there:
Ice (Free): This is a menu bar management app for macOS Sonoma and beyond. It’s in active development, with the GitHub page showing a feature roadmap. It lacks some of Bartender’s advanced triggers, but has most other features you might need, including the ability to tweak the menu bar’s appearance and show or hide certain items. There are also keyboard shortcuts to reveal sections of the menu bar.
Hidden Bar (Free): Once again, Hidden Bar is a good basic menu bar manager for your Mac. It can set up zones in the menu bar and automatically show or hide icons in certain sections. There’s a keyboard shortcut to toggle the display for icons on and off. It isn’t as powerful as Bartender, but handles the basics well.
iBar (Free): Another basic menu bar management app available via the Mac App Store. It lets you show or hide certain menu bar icons and does its job quite well. You won’t get Bartender’s advanced features here either.
It’s hard to find a feature complete Bartender alternative at the moment. I hope this changes in the future, but until then, you’re going to have to deal with either Bartender’s concerning new ownership, or having a few missing features for menu bar management.
