Many applications on the Mac will provide menu bar icons and options, most of which have a low click frequency, and the application itself does not support hiding the menu bar icons. Therefore, we often use menu bar customization tools such as Bartender to fold uncommon icons.
I have experienced macOS Big Sur in the testing phase, and one of the obvious things that made me feel is that Bartender 3 has failed. Because the default spacing of macOS Big Sur menu bar icons is wider, the application icons lined up almost completely fill the top menu bar.
A few days ago, as the official version of macOS Big Sur was launched, Bartender 4 also arrived, supporting the new version of the system and providing a series of feature updates.
The first is the brand-new menu bar layout mechanism. We can drag the application icons to organize them and divide them into ‘always show’, ‘click to show’, and ‘always hide’. You can also determine the default placement of newly added application icons and insert a larger gap between icons.
The trigger mechanism for icon display has also been enhanced. Now it is possible to determine whether to display an icon based on status changes, icon matching, or scripts. For example, the battery status is displayed when the power is connected, and the icon is displayed when the volume is adjusted or Wi-Fi is disconnected.
In addition, the method of manually triggering the display of hidden icons has also become more convenient and easy to use. Now it supports moving the mouse to the menu bar to automatically expand the hidden icons, or click any blank area in the menu bar to expand the hidden icons.
Bartender 4 also added a feature called Quick Search, which is similar to a quick launcher working in Bartender. After setting the buttons, you can quickly retrieve and expand the menu bar icon options of the selected application.
Bartender 4 is still in public beta, you can go to the official website to download for free and experience the full functionality. When the official version was launched, Bartender 4 was priced at US$15. Users who purchased Bartender 3 after April 2020 can upgrade for free, while other old users need to pay US$7.5 for the upgrade.
