# Hidden Bar: A Menu Bar Hider for macOS That Works by Moving Icons, Not Removing Them

> Hidden Bar is a small Swift menu bar utility from Dwarves Foundation that tucks icons behind an arrow instead of hiding them at the system level. It is free, MIT licensed, and requires macOS 13 Ventura or newer.

**dwarvesf/hidden** — An ultra-light MacOS utility that helps hide menu bar icons

- Repository: https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden
- Website: https://d.foundation/opensource
- Stars: 14,977 · Forks: 507
- Language: Swift
- License: MIT
- Published: 2026-09-21 · Updated: 2026-09-21 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/dwarvesf-hidden

## The menu bar clutter problem Hidden Bar targets

macOS gives applications a status item slot in the menu bar and no built-in way to group or collapse them. A Dropbox sync indicator, a VPN toggle, a clipboard manager, a battery monitor and a few background agents can push the bar past the width of a laptop screen, and on a notched MacBook the overflow simply disappears behind the notch. Hidden Bar exists for that specific situation: a user who wants most status icons out of sight but does not want to quit the apps that own them. It is not a window manager, not a launcher, and not a replacement for the system's own Control Center. The README states the goal plainly: "Hidden Bar lets you hide menu bar items to give your Mac a cleaner look." The audience is individual Mac users, not fleet administrators, and the distribution channels reflect that: the App Store listing and a Homebrew cask. The repository is written in Swift and carries the MIT licence, so the source is readable if you want to check what the app does with accessibility permissions before granting them.

## How the hiding trick works, and what it cannot do

The mechanism is positional rather than programmatic. Hidden Bar places two of its own items in the menu bar: a separator and an arrow. When you click the arrow, the app expands the separator, which pushes every icon positioned to its left off the visible edge of the bar. Click again and the separator contracts, and the icons return. Nothing is terminated and no private API is called to remove another app's status item. The README's usage section describes the two interactions the user performs: "⌘ + drag to move the Hidden icons around in the menu bar" and "Click the Arrow icon to hide menu bar items." Because the technique depends on where icons sit relative to the separator, ordering matters, and the README's manual-install instructions tell you to drag the Hidden icon to the right so it sits "between some other icons." The repository ships docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, which the README describes as covering "how the hiding trick works, topology, and known limits." That document is the honest place to check before assuming the app can hide anything anywhere. An icon that macOS itself pins to the right of the separator, or one that repositions itself on launch, will not stay hidden.

## Installing Hidden Bar with Homebrew or the App Store

Two supported install paths exist. The Homebrew cask is the fastest for developers who already manage software that way. Run the command below in Terminal and Homebrew will fetch the notarized build and place Hidden Bar in your Applications folder.

```bash
brew install --cask hiddenbar
```

After installation, launch the app. The README's manual instructions describe the next step: open the app, then hold Command and drag the Hidden icon in the menu bar to the right until it sits between the icons you want to keep visible and the ones you want to hide. Everything to the left of the separator is what the arrow will collapse. If you prefer not to use Homebrew, the README points to the latest release on GitHub and to the App Store listing; the manual route is to download the release, drag the app to Applications, and launch it. The README notes that builds distributed outside the App Store are notarized. The project also ships a manual at docs/MANUAL.md covering "every setting, the hidden Terminal-only options, and troubleshooting," which is worth opening if the arrow does not behave as expected on first launch.

## The macOS version floor is the first thing to check

Hidden Bar requires macOS 13.0 Ventura or newer. The README explains why: "Later versions require macOS 13 because autostart moved to the SMAppService API introduced there." That is a hard boundary, not a soft recommendation. If you are running macOS 10.13 High Sierra through 12 Monterey, the README directs you to v1.10 as the last release supporting those versions. Anyone on an older machine is therefore pinned to a 2022-era build with no path forward except upgrading the OS. This is the single most common reason a prospective user should stop reading and check System Settings first. It also explains the release cadence visible in the repository: v1.9 shipped in January 2022, v1.10 in March 2026, and v1.11.1 in September 2026 with the note "macOS 27 hiding, for real this time." The phrase suggests that a macOS update broke the hiding behaviour at some point and required a fix, which is a reminder that a positional trick sits close to the surface of the operating system and can be disturbed by OS changes.

## Where Hidden Bar is the wrong tool

Hidden Bar cannot reduce the number of running processes behind your menu bar icons. If an app is consuming battery or memory, hiding its icon does nothing about that; you still need to quit or uninstall the app. It also cannot hide icons that the system renders outside the reorderable region, and it cannot enforce a layout across reboots if an app recreates its status item in a different position. Users who want a permanent, scriptable menu bar configuration, or who need to manage menu bar items across a fleet of managed Macs, will find that this app has no configuration profile, no MDM story, and no command-line interface documented in the README. The README does mention "hidden Terminal-only options" in docs/MANUAL.md, but it does not describe them, so anyone needing automation should read that file before assuming a scripting surface exists. Finally, if your goal is to hide the menu bar itself rather than individual icons, this is not the tool for that either.

## Alternatives and how their approach differs

The closest comparison is Bartender, a long-standing commercial menu bar manager. The difference in approach is scope: Bartender documents rules, triggers and per-item behaviour for rearranging and revealing icons, while Hidden Bar offers one separator and one arrow and leaves the ordering to Command-drag. If you need conditional rules such as showing an icon only when a battery drops below a threshold, Hidden Bar does not offer that. If you simply want a click to collapse a block of icons, the extra surface area of a commercial tool is unnecessary. The project's own README also lists sibling utilities from the same foundation: Blurred, Micro Sniff and VimMotion. Those solve unrelated problems (dimming inactive windows, notifying when the microphone is in use, and Vim-style shortcuts) and are not substitutes. Within the free and open source space, Hidden Bar's distinguishing choice is that it stays out of the way: no background daemon with a network connection, no account, and a codebase small enough to read in an afternoon. That is the trade-off. You get simplicity and auditability, and you give up rules and automation.

## Maintenance, licence and upgrade cost

The repository is not archived, and the last push was on 2026-09-19, two days before this article's reference point, with v1.11.1 released on 2026-09-18. That is a recent codebase, but the release history shows the project moves in bursts rather than on a schedule: v1.9 in January 2022, then a three-year gap before v1.10 in March 2026. Anyone adopting Hidden Bar should weigh that pattern. Upgrades arrive through the App Store or Homebrew, and the project publishes a maintainer runbook at docs/RUNBOOK.md covering "build, behavioral verification, and release process," which is more release discipline than most utilities of this size. The licence is MIT, copyright Dwarves Foundation. In practical terms, MIT permits use, modification and redistribution provided the copyright notice and permission notice are retained; it offers no patent grant and no warranty. This is a description of the licence text, not legal advice, and anyone embedding the code in a commercial product should read LICENSE and PRIVACY_POLICY.md in the repository root themselves. For an end user installing the app, the licence imposes nothing.

## Conclusion

Adopt Hidden Bar if you run macOS 13 or newer and your menu bar is crowded with status icons you still want one click away. Skip it if you are on macOS 12 Monterey or older, or if you expect a system-level API that removes icons from the bar entirely; the project's own architecture document describes the approach as a positioning trick with known limits. Before installing, read docs/ARCHITECTURE.md to understand how the separator and arrow interact with your existing icons, then confirm your macOS version against the Ventura requirement in the README.

## FAQ

### How do I install Hidden Bar?

The README gives two routes: the App Store listing, or the Homebrew cask with brew install --cask hiddenbar. For a manual install, download the latest release, drag the app to the Applications folder, and launch it.

### What macOS version does Hidden Bar need?

macOS 13.0 Ventura or newer. The README states that later versions require macOS 13 because autostart moved to the SMAppService API introduced there, and that v1.10 is the last release supporting macOS 10.13 through 12 Monterey.

### How do I use Hidden Bar to hide menu bar icons?

Hold Command and drag the Hidden icon in the menu bar to the right so it sits between the icons you want visible and the ones you want hidden. Then click the Arrow icon to collapse the items to its left, and click again to bring them back.

## Sources

- [dwarvesf/hidden on GitHub](https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden)
- [License: MIT](https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden/blob/develop/LICENSE)
- [Project website](https://d.foundation/opensource)
- [README](https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden/blob/develop/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden/releases)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/dwarvesf-hidden