TuckTuck vs Bartender vs Ice vs Hidden Bar
All four apps do the same core job: they hide the Mac menu bar icons you don’t need behind a divider, and bring them back when you do. They differ in price, where you get them, what permissions they ask for, and how much they do beyond that.
| Tuck | Bartender | Ice | Hidden Bar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Paid, one-time licence (4-week trial) | Free, open source (GPL-3.0) | Free, open source (MIT) |
| Where to get it | Mac App Store | Its website or Setapp | GitHub or Homebrew | Mac App Store |
| macOS | 14 or later, including 26 and 27 | Bartender 7 for macOS 27, Bartender 6 for macOS 26 | 14 or later | 13 or later |
| Permissions to hide icons | None | Screen Recording optional, for images of your icons | Not listed on its site | None |
| Bar of hidden icons under the menu bar | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Account needed | No | Licence key | No | No |
Tuck
Free on the Mac App Store, so it installs and updates like any other App Store app and runs in Apple’s sandbox. It hides icons without any permissions. On macOS 27 you choose what hides by dragging one line across your icons, instead of ⌘-dragging each icon. It hides fully on wide and ultrawide displays, and refuses to hide anything while its divider is on the wrong side, so you can’t lock yourself out of your icons.
Pick Tuck if you want a free, simple, private app from the App Store that just keeps the menu bar tidy.
Bartender
The longest-running and most feature-rich menu bar manager. Beyond hiding, it can show a bar of your hidden icons under the menu bar, search menu bar items, show icons automatically when something changes, and style the menu bar. It’s paid, sold from its own website and through Setapp, with a free trial.
Pick Bartender if you want the deepest feature set and don’t mind paying for it.
Ice
A free, open-source menu bar manager inspired by Bartender, with many of the same ideas, including its own bar of hidden icons. You install it from GitHub or with Homebrew rather than from the App Store.
Pick Ice if you want open source and Bartender-style extras for free, and are happy installing outside the App Store.
Hidden Bar
A free, open-source, deliberately minimal app on the Mac App Store, also available from GitHub and Homebrew: a divider and an arrow, and not much else.
Pick Hidden Bar if you want the bare minimum and nothing more.
New to this?
Read how to hide menu bar icons on a Mac, including the built-in ways that need no app at all.