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Bartender 3

Version: 3.1.25
Requires macOS Sierra to Catalina

For macOS Big Sur please use Bartender 4
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Bartender 3

Organize your menu bar apps

Bartender 3 Preferences

To get to Bartenders Preferences you can right click or alt+click on the Bartender menu item this will open Bartenders menu, and choose “Preferences…”. Or you can launch Bartender again (with it already running) and this will open Preferences.

Menu Items

This screen allows you to set what Bartender does with your menu bar apps and system items.

On the left shows active menu bar items, system items, and apps with settings in Bartender. At the bottom of the column you can refresh the list of apps. If you launch apps whilst in preferences; clicking this will add them into the list.



On the right are the settings for the app selected on the left. A rundown of these from top to bottom are:

  • Menu Bar Item - What Bartender should do with the app, the options are:
    • Show. This means the item will show in the menu bar, and be hidden when showing hidden items.
    • Hide. This will hide the app from the menu bar and display it when showing hidden items.
    • Always show in menu bar. This means the item will show in the menu bar and never be hidden, even when showing hidden items.
    • Always hide. This will remove the app from the menu bar and not show it when showing hidden items. You can then see these items by either setting them to display only when updating or by showing all menu bar items.
  • When item updates - Sets whether Bartender should display menu item updates in the menu bar or not.
  • for - the period it should stay in the menu bar after showing for an update.
  • Text search name - This is the name used when searching menu bar items, the default is show but you can change this here to what you want, for example just “WiFi” for the Airport item.



General

General has some basic settings for Bartender:

  • Startup - Selecting this will add Bartender to your Login Items. Bartender will then launch automatically when you login.
  • Hidden Items - Autohide again when click elsewhere or use another app, setting this will make the Bartender Bar disappear when you click on another app.



Appearance

The Appearance tab lets you setup how you want Bartender to look.

  • Bartender menu bar item - De-selecting this box hides the Bartender menu bar icon. You will then need to have keyboard shortcuts to access the features you want. You can access Bartender Preferences by launching Bartender again while its still running.
  • Bartender menu bar icon - This allows you to choose an icon for Bartender or use your own image. If you create a great icon for Bartender we would love to see it for inclusion in a future update!



Hot Keys

  • Show Hidden Items - This is the hot key that will show/hide the hidden items.
  • Show full width of menu bar - This hot key will make Bartender show the full menu bar (remove any menu) to allow you to see all menu bar items. You can use this feature alone to display all your menu bar items without having to find an app with a small menu bar.
  • Show all menu bar items - This will do the same as the above hot key but in addition displays all menu bar items. Great for accessing your hidden Apps.
  • Search menu bar items - This will allow you to search for any menu bar item - this uses the “Text Search Name” to find matches.
  • Keyboard Navigate - This will allow you to use the arrow keys to navigate menu bar items in the menu bar.



Advanced

  • Energy Saving: When on battery power - Setting this will make Bartender check for updates to items less often when on battery power. Bartender already uses very little energy when doing this, but to extend battery life to the max this can be checked.
  • To show all Bartender Bar items - Bartender will maximise the space available to show all menu items by removing the left application menu if Bartender Bar items wouldnt be visible when they are shown. One downside to this is the Bartender dock icon will be shown while it removes the left menu (this is a limitation of macOS) turning this off will stop Bartender removing the left menu and also stop the dock icon appearing.



Updates

  • Updates: Allows you to check for Updates straight away.
  • Check for Updates Automatically - this will make Bartender periodically check for updates and let you know.
  • Update to Test Builds - this will check for Test Builds as well as full releases, these test builds contain our newest features and bug fixes, but can also be less stable as they are still in development.