About
Ice is a free, open source menu bar manager that brings order to a crowded Mac menu bar. Icons you rarely touch tuck away behind a single toggle, reappear on demand, or sit in a dedicated secondary bar shown beneath the menu bar proper. Items rearrange by dragging, spacing between them is adjustable, and the bar itself can be restyled with tints, shadows and rounded corners.
Written by Jordan Baird and licensed under GPL-3.0, Ice has grown into the standard free answer to menu bar clutter, passing 28,000 stars on GitHub by 2026. The current release, version 0.11.12, includes search across menu bar items alongside the hiding and appearance tools. It gives away what competitors charge for, and does it with unusual polish.
Alternatives
- Bartender
Pick Bartender if you want a commercially maintained menu bar manager: it adds triggers and widgets, has a 4-week unlimited trial, and is also available through Setapp.
- Hidden Bar
Pick Hidden Bar if you want the lightest option: it is a free, MIT-licensed utility that simply hides menu bar icons behind a toggle, with a Mac App Store version too.
At a Glance
- Requires
- macOS 14 Sonoma or later
- Price
- Free and open source (GPL-3.0 licence)
- Get It From
- icemenubar.app or GitHub
Curator's Note
“It does quietly and for free what others charge yearly for, and the craft shows.”
Theo, Mac Dept.
