Bartender

Update after developer response: The 6.3.1 update fixed the system resource issue for me. Bartender still uses a bit memory than Ice but this is to be expected as it has more features. I’m happy with it now! Ice is still a good alternative but I give Bartender a positive recommendation as well. My original review: Works fine functionally but takes an exorbitant amount of system resources for its intended purpose. I recommend Ice Menu Bar instead.

Why does the menu bar even need to be rearranged? It didn’t behave like this before. Having my mouse suddenly taken over while I’m working is extremely frustrating. This is not something that should ever happen to users, regardless of “indexing” or background processing. Saying “it will settle once indexing is complete” doesn’t solve the real problem. The problem is that the app interrupts active user input in the first place. That kind of behavior should be avoided by design. I’ve been using BarTender for a long time, and I really liked it. But lately it has become so intrusive and distracting that I felt forced to write this review. I understand that Apple updates can cause a lot of headaches for developers, but please listen carefully to what many users are saying. Also, if people already took the time to write reviews here, why do they still have to contact [email protected] separately? You are already here. You can read what is happening directly from your users.

BarTender has been one of my ‘always installed apps’ for many years but now nothing seems to be able to tame the issues with Tahoe menu bars on multi-screen setups. The bar works on a single screen but on multi-monitor setups, some of the icons on ‘inactive’ screens is a mess of some icons being visible and most greyed out. I can’t add a screenshot here but it’s an annoying mess. Looking at my menu bars right now, on the main MacBook Pro screen that I am using, the full menu bar is visible, but on my 2 additional screens, i have a couple of icons that keep flickering as almost visible and then not, then one icon is visible, then about 5 blank spaces, then the battery icon, then a space (where an icon appears on the active screen) then the wifi and volume icon, then a space, then the 2 slider menu (for quick access to tools) then the date and time. It’s a mess that probably isn’t doen to failings of BarTender. Just an unsighly mess.