Repository navigation
Permissions
| Permission | Needed? | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | Required | Listing every app's menu bar items (AXExtrasMenuBar), reading and pressing their menus, finding its own icon's position. Without it nothing is hidden. |
| Screen Recording | Optional | Only for Real menu bar icons in Settings: a screenshot of the menu bar strip is cropped into per-item icons. |
SmartHiddenBar has no network access and no analytics.
The app asks on launch. Grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. If it is missing, the right-click menu shows Grant Accessibility… and the Settings window shows a ✗.
Releases are self-signed with a stable identity, so permissions survive updates (not notarized, so first launch still needs Open Anyway), so the grant normally survives updates. If it is lost anyway (for example coming from 1.3.1 or older, which were ad-hoc signed), re-grant it:
- toggle SmartHiddenBar off and on in the Accessibility list, or
- reset it and grant again:
tccutil reset Accessibility com.roypadina.SmartHiddenBarThen relaunch the app if it still does nothing.
Optional. Turn it on by choosing Real menu bar icons in Settings (macOS asks), or use the Request button under Permissions. If you decline, the icon bar and menus keep using app icons.
- macOS re-asks about Screen Recording roughly monthly ("keep allowing screen access?"). That is a macOS behavior, not the app.
- Reset it with
tccutil reset ScreenCapture com.roypadina.SmartHiddenBar. - Icons are captured while the items are on the bar (at launch, and shortly after you show items), so a hidden item's real icon appears once it has been visible with the permission granted.
The app is not notarized. The first launch needs Open Anyway in System Settings → Privacy & Security, or xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/SmartHiddenBar.app". See Installation.
