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Usage
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Left click | The display's click mode (Settings → Click), acting at once: Show → icon bar → hide (click 1 shows items, click 2 opens the icon bar with what's still off the bar, click 3 hides; default on the built-in display), Show / hide (default on external displays), or Icon bar only. |
| ⌥-click or the icon bar shortcut | Open the icon bar: everything currently off the bar, under the SmartHiddenBar icon. Same action again closes it. |
| Click an icon in the icon bar | That item's menu pops up under the SmartHiddenBar icon. Right-click does the same: over Accessibility, third-party menu bar items only offer a press. |
| Hover an icon in the icon bar | Its app name (and the item's label, if it has one) after about 0.2 s. |
| Right-click (or ⌃-click) | Menu: Show Items / Hide Items · Disable/Enable SmartHiddenBar · Menu Bar Apps ▸ · Settings… · About · Support · Quit SmartHiddenBar. |
| Right-click empty space in the icon bar | The same menu. |
| Hover empty menu bar space (optional) | After about 0.3 s, items show; they hide again when the pointer leaves the bar. |
| Click empty menu bar space (optional) | Show / hide. Clicks between two icons don't count: the bar must be empty 20 pt either side. |
| Click the clock while hiding is active | Hiding lifts so Notification Center can open (macOS blocks it otherwise), and comes back when it closes. |
Five global shortcuts are recordable in Settings:
| Shortcut | Default | Does |
|---|---|---|
| Show/hide items | off | Toggles hiding. |
| Icon bar | ⌃⌥B | Opens/closes the icon bar. Works even when macOS hides our own icon. |
| List apps | off | Pops up the Menu Bar Apps menu under the icon. |
| Settings | off | Opens Settings. |
| Quit | off | Quits. |
Record: click the shortcut field, press a combo with ⌃, ⌥ or ⌘. Esc cancels, Delete or Off clears.
The icon bar closes on Esc or any click outside it. Esc is observed, not consumed, so the frontmost app also receives it.
- Grant Accessibility… appears first if Accessibility is not granted.
- Show Items / Hide Items (not shown while disabled).
- Disable SmartHiddenBar / Enable SmartHiddenBar. Disabled hides nothing at all, always-hidden apps included, as if the app had quit. The icon dims, any click on it opens this menu, and the show/hide shortcut, hover and empty-space click do nothing. The state survives a relaunch. Enable brings back the previous show/hide state.
- Menu Bar Apps ▸: every third-party menu bar app, icon + name, alphabetical. Pick one and its menu is mirrored under the icon.
- Settings…, then About SmartHiddenBar, Support on Ko-fi and Quit SmartHiddenBar.
Choosing a hidden item opens its real menu, copies it, closes it, and pops the copy up under the SmartHiddenBar icon. When you pick a row, the app reopens the real menu, walks to the same row and presses it, but only if the title still matches. Items that are not menus (a panel or plain click action) are triggered by the press itself. See How it works.
Open from the right-click menu (Settings…, ⌘, while the app is active), or by opening SmartHiddenBar again from Finder or Raycast. Window title: "SmartHiddenBar Settings". While it is open the app shows in the Dock and Cmd-Tab with a small menu bar (About, Settings…, Close, Quit). Sections, in order: General, Click, Shortcuts, Icon Bar, Permissions, Always Hidden, About. Permissions moves to the top while Accessibility is missing.
| Control | Options | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Open at Login | on / off | Registers the app as a login item. If macOS needs approval, an Allow in Login Items… button appears. |
| Auto-rehide after | Never, 5 s, 10 s, 30 s, 60 s, When the pointer leaves the menu bar | After you show items, hide them again after the delay, or as soon as the pointer has been in the menu bar and left it (never while a menu or the icon bar is open). |
| Show items when hovering empty menu bar space | on / off | See the table above. |
| Click empty menu bar space to show / hide | on / off | See the table above. |
The five shortcuts above. Esc cancels recording, Delete turns a shortcut off. List apps is the keyboard route to a menu bar app.
One picker per display (by display name): Show → icon bar → hide, Show / hide, Icon bar only. ⌥-click always opens the icon bar.
Always hidden
| Control | Options | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| New menu bar apps | Show normally / Always hide | Always hide: an app SmartHiddenBar has never seen goes straight onto the list below. The first run only records what's already there. |
| One switch per menu bar app | on / off | On: the app stays off the bar even while items are shown. Reach it from the icon bar. |
| Control | Options | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Icons | App icons / Real menu bar icons | App icons use each app's icon. Real icons are crops of the actual menu bar items and need Screen Recording. Without that permission, app icons are shown. Choosing "Real" asks for Screen Recording if not yet granted. |
| Icon size in icon bar | 16–48 pt (default 24) | Height of each icon in the icon bar. Applies the next time the icon bar opens. |
| Show names in icon bar | on / off | Adds the app name under each icon. Hovering an icon always shows its name. |
Shows Accessibility and Screen Recording as Granted or Not granted, with a footer on why Accessibility is required and a button to open the right System Settings pane (Screen Recording shows Request the first time). The state refreshes when the app becomes active again, for example when you return from System Settings. See Permissions.
Version, repo link, Welcome Guide… (reopens the Welcome window), Reveal log (shows ~/Library/Logs/SmartHiddenBar.log in Finder), license note.
- Items right of the SmartHiddenBar icon stay visible; items left of it hide. Move the icon with ⌘-drag.
- Hiding is per app. See FAQ.
- Quitting the app or Disable SmartHiddenBar restores the full bar. "Show Items" does too (except always-hidden apps), until auto-rehide hides it again.
