macOS 27 Preview 5 (experimental)

Experimental build for macOS 27 (Golden Gate) — not on the Sparkle update channel.

Commit	528b950
Branch	feat/macos-27-experimental
Build	Build DMG #29982043048
Artifact	Thaw-dmg
Announced	#687 comment
Feedback	Discussion #737 · Tracking #687

Out of update channel — install manually; Sparkle / appcast.xml were not updated.

Active development preview. Issues with Focus and multiple items from the same app should be improved versus earlier builds. Items from the same app still cannot be separated independently.

---

Highlights since Preview 4

macOS 27 menu bar reliability

• Stop Visible-section snap-back and Layout chevron glyph glitches
• Dampen menu bar churn from recache / visible-control restore
• Prune orphaned control-item position keys on startup
• Capture Thaw’s own icon from the display strip
• Preserve Focus and Now Playing assignments
• Preserve section order during reveal; stop reveal-time position rewrites that blocked rehide clicks
• Keep refresh signatures stable when concealed items leave the cache
• Show real names for item tooltips
• Group same-bundle items and exclude strip overlays

Ice Bar / capture

• Avoid native overflow arrow captures
• Hide stale app-icon fallbacks
• Coalesce shareable-content fetches
• Icon fallback path; retire stale capture paths
• Refine layout icon previews and adaptive icon presentation

Memory / concurrency

• Detach cropped glyph images before caching
• Lower default icon refresh rate (10 fps → 4 fps)
• Synchronize shared runtime state

Settings / UI

• Tools safety disclaimer
• Reduce-motion-gated animations (Ice Bar, badge, tour)
• Settings / Layout Bar cleanup and glass vocabulary unification
• Profile delete confirmation alert hoisted to pane root
• Automation URI warning icon fix
• Localization: plural rules, punctuation, locale-safe timing labels

Tooling

• CI on Xcode 27 runners

Notes

• Still experimental — expect edge cases on Public Betas; please report in #737.
• App marketing version in the binary may still read 2.0.0-rc.1 (47); the Git tag is the preview identifier.

macOS 27 Preview 4 (experimental)

Experimental build for macOS 27 (Golden Gate) — not on the Sparkle update channel.

Commit	88bc31474b7d
Branch	feat/macos-27-experimental
Build	Build DMG #28663219830
Artifact	Thaw-dmg
Announced	#687 comment
Feedback	Discussion #737 · Tracking #687

Out of update channel — install manually; Sparkle / appcast.xml were not updated.

---

macOS 27 Preview 4 — Release Notes

This is the highly likely the final experimental preview for macOS 27. If no further critical issues are found, the next build will transition to the Alpha phase as we shift from initial API adaptation to stabilization and regression testing. The target is the v2.1.0 development cycle, but the exact timing depends on the team’s migration to the macOS 27 beta environment, so the availability date may still shift.

Download here or here

Note

Please log all issues in #737. Include your environment details (Mac model, notch, conflicting menu bar apps) and diagnostic logs.

Fixed

• Fixed duplicate icons, repeated arrow icons, and icons showing the wrong app — caused by macOS 27's new "overflow" arrow being mistaken for a regular menu bar item.
• Your cursor no longer gets pulled around while Thaw is rearranging icons — mouse movement during a reorder used to throw things off, that's fixed now.
• Fixed Thaw's own icon (and the overflow arrow) sometimes ending up stuck in the wrong spot near the notch.
• Fixed your saved icon layout occasionally being overwritten with a temporary, unsettled layout — for example right after waking from sleep or reconnecting a display.
• Fixed the icon in the menu bar staying highlighted/stuck-looking after you clicked it.
• Fixed hidden sections sometimes not resetting properly after you closed them.
• Cleaned up spacing and wording in the Display & Layout settings pane.
• Fixed the settings search field not matching the frosted-glass look used elsewhere.
• Searching in the menu bar or settings no longer shows hidden/always-hidden icons mixed in with visible ones.
• Fixed a case where clicking a hidden icon could cause it to immediately hide again by mistake.
• The divider between hidden and visible icons now animates smoothly instead of snapping open/closed.
• Fixed a visual glitch where the background overlay would briefly appear in the wrong place.
• Fixed the onboarding walkthrough sometimes appearing twice after resetting settings.
• Fixed the saved position of hidden icons not always being remembered correctly.
• Fixed a memory leak that could occur when icons were removed from the menu bar.
• Fixed automatic icon movement continuing even while you were manually dragging an icon yourself.
• Fixed leftover icons sometimes appearing after quitting and restarting Thaw.
• Fixed small cursor jitter/flicker when hovering right at the edge of the menu bar.
• Fixed Option-click not being recognized correctly for Always Hidden on macOS 27.
• Improved the permissions flow so first launch and missing-permission recovery now use the same onboarding-style permissions screen.
• Fixed Screen Recording permission requests so Thaw is properly added to macOS System Settings when access is requested.
• Improved permission detection after granting access, reducing cases where Thaw still appeared to be missing Screen Recording permission.
• Updated the layout editor to keep Apple system items like Clock, Control Center, and Siri anchored to the trailing edge when Thaw Bar is disabled.
• Prevented users from creating menu bar layouts that macOS cannot actually apply.
• Cleaned up old permissions UI code for a more consistent onboarding and setup experience.

Re-enabled

• Always Hidden section — turned off since the earliest macOS 27 previews, now back and working, including Option-click to reveal it. It may still behave a little differently than on macOS 26 depending on system state.

New

• Settings search — search across all of Thaw's settings from one place; results are grouped by section, and tapping one jumps you straight there.
• Reset layout — one button to reset your icon layout, with a picker to choose whether to reset Visible, Hidden, or Always Hidden icons.
• New onboarding walkthrough — a refreshed, more polished first-run tour. You can replay it anytime from the About page.
• System item hiding is no longer marked experimental — it's now a regular, supported setting.
• Deep link support — Thaw can now be told to reveal a specific icon via a thaw:// link, useful for automation/shortcuts.
• Thaw now tells you in the app when it can't hide something instead of silently doing nothing.
• Refreshed the app icon's colors and lighting to better match macOS 27's new visual style.
• Proper support for macOS 27's native menu bar "overflow" icon.

macOS 27 Preview 3 (experimental)

Experimental build for macOS 27 (Golden Gate) — not on the Sparkle update channel.

Commit	eb9198c3db90
Branch	feat/macos-27-experimental
Build	Build DMG #28287610903
Artifact	Thaw-dmg
Announced	#687 comment
Feedback	Discussion #737 · Tracking #687

Out of update channel — install manually; Sparkle / appcast.xml were not updated.

---

Thaw Preview 3 Release Notes

Download here

Backup

Highlights

• Much more complete support for hiding, showing, and reordering menu bar items on macOS 27.
• Hidden items, visible item order, and Thaw's own menu bar icon are restored more reliably after quitting and reopening Thaw.
• The menu bar appearance overlay is more stable on macOS 27, especially when using the split pill style.
• Temporarily shown hidden items now respect the configured delay before being hidden again.
• Hidden item icons and thumbnails are more reliable in Thaw Bar, Search, and the layout editor.

macOS 27 Menu Bar Improvements

• Improved hiding and restoring menu bar items on macOS 27, including items that quit, relaunch, or briefly disappear from the menu bar.
• Fixed hidden item choices not being remembered after quitting and reopening Thaw.
• Fixed visible item order not being restored correctly after relaunch.
• Fixed Thaw's own menu bar icon not keeping its saved position after relaunch.
• Fixed cases where the split pill appearance did not wrap Thaw's own menu bar icon.
• Fixed cases where the split pill appearance stretched too far left across empty menu bar space.
• Reduced flicker, misplaced bounds, and transient full-width overlay shapes while the menu bar is settling.
• Improved behavior around dynamic menu bar items, including iStat Menus.
• Improved behavior for Control Center, Clock, Sound, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Battery, Display, Keyboard, and similar Apple menu bar items.
• Added preview support for hiding and reordering supported Apple system menu bar items on macOS 27.
• Added safeguards so Thaw avoids repeatedly trying moves that macOS refuses.

Hidden Items and Re-Hiding

• Added a setting for how long temporarily shown hidden items stay visible before being hidden again.
• Re-hide timing now follows the configured delay more consistently.
• Re-hide timers now pause while menus are open, reducing cases where an item hides while you are interacting with it.
• Single-item temporary reveal is more reliable and no longer flashes entire hidden sections unnecessarily.
• Always Hidden hotkeys are ignored when Always Hidden is unavailable or disabled, avoiding confusing no-op behavior.

Thaw Bar, Search, and Icons

• Fixed hidden item thumbnails being blank after opening Thaw Bar.
• Fixed stale blank thumbnails being kept in the icon cache.
• Improved prewarming for concealed sections so hidden item icons appear sooner.
• Improved icon refresh after reordering items.
• Reduced incorrect icon crops for concealed items.
• Simplified Thaw Bar hover styling for a cleaner layout.

Settings and Profiles

• Profiles now save and restore the temporarily shown item delay.
• Resetting settings now restores the new delay setting to its default.
• Imported Ice settings now include the new temporary-show timing option.
• Added macOS 27 preview options for experimental Apple system item hiding.
• Updated the macOS 27 preview help text in the About pane.

Display and Layout Reliability

• Improved startup settling so Thaw is less likely to capture or save a temporary menu bar layout.
• Improved behavior on notched displays and multi-display setups.
• Improved layout handling while native macOS menu bar auto-hiding changes visibility.
• Improved cursor-free reordering on macOS 27 to reduce visible cursor jumps.
• Added more protections around apps and system items that macOS does not allow Thaw to hide safely.

Known Limitations

• macOS 27 support is still preview. Apple system items and Control Center items do not behave like normal third-party menu bar items.
• Some Apple system items may still resist hiding or reordering depending on macOS state and System Settings.

macOS 27 Preview 2 (experimental)

Experimental build for macOS 27 (Golden Gate) — not on the Sparkle update channel.

Commit	7c3aa5cc2b45
Branch	feat/macos-27-experimental
Build	Build DMG #28003830057
Artifact	Thaw-dmg
Announced	#687 comment
Feedback	Discussion #737 · Tracking #687

Out of update channel — install manually; Sparkle / appcast.xml were not updated.

---

New version here.

The goal is to leave you with at least hidden and visible working.

macOS 27 Preview build 2 — Release Notes

Fixed

• Thaw's own menu bar icon now fully works with macOS 27's reorder, hide, and layout system — it can be dragged in Layout settings, persists in saved order, stays visible correctly when sections conceal, and the background pill now wraps around it instead of leaving it outside.
• Fixed a cursor-thrashing infinite loop caused by retrying unachievable item moves (e.g. forced beside anchored system items like Sound) every ~2s.
• Restored hover-to-reveal and click handling, which had stopped working.
• Fixed disappearing icon images for concealed/hidden items caused by an overly aggressive cache cleanup.
• Fixed duplicate menu bar items appearing when an app's live AX title metrics changed.
• Fixed split-pill background positioning on multi-display setups.

Edit:
It should say macOS 27 - Unsupported preview in the about page.

macOS 27 Preview 1 (experimental)

Experimental build for macOS 27 (Golden Gate) — not on the Sparkle update channel.

Commit	7a4ce9fd68c1
Branch	feat/macos-27-experimental
Build	Build DMG #27930266042
Artifact	Thaw-dmg
Announced	#687 comment
Feedback	Discussion #737 · Tracking #687

Out of update channel — install manually; Sparkle / appcast.xml were not updated.

---

Here is an early preview build of Thaw for macOS 27.

This build is experimental and not officially supported, so issues and bugs are expected. We won’t be actively triaging or fixing bug reports for this build yet, but high-level feedback and findings about macOS 27 compatibility are appreciated.

All current functionality is present except for the “always hidden” state. You may also encounter minor UI glitches, and in some cases reordering can take a bit of time to complete (though it generally shouldn’t be excessive). So far this build has only been tested on my own setup as a daily driver since macOS 27 was released, and I’ve tried to address every issue I’ve run into.

Download here
New version here.

In case the link above expires, you can also get it here Thaw macOS 27

Note: I am going to later open a discussion for macOS 27 issues so we start having a backlog for them, just do not report them via issues.

2.0.0-rc.1

This is the first release candidate for Thaw 2.0. It brings improved display-switch handling (no unwanted layout re-sorts), per-profile spacing relaunch preferences, and a resolution fix for generic Control-Center-hosted slots.

New & Improved

• Display Switch Stability: Switching active displays no longer triggers a saved-layout re-sort (#698).
• Spacing Relaunch Preference: Warn before per-display spacing relaunches; choice saved per profile (#691).
• Control Center Resolution: Generic slots kept unresolved for marker-pair pass (#690).
• Documentation: Updated contribution guidelines and install docs.

New Contributors

• @t4sh made their first contribution in https://github.com/stonerl/Thaw/pull/715

Full Changelog: https://github.com/stonerl/Thaw/compare/2.0.0-beta.15...2.0.0-rc.1

2.0.0-beta.15

This release adds the ability to assign global hotkeys to individual menu bar items, hardens Control-Center-hosted widget resolution for single-display Macs and title-offset items, prevents system status item clones from corrupting the managed layout, and enhances the onboarding experience.

New & Improved

• Per-Item Hotkeys: Assign global hotkeys to any menu bar item to open its menu. Supports all sections. Electron/Chromium items use AX press. Persisted in profiles. Closes #148 via #665.
• Control Center Resolution by Title: HostedItemOwnership.titleIndicatesOwner resolves title-offset items (AirBuddy, SpamSieve, Cotypist) with title-corroborated 20pt backstop.
• Single-Display Resolution Hardening: Phantom reanchored to non-main, shrunk to 640×480, hold 12s→4s, one-strike blacklist. Missing AXEnabled treated as enabled. Fixes #661 via #667.
• System Status Item Clone Fix: Clones matched regardless of namespace; excluded from cache, placement, and move. Fixes #662 via #668.
• Notch Overflow Guard: Profile layout guarded against unsettled display geometry (#681).
• Deferred Layout for Relaunched Apps: Layout defers while item re-pairs with window (#677).
• Profile Cache Re-Arm: Layout cache re-armed when active profile is updated (#679).
• Onboarding: Enhanced onboarding and app icon management (#682).
• Display Spacing Warning: Warning callout for differing per-display spacing with WarningColor asset (#670).

Full Changelog: https://github.com/stonerl/Thaw/compare/2.0.0-beta.14...2.0.0-beta.15

2.0.0-beta.14

This beta stabilizes Control Center widget resolution on single-display setups via a virtual display provoker, adds section reorder and filtering to the search panel, introduces a global template for per-display configuration, and enables LCS sorting on notched displays by default.

New & Improved

• Single-Display Widget Resolution: VirtualDisplayProvoker creates a headless virtual display to force marker window publication on single-display Macs, resolving Control-Center-hosted widgets (Little Snitch) to their real owning app. Orphans left in place — never relocated. Phantom display excluded from Thaw display enumeration. Fixes #643 via #655.
• Search Panel Reorder: Sections in search panel reorderable and filterable.
• Global Display Template: Global template for per-display configuration defaults.
• Layout Bar Fixes: Cross-section drag landing and false move alerts fixed (#644).
• LCS Default: LCS sorting on notched displays enabled by default.
• Search UI Polish: Dividers between rows, increased annotation spacing.
• Plural-Aware Localization: Proper plural forms via String(localized:) interpolation.
• Hook Label Width: Automation labels size to widest localized string. Fixes #650 via #653.
• Localization: Multiple Crowdin updates.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/stonerl/Thaw/compare/2.0.0-beta.13...2.0.0-beta.14

2.0.0-beta.13

Hey everyone,

This beta introduces a new LayoutReconciler for reliable profile layout application, global and per-profile pre/post apply script hooks, ScreenCaptureKit-based window capture to reduce SkyLight memory leaks, and dozens of stability fixes for profile restoration, notch overflow, third-party widget interactions, and XPC performance.

New & Improved

• LayoutReconciler: Consolidated icon-restore paths into a single phase-based orchestrator. Deferred post-apply cache refresh, divider-duplicate fix for notched full-sort, per-item section-mismatch gate, chevron position persistence, computeSectionOrder helper.
• Pre/Post Apply Script Hooks: Global and per-profile hooks with configurable timeouts, env vars (THAW_PROFILE_NAME, etc.), and non-blocking failures. New Automation UI.
• ScreenCaptureKit Migration: Cut SkyLight memory leaks via ScreenCaptureKit-based window capture.
• XPC Batching: Single batch request replaces 40-64 concurrent per-window calls - eliminates jetsam kills.
• Third-Party Widget Deferral: AX hit-test defers reveal/click/scroll/right-click to notch overlays and pop-up menus. Cancellable delayed right-click reveal.
• System Menu Bar Auto-Hidden: Clicks ignored when menu bar auto-hidden offscreen in fullscreen.
• MarkerPairResolver: Resolves Control-Center-hosted proxies (Little Snitch) via width-matched marker windows.
• Notch Overflow Budget Fix: Removed NSStatusItemSpacing double-counting that ejected profile items at default spacing.
• Cross-Section Apply Fix: Items destined for always-hidden no longer stranded in hidden.
• Display Spacing Prompt: Prompt before applying display spacing. Auto-Switch shows Notch/Disconnected badges.
• Diagnostic Logging: XPC logs unified into main app file. Git SHA stamped in Info.plist and log headers.
• Capture Tolerance: Bounds overshooting NSScreen.frame tolerated instead of dropped.
• Localization: Multiple Crowdin updates, non-translatable string exclusion.
• Profiles: Forward-compatible snapshot decoding. useOptionClick, useLCSSorting, enableOverflow captured in snapshot.

Full Changelog: 2.0.0-beta.12...2.0.0-beta.13

2.0.0-beta.12

This release fixes per-display menu bar spacing from triggering unnecessary app relaunch waves on resolution-only screen changes.

New & Improved

• Display Spacing Fix: Per-display menu bar spacing no longer triggers full app relaunch on resolution-only changes (resolution switch, lid open/close, GPU transitions). Active display UUID cached and compared — only actual display changes run the spacing apply. Fixes #551 via #569.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/stonerl/Thaw/compare/2.0.0-beta.11...2.0.0-beta.12