Ice

Ice is a powerful menu bar management tool. While its primary function is hiding and showing menu bar items, it aims to cover a wide variety of additional features to make it one of the most versatile menu bar tools available.

Important

This repository is a modified fork of jordanbaird/Ice, maintained by Sh7ne. Fork-specific changes began in August 2026 and remain licensed under GPL-3.0.

Note

Ice is currently in active development. Some features have not yet been implemented. Download the latest release here and see the roadmap below for upcoming features.

Install

Manual Installation

Download the DMG from the latest release, open it, and drag Ice.app into the Applications folder.

Automated DMG builds are ad-hoc signed and are not notarized by Apple. macOS may require explicit approval in System Settings > Privacy & Security after installing or updating. Privacy permissions may also need to be granted again after an update.

Local Developer-signed build

To create an Apple silicon release for the current Mac, install a valid Apple Development or Developer ID Application certificate and run:

./Scripts/build-local-release.sh

The script selects an Apple Development identity by default, signs Ice and all embedded services with the same team, and keeps the hardened runtime enabled. It also removes Intel slices from Sparkle's updater components so the installed app does not depend on Rosetta. Set ICE_CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY to choose a different installed signing identity. When that identity belongs to another team, set its Team ID with ICE_DEVELOPMENT_TEAM as well.

On macOS 26 or later, run the isolated Release app-to-XPC round-trip check without requesting Accessibility or Screen Recording permissions:

./Scripts/smoke-test-xpc.sh

Version tags automatically build and publish Apple silicon DMGs through GitHub Actions without Apple credentials. See Releasing Ice for the tag format and signing details.

Features/Roadmap

Menu bar item management

• Hide menu bar items
• "Always-hidden" menu bar section
• Show hidden menu bar items when hovering over the menu bar
• Show hidden menu bar items when an empty area in the menu bar is clicked
• Show hidden menu bar items by scrolling or swiping in the menu bar
• Automatically rehide menu bar items
• Hide application menus when they overlap with shown menu bar items
• Drag and drop interface to arrange individual menu bar items
• Display hidden menu bar items in a separate bar (e.g. for MacBooks with the notch)
• Search menu bar items
• Menu bar item spacing (BETA)
• Profiles for menu bar layout
• Individual spacer items
• Menu bar item groups
• Show menu bar items when trigger conditions are met

Menu bar appearance

• Menu bar tint (solid and gradient)
• Menu bar shadow
• Menu bar border
• Custom menu bar shapes (rounded and/or split)
• Remove background behind menu bar
• Rounded screen corners
• Different settings for light/dark mode

Hotkeys

• Toggle individual menu bar sections
• Show the search panel
• Enable/disable the Ice Bar
• Show/hide section divider icons
• Toggle application menus
• Enable/disable auto rehide
• Temporarily show individual menu bar items

Other

• Launch at login
• Automatic updates
• Menu bar widgets

Why does Ice only support macOS 14 and later?

Ice uses a number of system APIs that are available starting in macOS 14. As such, there are no plans to support earlier versions of macOS.

Gallery

Show hidden menu bar items below the menu bar

Drag-and-drop interface to arrange menu bar items

Customize the menu bar's appearance

Menu bar item search

Custom menu bar item spacing

License

Ice and this modified fork are available under the GPL-3.0 license. The upstream copyright and license notices remain intact; modification history and dates are recorded in Git.