The Bartender App for Mac May Be Recording Your Screen and We Have No Idea Who Owns It
Bartender, one of the best third-party apps for your Mac, seems to have silently sold it to new owners, causing concern among users. At this point, there is no evidence that Bartender is doing anything suspicious, but the lack of transparency regarding the change in ownership is causing concern for everyone who uses the app. If you have Bartender version 5.0.52 or later, you may want to downgrade to an older version or use an alternative until this issue is resolved.
What is a bartender and why do people use it?
Bartender helps you keep your Mac’s menu bar organized by hiding icons you don’t need. The app has long been a staple for Mac users, helping them get rid of the sloppy look that can come with using a computer for long periods of time. With Bartender, people could choose to show or hide apps in the menu bar based on certain triggers. For example, I asked the Bartender to only show the battery icon if my MacBook’s charge was at 25 percent or below.
It’s an incredibly simple and versatile tool that ‘s been around for over a decade and was always one of the first apps I installed on a new MacBook .
How the change of ownership of the Bartender was discovered
According to a recent post on Reddit , the owners of Bartender appear to have sold the app to another company. A Reddit user discovered the change in ownership through MacUpdater, an application that helps update all Mac applications . The guys at MacUpdater discovered this issue because the app owner’s name changed twice without any explanation. Their attempts to contact Bartender’s original developer, Ben Surtees, were unsuccessful.
Why this change of ownership is concerning
When there is no transparency about app ownership, you don’t know what new management is going to do with your data. Bartender always requires permission to record your Mac’s screen to work. Considering that an unknown developer is providing such public access to your Mac, it is strictly prohibited. Until the new owners provide some clarity on who they are, their app development history, and a transparent roadmap for what they plan to do with Bartender, it’s a good idea to stay on the old version of the app or switch to alternatives.
Why will downgrading protect you?
Upgrading to Bartender 5.0.51 or earlier will protect you from all code changes made by the new owner. Since this is a paid app, costing between $16 and $30 depending on the license you paid for, you can safely continue using the old version until it stops working. This shouldn’t happen for some time, at least until the next version of macOS is released in a few months.
You can easily downgrade to an older version of Bartender by going to an older version of the app’s website. This Wayback Machine link will take you to the April 2024 version of the page. Download the installer from there, which will take you to the pre-changeover version of Bartender 5.0.49. Be sure to skip any updates whenever the app prompts you to do so—you can even use a firewall app like Lulu orLittleSnitch to block Bartender’s access to the Internet entirely. This should allow you to safely use the older version of the application.
Bartending Alternatives You Should Consider
Here are some good bartending alternatives:
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Ice (free): This is a menu bar management app for macOS Sonoma and later. It is in active development, with a feature roadmap shown on its GitHub page. It lacks some of Bartender’s advanced triggers, but has most of the other features you’ll need, including the ability to customize the appearance of the menu bar and show or hide certain items. There are also keyboard shortcuts for opening menu bar sections.
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Hidden panel (free). Again, Hidden Panel is a good basic menu bar manager for your Mac. It can customize zones in the menu bar and automatically show or hide icons in certain sections. There is a keyboard shortcut to toggle icon display on and off. It’s not as powerful as Bartender, but it does the basics well.
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iBar (free): Another basic menu bar management app available in the Mac App Store. It allows you to show or hide certain icons in the menu bar and does a good job. You won’t get Bartender’s advanced features here either.
Currently, it is difficult to find a full-featured alternative to Bartender. I hope this changes in the future, but until then you’ll either have to deal with a new owner of Bartender or some missing features for managing the menu bar.