The open source menu bar manager.
Download · Install · Features · Integrations · Contributing
Features
- Declutter your menu bar by hiding the icons you don't need, with an always-hidden section for the rest
- Reveal items by hovering, clicking, scrolling, swiping, or pressing a hotkey
- Search and jump to any menu bar item from the keyboard
- Triggers that reveal an item when a condition is met, from battery level to the active Focus, the Wi-Fi network, or a script's exit code
- Switch layouts by context: bind a profile to a display, a Space, or a Focus filter
- Zen mode: one action conceals every section and locks the reveal gestures, then puts it all back. It can engage on its own while you present or share your screen
- Style the bar with tint, gradient, shadow, border, and custom shapes, per light/dark mode and per Space
- Built for modern macOS: supports macOS 26 and 27, including notch-friendly layouts via the Thaw Bar
- Light on your Mac, with a small and steady memory footprint
- Multilingual: available in 20 languages
Full feature list: 40+ more, including groups, spacers, profiles, triggers, and hotkeys
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
- Groups that keep related items together, so they move and hide as one unit even across sections
- Spacer items of your own, with adjustable width and colour
- Activate an item straight from the layout editor
- Surface a hidden item when its icon starts blinking for attention
- Display hidden menu bar items in a separate bar (e.g. for MacBooks with the notch)
- Search menu bar items
- Menu bar item spacing
- Draw items as their owning app's icon instead of a live capture
Menu bar appearance
- Menu bar tint (solid and gradient)
- Adaptive tint sampled from the wallpaper, either as one average colour or as a gradient built from its two most dominant colours
- Wallpaper changes re-tint the bar right away
- Menu bar shadow
- Menu bar border
- Custom menu bar shapes (rounded, split, and notch-aware)
- Remove background behind menu bar (macOS setting)
- Different settings for light/dark mode
- Per-Space appearance overrides
- A separate shape, tint, and border for the Thaw Bar, instead of inheriting the menu bar's
Profiles
- Save the whole configuration as a profile and switch between profiles instantly
- Bind a profile to a display, to a Space, or to a Focus filter
- Import and export profiles for backup or sharing
- Pre and post apply script hooks, globally or per profile
Triggers
Reveal an item when a condition is met, or hide it instead. Battery and power conditions are always available. Every other condition ships switched off and is enabled one at a time from Developer settings, and some are still marked Experimental.
- Frontmost app, app running
- Network connectivity, VPN, Wi-Fi network, Bluetooth device, audio output device
- External display, time schedule, location
- Focus / Do Not Disturb, Energy Mode, thermal pressure
- Camera or microphone in use, script result
- A watched icon changing, or blinking for attention
- Conditions combined with AND / OR, plus an option to invert the action
Hotkeys
- Toggle individual menu bar sections
- Show the search panel
- Enable/disable the Thaw Bar
- Show/hide section divider icons
- Toggle application menus
- Toggle automatic rehiding
- Toggle zen mode
- Open a specific menu bar item's menu
- Switch between profiles
Settings and maintenance
- Simple Mode, which replaces the sidebar with one curated page and keeps every other pane's configuration intact
- One per-display section driven by a picker, rather than a repeated block per display
- A Tools pane for diagnostic logging, onboarding replay, per-app language override, cache clearing, and resets for settings, Control Center, the layout, and permissions
Screenshots
 Item layout |
 Show hidden items below the menu bar |
 Drag-and-drop arrangement |
 Customize the appearance |
 Menu bar item search |
Transparency
- Free, and free to keep. No purchase, no subscription, and no upgrade fee when macOS ships a new version.
- Open source, GPL-3.0. Read the code, build it yourself, fork it.
- No tracking, no account. No analytics, no telemetry, no sign-up.
- Screen Recording is optional. Hiding, revealing, and rearranging items all work without it, and any item Thaw cannot capture is drawn as its app's icon instead. Grant it if you want live item previews and wallpaper-derived tinting.
- Signed and notarized by Apple, with verifiable releases, the OpenSSF Best Practices Gold badge, and an OpenSSF Scorecard for supply-chain posture.
Integrations
Every core action is a thaw:// deep link, so Thaw plugs into the launcher you already use.
- Raycast: official extension. Toggle sections, open search, and change settings without leaving Raycast.
- Droppy: pair Thaw with Droppy's shelf and extras for a full menu bar suite.
- Anything else: Alfred, Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, BetterTouchTool, or a shell script.
open "thaw://toggle-hidden" open "thaw://search" open "thaw://open-settings"
Full reference, including reading and writing settings: docs/URI_SCHEMES.md.
Install
brew install thaw # stable brew install thaw@beta # beta, or stable if it is newer
Or grab the .dmg from the latest release and drag Thaw to Applications.
Needs macOS 26+. Thaw asks for Accessibility on first launch to move menu bar items; Screen Recording is optional. Stuck? See Frequent issues.
Languages
Thaw is available in 20 languages, thanks to translators around the world.
| 🇮🇩 Bahasa Indonesia | 🇨🇿 Čeština | 🇩🇪 🇦🇹 Deutsch | 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 English |
| 🇪🇸 🇲🇽 Español | 🇫🇷 Français | 🇮🇹 Italiano | 🇭🇺 Magyar |
| 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 Nederlands | 🇵🇱 Polski | 🇧🇷 Português (Brasil) | 🇹🇷 Türkçe |
| 🇷🇺 Русский | 🇺🇦 Українська* | 🇹🇭 ภาษาไทย | 🇻🇳 Tiếng Việt* |
| 🇯🇵 日本語 | 🇰🇷 한국어 | 🇨🇳 简体中文 | 🇹🇼 正體中文 |
Missing yours, or spotted something off? Translate Thaw on Crowdin. You can request new languages there too. Everyone who has translated Thaw is named in Credits.
* Currently only in the development branch.
Contributors
This project exists thanks to the people who contribute code and documentation. Translations happen on Crowdin rather than in git, so translators are credited separately in Credits.
Want to contribute? Start with Ways to contribute. Pull requests are welcome against the development branch (see the shared Thaw/Floe contribution policy).
Open to partnerships, integrations, and sponsorships. Get in touch.
Project documentation
- Contributing
- Development
- Credits
- Governance
- Security policy
- Roadmap
- Architecture
- Assurance case
- Verifying releases
- Release and update distribution
- URI schemes
License
Thaw is available under the GPL-3.0 license.