Cornice vs JellyBar

Cornice is a free, open-source menu bar manager for macOS. A divider hides the menu bar items to its left, and clicking it reveals them again. An optional second divider creates a section that stays hidden even when the rest of the items are revealed. Users can adjust divider thickness and height, choose among five chevron styles, and configure keyboard shortcuts and auto-hide behavior. Cornice does not move other applications’ menu bar icons, so the divider must be positioned by hand. Optional two-finger trackpad gestures on a window title bar can resize or reposition windows, or send them to the Dock. Hiding and revealing menu bar items requires no permissions; Accessibility access is requested only when those optional gestures are enabled. The interface supports sixteen languages that can be switched without restarting. The project is distributed under GPL-3.0. It costs nothing and requires macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later on Apple Silicon. Builds are signed for development but not notarised, so macOS requires a manual first launch through its warning. After an update, gesture users must grant Accessibility permission again.

JellyBar is a free macOS utility for rearranging, hiding and grouping menu bar icons. Its editor has Active and Hidden sections; dragging an icon between them updates the menu bar automatically. Hidden icons can be shown by hovering after a configurable delay, set to one second by default, or by clicking the chevron. Spacers in three sizes and bullet dots help organize groups. JellyBar keeps the 30 newest automatic layout backups. Manual snapshots remain pinned indefinitely and can sync to iCloud Drive. Accessibility permission is required, while Screen Recording is optional for icon previews in settings. The maker says there is no analytics, telemetry or app-originated network traffic. It supports macOS 15 Sequoia and later on Apple Silicon, including desktops, external displays and clamshell MacBooks with an external monitor. Native support for notched MacBook screens remains in development.