Cornice vs Overhang

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.

Overhang is a free macOS app for accessing status bar items that macOS has stopped drawing. It lists each item beside the icon of the app that owns it and lets users open its menu. Listing items needs no permissions; optional click-through uses Accessibility. Some apps handle mouse events in a way Overhang cannot press, so the app brings the owning application to the front in those cases. It supports Macs with and without a notch, plus external displays. Settings cover launching at login and enabling click-through.

Overhang does not require a network connection and says it collects, sends, or stores no user information. It has no analytics, account system, or server. While running, it reads menu bar icon positions, sizes, and owning apps in memory, then discards that information when it quits. The free plan costs nothing and requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later; it is a universal binary for Apple silicon and Intel. The maker says release builds are signed with an Apple Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, and identifies GitHub repository releases as the only official builds. Support requests are directed to GitHub Issues.