Ice 2 vs Lloyd

Ice 2 is a free macOS app for hiding, arranging, and revealing menu bar items. It can tuck rarely used icons behind a divider; hidden items can be brought back with a click, hotkey, or by hovering over the edge. Its Ice Bar places hidden items in a separate bar that appears when needed. On macOS 27, a layout editor lets users drag apps into Visible, Hidden, or Always-Hidden sections, saving changes as they are made. Some functions are unavailable on that system: the separate Ice Bar, searching for one menu bar icon, and temporarily showing one icon. Ice 2 requires macOS 26 or later, and Accessibility permission may be needed on macOS 27 to find and hide menu bar apps. The app is open source under GPLv3 and is available through GitHub releases and Homebrew; the Mac App Store is listed as coming soon. The plan is free. Its maintainer is Teddy Chan, and the maker directs questions, bug reports, and feature requests to GitHub or email.

Lloyd is a free, MIT-licensed macOS utility that brings menu-bar icons hidden behind a MacBook notch into a panel below the menu bar. The panel displays those icons as live images. Hovering identifies the app behind an icon, or gives the item name for system extras. Clicking an icon moves it to a visible menu-bar slot and opens its menu; right-clicks are forwarded too. Open the panel from Lloyd’s menu-bar icon or with ⌃⌥L. Lloyd places its own icon at the far right of the movable menu-bar area. To capture and operate the hidden items, it requests Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions. The app is signed but not notarized, uses private APIs, and is distributed directly rather than through the App Store. The maker provides a DMG download and Homebrew cask instructions. A revealed item stays visible because macOS provides no way for Lloyd to put it back into notch overflow; it can be hidden again by dragging it toward the notch.