Lloyd vs SwiftBar

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.

SwiftBar displays the output of custom scripts in the macOS menu bar and turns it into interactive menus. Plugins can be written in Bash, Python, Ruby, Swift, or JavaScript; SwiftBar runs them on a user-defined schedule and builds menu items from their output. Menus can include icons, colors, dropdowns, submenus, and click actions. Items can open URLs, run shell scripts, refresh plugins, or use keyboard shortcuts. Refresh intervals can be set in plugin filenames or with cron syntax in metadata. SwiftBar includes a plugin repository through its Get Plugins menu, and its product page describes hundreds of community-created plugins. Its plugin API is adopted from BitBar, allowing existing BitBar and xbar plugins to run. SwiftBar also supports plugins made with the macOS Shortcuts app and provides a settings interface for their refresh schedule. It is a free, open source project by Ameba, licensed under MIT. SwiftBar requires macOS 12 or later and is available as a direct download or through Homebrew.