Relevant? https://badgeify.app/how-to-fix-mac-menu-bar-icons-disappear...

Bartender was sold off and became dubious in nature.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606

Ice (mentioned several times on this page) is the open source replacement.

From ten months ago: https://www.macbartender.com/b5blog/Lets-Try-This-Again/

It really is too bad... once I switched to Ice, I have no desire to switch back... and I'm saying that as a paying customer of Bartender.

A bit hard to believe especially given the amount of time between the community raising the alarm and any coherent response from the new owners.

Still no individual’s names or contact info on the website.

I am a paying user who uninstalled the app from all my Macs and replaced with ice.

Ice lacks my favorite bartender feature (show the extended app bar when mouse hovering over the camera island) but I still prefer it to a shady alternative.

The same company Applause recently bought out Strongbox [0], which has been discussed a few times on HN a few times[1]. They have a pretty reliable history of destroy applications / extracting maximum value.

[0] https://strongboxsafe.com

[1] https://kagi.com/search?q=strongbox+site%3Anews.ycombinator....

There’s an open source menu bar manager called Ice. Works well. https://icemenubar.app/

Tried reducing the space between the icons?

https://community.folivora.ai/t/reduce-menu-bar-icon-spacing...