Topiary Bar: Organize a Crowded Mac Menu Bar Without Hiding App Icons

Topiary Bar is an open-source macOS utility for bringing order to a busy menu bar. It lets you keep selected app status items readily accessible and gather management actions in one place, without pretending that every system icon can simply disappear.

The project’s latest GitHub release is v1.21.0, checked 2026-10-01, and supports macOS 14 or later. Apple’s matching Mac App Store listing is still named StatusBar — Menu Bar Manager and shows version 1.0, so the store build and the current GitHub release should not be treated as the same version.

A calmer place for menu-bar apps

Topiary detects running apps that use menu-bar status items and presents them in a dedicated management surface. The goal is to make the icons and actions you use often easier to find, rather than replacing the menu bar or changing how those apps work.

You can pin chosen status items so they stay easy to reach, then open the app’s own interface from its item. That is useful when a menu bar has grown into a long strip of small icons that are hard to distinguish at a glance.

Pin, group, and manage the items you use

The resident status-item approach keeps selected app icons available in the menu bar. Topiary also provides a central panel for finding and managing detected apps, so less-used items do not need to be hunted down one by one.

The panel is an organizer, not a universal hiding mechanism: the project explicitly says it does not hide the system menu-bar icons. Keep that distinction in mind if your main goal is to remove icons from view rather than manage access to them.

What the management panel can do

Apps are discovered using their macOS activation policy and displayed in a searchable list. You can open an app, and the Developer ID build adds quit and force-quit actions for apps that need attention.

The panel is useful when an accessory app is running without a Dock icon or when you have forgotten which small menu-bar symbol belongs to which process. Search and ordering help keep a large collection manageable.

App types are inferred from public macOS behavior, so some accessory apps may not be surfaced or raised exactly as expected. It is an organizer around macOS app behavior, not a guarantee that every third-party status item exposes the same controls.

Arrange the workflow to your taste

Topiary includes custom ordering, a search field, and theme options for its management interface. These small controls matter because a utility panel is most useful when its own contents are faster to scan than the crowded menu bar it is helping with.

The project lists English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, German, and Spanish support. Its recent rebrand changed the app and release naming from StatusBar to Topiary, while keeping the bundle identifier and App Store record unchanged.

The build you choose changes the available actions

The Developer ID distribution can open, quit, and force-quit apps from its panel. The App Store build is sandboxed and omits quit and force-quit, so choose based on whether those management actions are important to you.

The current GitHub release is v1.21.0 and is distributed as a notarized Developer ID DMG. The App Store record we matched is version 1.0 under the older StatusBar name; its listing may not reflect the latest project branding or release features.

No broad automation promise or permission grab

The README says Topiary does not request special permissions. It reads running-application information through public macOS APIs, and treats Accessibility trust as a read-only status indicator rather than using it to control other apps.

The maintainer describes the app as local-only, with no analytics or data collection. That is a project statement, not an independent privacy audit. Review the source or release notes if that distinction matters for your setup.

Topiary organizes access to status items; it does not promise to hide the system menu bar or to alter the behavior of the apps represented there. Some accessory apps may also behave differently because macOS classifies them in different ways.

Compatibility and project status

The documented minimum is macOS 14, and the source is written in Swift 6 with SwiftUI. The project is open source under the MIT License and publishes a separate Mac App Store and Developer ID distribution.

Version 1.21.0 was the latest GitHub release when checked on 2026-10-01. The project README and release assets are the best places to verify current compatibility and distribution details before installing.

The matching App Store entry retains the older StatusBar name and version 1.0. If you need the newer Topiary branding or the extra quit controls, use the Developer ID release instead of assuming the store listing has caught up.

Install from the Mac App Store

A matching App Store app by the project’s developer is available, so it is the simplest starting point: install StatusBar — Menu Bar Manager from the Mac App Store. The listing still uses the earlier StatusBar name and shows version 1.0; its sandboxed build does not include quit or force-quit actions. If you need those controls, the project’s separate notarized Topiary v1.21.0 DMG is the alternative.

open 'macappstore://apps.apple.com/app/id6777069727'

MIT-licensed and built for a focused use case

Topiary Bar is released under the MIT License. Review the project repository for the source, release history, and current notes about the two distribution builds.

Is Topiary Bar right for you?

It is a good fit if you have many menu-bar utilities, want a searchable place to open and manage them, and appreciate keeping selected status items easy to reach. The Developer ID build is the one to consider if quitting apps from the panel matters.

It is not the right pick if you expect it to hide every system icon or if you need the App Store build to offer the same quit controls as the separately notarized release. Start with the store app if convenience matters most, then switch only if its feature limits are a problem.

open 'macappstore://apps.apple.com/app/id6777069727'