GUIDE · CHECKED 2026-09-24
Best Menu Bar Customisation Apps for Mac
Menu bar customisation covers three different jobs, and most guides confuse them. Organising the bar — hiding and rearranging items — is Bartender or Ice. Monitoring through it is RunCat, which animates a character at the speed of your CPU. Decorating around it is Cat Fidget, which puts a pet in the bar, or Hangly, which hangs a charm below it. Deciding which job you actually want eliminates most of the category.
Key takeaways
- Organising the bar is Bartender (paid) or Ice (free, open source)
- Monitoring through the bar is RunCat, which animates at the speed of your CPU
- Decorating is Cat Fidget in the bar, or Hangly hanging a charm below it
- These are three separate jobs and most people only want one
- Nothing here conflicts: an organiser, a monitor and a decoration can all run at once
Three different jobs, often confused
The macOS menu bar is a narrow strip with a lot of competing demands on it, and the apps aimed at it do fundamentally different things.
Organising means taking control of what appears: hiding items you never use, grouping them, reordering them, or reclaiming the space the notch takes on a modern MacBook. This is the category most people mean when they say menu bar customisation, and the well-known tools are Bartender and the free Ice.
Monitoring means putting live information in the bar — CPU, memory, network, battery health. RunCat is the best-known example, and its trick is that the information is carried by the animation speed rather than a number.
Decorating means making the strip pleasant rather than useful. Cat Fidget puts a cat in the bar itself. Hangly hangs a charm below it, on the screen rather than in the bar.
Where Hangly fits, and where it does not
Hangly runs from the menu bar on macOS and the system tray on Windows, which is why it shows up in searches for menu bar apps. It is worth being precise about what that means: Hangly does not modify the menu bar, reorganise its items, hide anything, or place information in it. It hangs a charm from the top edge of the screen, below the bar.
So if your problem is that your menu bar is overcrowded, Hangly solves nothing. Use Ice, which is free, or Bartender. If your problem is that the top of your screen is boring, that is the problem Hangly addresses.
The two are not in competition and are commonly run together.
The notch question
On MacBooks with a notch, the menu bar is split and space is genuinely scarce. Organising tools earn their place there in a way they did not before.
Charm and pet apps behave differently around the notch depending on how they position themselves. Dockling explicitly supports living in the notch. Hangly hangs below the bar and can be dragged along it, so it can be positioned clear of the notch on either side.
The apps, compared
| App | What it does | Platforms | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| RunCat | Animates a menu bar character whose running speed reflects CPU usage, with variants for memory and network. | macOS | Free |
| Cat Fidget | A tiny desktop cat for the Mac menu bar you can pet, feed, drag and fling, with breeds and accessories. | macOS | See their site |
| Hangly | Hangs a charm from the top of your screen on a cord with real pendulum physics. Over eighty charms across eleven collections, plus any image of your own as a charm. | macOS 14+ (Apple Silicon & Intel), Windows 10+ (x64 & ARM64) | Free |
| Dockitty | A pixel cat that lives in the macOS dock with playful animations. | macOS | See their site |
| Dockling | Generates a personal pixel pet from any photo, living in the dock, menu bar or notch with Pomodoro timers, streaks and quick notes. | macOS | $2.99 once |
| Typibara | A customisable typing companion that syncs with your keystrokes. | macOS | See their site |
RunCat
Best for: A system monitor that is pleasant to look at
A monitoring utility rather than decoration. Complements a charm app rather than replacing it.
Cat Fidget
Best for: A menu bar cat with no account or tracking
Their site states no account, ads, analytics or tracking.
Hangly
Best for: Anyone who wants decoration that never interrupts, on Mac or Windows
The Windows build is a pre-release at 0.9.x; macOS is at 2.0 and is the mature one. Six of the eleven collections are still being finished.
Dockitty
Best for: A dock-based pixel pet
Lives in the dock rather than on the screen generally.
Dockling
Best for: A pet that doubles as a productivity companion
The productivity features are the point; if you want pure decoration this is more than you need.
Typibara
Best for: Something that reacts while you write
Tied to typing; idle when you are not.
Every product read from its own site on 2026-09-24. Products change — check before deciding.
The short answer
If the menu bar is cluttered, use Ice — it is free and does the job Bartender charges for. That is a different category from everything else here and this guide does not cover it in depth.
If you want the bar to tell you something, RunCat. If you want the bar or the strip below it to be pleasant, Cat Fidget for a pet in the bar itself, Hangly for a charm hanging below it. These stack: running an organiser, a monitor and a decoration together is normal, because they occupy different space and solve different problems.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best menu bar app for Mac?
It depends which job you mean. For organising and hiding menu bar items, Ice (free) or Bartender. For system monitoring in the bar, RunCat. For decoration, Cat Fidget puts a pet in the bar and Hangly hangs a charm below it.
Is Hangly a menu bar customisation app?
Only loosely. Hangly runs from the menu bar but does not modify it — no hiding, reordering or information display. It hangs a charm from the top edge of the screen below the bar. For actual menu bar organisation, use Ice or Bartender alongside it.
Can I use a menu bar organiser and a decoration app together?
Yes, and it is common. An organiser controls what appears in the bar; a decoration app such as Hangly draws below it. They do not conflict.
What is the best free menu bar app for Mac?
Ice for organising, RunCat for monitoring, and Hangly for decoration are all free.
In short
Decide which of the three jobs you actually want and the choice makes itself. Bartender or Ice to tidy, RunCat to monitor, Cat Fidget or Hangly to decorate. Running one of each together is normal and none of them fight.
Try Hangly
Free on macOS 14+ and Windows 10+, including native ARM64. Over eighty charms across eleven collections, and any image of your own as a charm.
Free download • macOS 14+ and Windows 10+ •
Alternatives
- Best Desktop Charm Apps for Mac
- Hangly vs RunCat
- Hangly FAQ
- The best desktop pets for Mac The best desktop pet for most Mac users is Pets Therapy: over a hundred pets, genuinely free, and the only one here that runs natively on macOS, Windows and Linux.
- The best Mac customization apps Most people need three apps, not eleven, and all three can be free.
- Desktop Goose alternatives The right alternative depends on how much of the chaos you want to keep.