Alternatives
A free Ice alternative for Mac: Coat Check
Ice is a free, open-source menu bar manager that many people chose over Bartender. It hasn’t had a stable release since October 2024 and doesn’t work on macOS 27. Here’s how Coat Check compares.
Updated October 19, 2026
The short version
Ice hides the icons you choose and shows them in the Ice Bar, a strip under the menu bar that works well on notched MacBooks. It can also search icons, rearrange them, and show hidden ones on hover. Its last stable version, 0.11.12, came out in October 2024, and its macOS 27 issue has no reply from the developer.
Coat Check does less, on purpose. Click the hanger to see every menu bar icon, with the ones the notch hides listed first, and open any of them, including its own menu. It doesn’t move your icons.
Coat Check vs Ice
| Coat Check | Ice | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Source code | Open source (MIT) | Open source (GPL-3.0) |
| Reach icons the notch hides | A list of every icon under the hanger, hidden ones first, each with its own menu | The Ice Bar shows hidden icons in a strip below the menu bar |
| Hide icons you choose | Optional divider (macOS 14 to 26) | Yes, plus always-hidden icons |
| Rearrange icons | No; your layout stays as you set it | Yes, by dragging |
| Search | No; the coatcheck command opens icons by name | Yes |
| Automation | Command line | Show on hover, click, or scroll; hotkeys; profiles |
| Screen Recording permission | Not needed | Optional; a limited mode works without it |
| macOS 27 (October 2026) | Being tested | Not working; last stable release October 2024 |
If you want Ice, but maintained
Thaw is an actively developed fork of Ice, with frequent releases and pre-release builds for macOS 27. If you like how Ice works, try Thaw first.
What works differently
- Ice rearranges your menu bar; Coat Check reads it. Ice moves icons into hidden sections. Coat Check lists icons wherever they are.
- Coat Check shows an app’s real menu. You can choose a menu item without revealing anything first.
- Different licenses. Ice is GPL-3.0. Coat Check is MIT and shares no code with Ice.