Ice 2

Ice 2 is a powerful menu bar management tool. While its primary function is hiding and showing menu bar items, it aims to cover a wide variety of additional features to make it one of the most versatile menu bar tools available.

Note

Ice 2 is an independent, open-source fork of Ice — the menu bar manager originally created by Jordan Baird — now actively maintained by Teddy Chan and carried forward to support modern macOS. Download the latest release here and see the roadmap below for upcoming features.

Install

Manual Installation

Download the "Ice-2-vX.Y.Z.zip" file from the latest release and move the unzipped app into your Applications folder.

Homebrew

Install Ice 2 using the following command:

brew install --cask teddychan/tap/ice-2

Uninstall

Quit Ice 2 before uninstalling.

If you installed with Homebrew:

brew uninstall --cask teddychan/tap/ice-2

If you installed manually, delete Ice 2.app from your Applications folder.

To also remove Ice 2 settings and cached data:

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.dragonapp.ice \
       ~/Library/Caches/com.dragonapp.ice \
       ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.dragonapp.ice \
       ~/Library/Preferences/com.dragonapp.ice.plist \
       ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.dragonapp.ice.savedState

Features/Roadmap

Menu bar item management

• Hide menu bar items
• "Always-hidden" menu bar section
• Show hidden menu bar items when hovering over the menu bar
• Show hidden menu bar items when an empty area in the menu bar is clicked
• Show hidden menu bar items by scrolling or swiping in the menu bar
• Automatically rehide menu bar items
• Hide application menus when they overlap with shown menu bar items
• Drag and drop interface to arrange individual menu bar items
• Display hidden menu bar items in a separate bar (e.g. for MacBooks with the notch)
• Search menu bar items
• Menu bar item spacing (BETA)
• Profiles for menu bar layout
• Individual spacer items
• Menu bar item groups
• Show menu bar items when trigger conditions are met

Menu bar appearance

• Menu bar tint (solid and gradient)
• Menu bar shadow
• Menu bar border
• Custom menu bar shapes (rounded and/or split)
• Different settings for light/dark mode
• Remove background behind menu bar
• Rounded screen corners

Hotkeys

• Toggle individual menu bar sections
• Show the search panel
• Enable/disable the Ice 2 Bar
• Show/hide section divider icons
• Toggle application menus
• Enable/disable auto rehide
• Temporarily show individual menu bar items

Other

• Launch at login
• Automatic updates
• Back up & restore settings to a folder you choose (sync across Macs via Dropbox / iCloud Drive / Google Drive)
• Menu bar widgets

Why does Ice 2 only support macOS 14 and later?

Ice 2 uses a number of system APIs that are available starting in macOS 14. As such, there are no plans to support earlier versions of macOS.

Can I back up, restore, or sync my settings?

Yes. Open Settings ▸ Backup & Restore and choose a backup folder. Use Back Up Now to save a snapshot of all your Ice 2 settings (layout profiles, item groups, spacers, triggers, hotkeys, and appearance), and Ice 2 also backs up automatically when you quit. The newest 10 backups are kept; you can restore any of them with one click (Ice 2 relaunches to apply).

To sync across Macs or move to a new Mac, point the backup folder at a synced location such as Dropbox, iCloud Drive, or Google Drive — your settings then appear on your other Macs, where you can restore them.

Gallery

Show hidden menu bar items below the menu bar

Drag-and-drop interface to arrange menu bar items

Customize the menu bar's appearance

Menu bar item search

Custom menu bar item spacing

Credits

Ice 2 is a fork of Ice, created by Jordan Baird. All credit for the original app goes to him and its contributors. Ice 2 is currently maintained by Teddy Chan.

License

Ice 2 is available under the GPL-3.0 license, the same license as the original Ice.