Everything it does.
Every Pelmet feature on one page, with where to find it and its shortcut when it has one.
Hide what you don't need.
Three sections decide what stays. Pelmet asks macOS to do the hiding, so your icons keep their place.
Visible is always there. Hidden comes back on a hover or a click. Always Hidden only appears when you ask.
Settings › Menu Bar
Move toward the bar and the hidden icons slide back out. The delay runs from 0.1 to 0.5 seconds.
Settings › Behavior
Click empty menu bar space, or click the chevron itself.
Settings › Behavior
Icons tuck back after a delay you set, from instant to 5 seconds, or the moment you click somewhere else.
Settings › Behavior
Pick Instant, Smooth or Fade for how icons come and go.1
Settings › Behavior
Shows the hidden icons and puts them back on the next press, from any app.
Change it in Settings › General
Find it by name.
Press ⌥⌘K from any app, type a few letters, and Pelmet opens the icon right where it lives. Search is new in the 0.3.1 beta.2
One panel, one field. Type part of a name and the top match is already selected.
Works from any app
Names rank by alias first, then the start of a name, then letters in order.
Press esc and the icon tucks back where it was.
Place every icon.
The editor is a drawing until you press Apply. One pass then lays the bar out to match.
Drag icons between Visible, Hidden and Always Hidden, and reorder them inside a section.
Settings › Menu Bar
Nothing moves in the bar until you press Apply. Discard puts the drawing back to what the bar shows.
Settings › Menu Bar
Hold ⌘ and drag an icon across the chevron. Pelmet adopts it into the section where you drop it.
Right in the menu bar
A tile shows where icons Pelmet hasn't seen yet will land.
Settings › Menu Bar
When a bar is full, Apply opens macOS's « for an icon drawn behind it, moves it, and closes the « again.
Dividers that behave like icons, with adjustable opacity. ⌘-drag them anywhere in the bar.
Edited on their tiles in Settings › Menu Bar
macOS hides items per app, so an app with several icons shares one setting. The editor marks them with a badge.
Launch any app.
Pick any app and Pelmet gives it a menu bar icon. One click opens it, and it hides like everything else.
Add an app and place its icon in whichever section you like.
Settings › Menu Bar › App launchers
Keep the icon in the bar all the time, or only while the app is open.
Settings › Menu Bar › App launchers
Right-click a launcher to quit its app.
A few apps draw their icon from a helper macOS can't hide. Turn their own icon off, then add a launcher in its place.
Extras that stay put.
When an icon is hidden, macOS pulls a few of its own extras out of the bar. Pelmet ships its own versions, so Focus and the timer stay where you put them.
Turn on the ones you want and place them like any other icon.
Settings › Menu Bar
Media controls, Time Machine and Focus can sit in the bar only while active, or all the time.
The choice is beside each toggle
⌘-drag any Pelmet item off the bar to turn it off.
Make it yours.
Pick the icon Pelmet wears, set the spacing, or turn the icon off and reach Settings by shortcut or right-click.
Set the gap between menu bar icons, from 1 to 28 pt, then press Apply to write it.
Settings › Behavior › Icon spacing
Opens Pelmet Settings, so it's the way in when the Pelmet icon is off.
Change it in Settings › General
Pelmet follows your system language, or you can pick one.
Settings › General › Language
Pick its face.
Eight choices for the icon Pelmet wears. Pick one and the bar changes.
Room to breathe.
Slide the gap between menu bar icons from 1 to 28 pt.
One bar, every display.
macOS mirrors the same items on every display, so layouts are global. What changes from display to display is behavior.
Set each display to show everything or to collapse. The display your pointer is on wins.
Your sections apply everywhere, because macOS shows the same items on each display.
Updates in place.
Pelmet updates itself and ships notarized. The only connection it ever makes is checking for its own updates.
Pelmet checks a signed appcast and offers updates in place. You can check by hand any time.
Settings › About
Updates are signed with Sparkle and EdDSA keys, and Apple notarizes Pelmet.
Install with brew install fif7y/tap/pelmet and update with brew upgrade pelmet.
Turn on Get beta releases for fixes sooner. Betas are smaller updates, more often, and a stable release rolls them up every week or two.
Settings › About
What it needs.
Pelmet is built on the menu bar macOS 27 introduced, so it doesn't run on earlier versions.
It's how Pelmet sees the menu bar's items and positions, and how a click on a hidden item works without revealing everything.
Only for the reveal animations. Without it, icons show and hide the way macOS does it.
Three shortcuts.
To change the last two, open Settings › General, click the shortcut and press the new keys.
Fit yours today.
Free and open source. macOS 27 or later.
- 1Screen Recording is optional and only used for reveal animations.
- 2Pelmet Search ships in the 0.3.1 beta. Turn on beta updates in Settings › About.