Glow is engineered to feel like a natural extension of the system — every
animation tuned, every shortcut considered, every pixel polished.
Beta
Buttery Smooth
Experience animations so smooth you'll want to hide and show your menu bar just for fun.
Fluid motions
Delightful interactions
Feels incredible
Constantly improving
Flexible
Always Ready
Reveal your hidden apps instantly with a simple hover or click.
Hover to reveal
Click to explore
Custom shortcuts
Natural gestures
Core
Flexible Sections
Organize your items into Always Visible, Collapsible, and Floating sections. Keep them all active or choose just two to fit your perfect layout.
Always Visible, Collapsible & Floating
Toggle sections on or off
Flexible menu bar layouts
Organize items your way
Smart
Instant Search
Quickly find and launch any menu bar item. Perfect for power users with many items — no need to remember where they are located, just start typing.
Instant item lookup
Type to find anything
Search across all sections
Streamlined icon access
Exclusive
Designed for macOS
A stunning aesthetic that feels right at home on your Mac. Liquid glass effects that adapt to your style.
Matches your wallpaper
Beautiful liquid glass
Looks native on macOS
Customize every detail
Design
Personalize Everything
From spacing to borders, tweak every detail to match your perfect setup. See changes instantly.
Dynamic Appearance
Perfect your layout
Custom borders & styles
Instant visual feedback
Live
Alive & Dynamic
Glow feels alive on your desktop, naturally adapting its tone and mood as your wallpaper shifts throughout the day.
Syncs with dynamic walls
Adapts to the mood
Real-time blending
Seamless integration
FAQ
Answers, before you ask.
Everything you need to know about licensing, privacy, support and what
makes Glow different. Still curious? Drop us a line.
Absolutely. We invite you to experience Glow in its entirety. Our trial grants you unrestricted access to the full application—every feature included—so you can appreciate the complete design before deciding.
Absolutely not. Glow is a one-time purchase. You pay once and own it forever. No recurring monthly charges, no hidden fees.
Your license is valid for up to 3 Macs that you personally own. You can easily deactivate devices at any time through the settings.
All future updates are included at no additional cost—we don't charge again for new features. We focus our updates on the latest version of macOS.
Free updates included.
No. Your privacy is paramount. Glow processes everything locally on your Mac and collects zero personal usage data.
We strive for perfection, but bugs happen. You can report issues directly from the app, or email us at andersongrefa@gmail.com to report bugs, request features, or contact us. We read every report and fix critical issues fast.
We offer a 14-day money-back guarantee. If Glow doesn't adapt perfectly to your unique style, simply ask for a refund. No questions asked.
We focus on native feel over feature clutter. Glow is designed to blend perfectly with the Apple ecosystem, utilizing the latest macOS 26 'Liquid Glass' aesthetics. It's lightweight, incredibly fast, and crafted with an attention to detail that makes it feel like part of the OS.
Glow relies on the removal of the native menu bar background introduced in macOS 26. This specific change is what makes Glow's custom rendering possible. Since earlier macOS versions enforce a persistent background, supporting them is technically impossible.
Glow is a complete replacement for other menu bar managers. To ensure the smoothest experience, we recommend disabling other hiding utilities to prevent conflicts.
Glow uses private macOS APIs that have been stable for years. That said, Apple may change or remove them at any time. Because of this, Glow is provided "as is" and we can't guarantee it will work forever.
We're always ready to adapt.
Changelog
Always improving.
A living timeline of every refinement, new feature and fix. Glow keeps
evolving with macOS — and with you.
v3.1.6
Stable
Features
Hide Strategy has a fourth option, Never, that keeps revealed items on screen until you hide them yourself.
Glow now notices when "Show menu bar background" or Reduce transparency makes the menu bar opaque, and tells you why its style is not showing.
If macOS stops applying your item order, Sections offers a Restart Menu Bar button to recover it.
Improved
A setting that depends on another one stays visible and disabled, and its info button says what turns it on.
Info buttons in Settings open when you hover over them.
Collapsible and Floating have their on/off switch at the top of their page.
The Sections page groups its bars and hints in a card, like the rest of Settings.
Fixed
On macOS 27, some items (like iStat Menus or Xcode) could stay in place after being dragged, or split between sections.
Revealing hidden items could move Glow's icon, and some items appeared to its right.
The Floating bar rarely opened on hover after clicking the desktop, and the trackpad could tap repeatedly.
With two displays, hovering over the menu bar did not reveal Collapsible items on the display that shows Glow's icons.
The third section was sometimes called Always Hidden. It is now always Floating.
Settings could briefly show a License Required screen while Glow was starting.
v3.1.3
Stable
Setup and licensing now share one window, and Quick Settings fades in and out.
Features
The welcome window writes Glow's name in glass, and the license screen now lives in the same window.
Quick Settings now fades in and out.
Improved
Items from the same app now move between sections together, because macOS hides them together.
Mood previews now show the app menu, and their capsule fits it the way it does on the real menu bar.
The Moods carousel fades at its edges and explains how to center, apply and browse Moods.
Quick Settings uses your system accent color.
Fixed
A mistyped license key could lock Glow for the rest of the session, even while the trial was still available.
Some menu bar icons, like iStat Menus from Setapp, stayed hidden while Glow was running, whatever section they were in. Glow now marks them and can fix them with one click.
v3.1.0
Stable
A redesigned welcome experience and more reliable menu bar appearance.
Features
A redesigned welcome window guides you through setup and explains the permissions Glow needs.
Improved
Improved responsiveness when showing and hiding menu bar items.
Fixed
Fixed menu bar backgrounds using the wrong dimensions on multiple displays.
Fixed missing backgrounds when switching back from the native appearance.
Fixed clicks on neighboring Mood cards and protected reserved Mood names.
Fixed preset changes bringing back duplicate menu bar items.
Fixed clicks on a covered Glow icon failing to toggle its section.
v3.0.1
Stable
A fast follow-up to 3.0. An app opened after Glow now shows its icon instead of staying invisible, reordering menu bar items no longer asks for Full Disk Access, and the menu bar capsule no longer grows without shrinking back.
Features
Reordering menu bar items no longer needs Full Disk Access. Glow asks you to pick one file in a panel instead, and macOS grants access to just that file. This replaces the permission 3.0.0 asked for, and the Collapsible section comes with it.
Fixed
An app opened after Glow could stay invisible: its icon was never drawn and Glow did not list it. Quitting and reopening Glow was the only way out.
The menu bar capsule could come out the wrong width. It grew as you expanded and collapsed it and never shrank back, and it could sit narrower than what it wraps.
Items in Always Visible could end up to the left of Glow's own icon, and stay there.
Dragging an item out of the Always Visible row did nothing, which also blocked moving an item into Collapsible.
A permission granted after startup was ignored for the rest of the session.
v3.0.0
Stable
Glow 3.0 is the first release built on a rewritten core: one codebase behind both macOS 26 and macOS 27, in place of a separate build for each. Almost none of that work is visible, which is why this release took a while and why it is light on new features. What is new here is chiefly the redesigned Settings and Moods, a much faster way to change how your menu bar looks. It is still being polished.
Features
Settings has been rebuilt: a new structure and navigation, search that reaches every pane, and a Native accent mode that draws real system components instead of only tinting them.
Moods: save a complete look (shape, material, colors and corners) as a named Mood and switch between them in one click. Each display can wear its own, and a Mood can dress the desktop too, setting a matching wallpaper.
Quick Settings: the appearance editor, redesigned and renamed to say what it actually is. Change how the menu bar looks from the menu bar itself, without opening Settings.
Rounded screen corners: round the corners of any display, at the radius you pick.
Three menu bar styles on a single axis: Single, Paired and Sections. With Single and the inset off, the bar sits flush with the screen edge and gets its own bottom-corner control, including a flared edge.
The Sections pane has two shapes, and moving an item between sections no longer requires dragging it.
A Permissions page that tells you which access is missing, what it unlocks, and takes you straight to the right place in System Settings.
German, Spanish and Japanese are fully translated.
Improved
Menu bar scanning runs off the main thread, so the interface stays responsive while Glow works.
Item Search opens instantly: its list is built once, ahead of your first use.
Opening Sections no longer re-scans and reveals the whole menu bar every time, which was costing 4.7 seconds per open.
Glass Style in Simple mode now offers a trimmed set of finishes instead of an over-full list. Every variant is still there in Advanced.
Items in Floating now keep their own order, saved by Glow, so reordering there works without Full Disk Access.
Fixed
Reordering menu bar items did nothing on macOS 27. macOS changed where it keeps item order during the 27 betas; Glow now writes to the right place. See Known Issues for the access it needs.
Turning off the Collapsible section moved all of its items to Floating with no way back: re-enabling it left the section permanently empty.
The menu bar came up fully expanded even when you had left it collapsed. The saved layout was only applied when something changed, never at startup.
The clock stopped opening Notification Center as soon as anything was hidden, whatever you hid.
"Show Overlay" did nothing: with two displays, all three scopes left both overlays visible.
The menu bar capsule was drawn at the wrong size on a display that is not hosting the menu bar.
Two rows could appear with the same icon, and Time Machine could show up as a VPN entry.
A layout that failed to apply was never retried, neither automatically nor from the Retry button.
Show on Hover could be dead after launch, and could trigger on a tremor at the edge of the reveal region instead of a real crossing into it.
Clicks could be swallowed by the GlowBar panel: the strip of menu bar beneath it went dead, and reopening the panel could take two clicks.
Fixed a stray capsule being drawn around a control that was no longer in the menu bar, and the section capsules taking a couple of seconds to appear on a second display.
v3.0.0-3
Beta
This beta focuses on menu bar stability: item positioning, third-party icons, and overlay behavior on smaller displays.
Fixed
Fixed occasional duplicate or misplaced icons for some third-party menu bar items.
Fixed positioning and ordering of items in the hidden section.
Fixed split menu bar capsules sometimes collapsing to zero width after capturing icons.
Fixed the menu bar overlay behaving incorrectly when switching desktops with a maximized window on smaller displays.
v3.0.0-2
Beta
A stability-focused beta that sharpens how Glow tracks, hides, and reorders your menu bar items — with fixes for cold-start icon leaks, third-party item identity, layout-editor dragging, and Item Search focus.
Improved
Sharper, more stable menu bar icon capture — including the clock — so icons no longer flicker or show the wrong crop.
Fixed
Hidden menu bar icons no longer briefly leak into view right after launch.
Fixed items from some third-party apps whose icons could fluctuate or land in the wrong place when dragged.
Dragging items in the layout editor is now more reliable, with steadier identity and ordering.
Reordering items within the visible section now behaves as expected.
Item Search no longer steals keyboard focus from the app you’re using.
v3.0.0-1
Beta
First beta of Glow for macOS 27 — rebuilt from the ground up for the new menu bar in macOS 27. Runs only on macOS 27.
Features
Native macOS 27 support: a menu-bar engine rebuilt for how macOS 27 composites status items, so hiding, showing, and reordering work with the new system.
Layout presets: save menu-bar arrangements and switch between them.
New Liquid Glass looks: Alt Style and Tight Shadow options for the capsules.
Clearer layout editor: Settings › Sections now shows the real menu-bar icons.
Improved
Sharper icon thumbnails: menu-bar icons are captured more reliably and look crisper in the layout editor.
Lighter menu-bar scanning: removed redundant rescans for a more responsive bar.
Fixed
Fixed the hidden section not revealing on hover right after using the GlowBar toggle.
Fixed clicking a floating menu-bar item from GlowBar.
Fixed items such as Weather and Siri occasionally starting in the wrong section after launch.
Fixed the Sections editor becoming unusable when the chevron fell off a crowded menu bar.
Fixed cases where reordering menu-bar items did not take effect.
Fixed capsule materials flickering while sections merge or resize.
Fixed hover stopping after the system temporarily disabled mouse monitoring.
v2.0.0
Stable
A major upgrade introducing item search, a redesigned settings panel, optimized performance, improved battery life, and enhanced stability.
Features
New Item Search: Quickly search your items directly from the bar to find what you need instantly.
Clearer Layout Settings: We've completely redesigned the configuration panel. It's now cleaner, more modern, and easier to navigate.
Unified Option Cards: Settings menus now feature a cohesive card design, making toggling and selecting options more intuitive.
Preview Enhancements: Preview editing and styling now have a more responsive, eye-friendly layout.
Improved
Smoother Animations: The bar transitions in and out more fluidly, adapting to cursor movement and preventing flickering.
Smart Screen Alignment: The bar anchors precisely below the system menu bar, ensuring it never overlaps or blocks critical macOS elements.
More Stable Layout: Solved icon shifting or jumping at the far right during state changes. Elements now adjust smoothly.
System Optimization: Redesigned internal calculations to lower CPU usage, resulting in faster response times and improved battery life.
Memory Efficiency: Optimized memory usage to prevent leaks, ensuring smooth performance even after long days of continuous use.
Fixed
Automatic Recovery: If the macOS gesture or click detection experiences a temporary hiccup, the app now recovers instantly without requiring a restart.
Enhanced Security: Strengthened internal code security and licensing systems to keep your information safe.
Silent Bug Logging: Proactively detects and resolves minor errors in the background for a seamless experience.
v1.2.1
Stable
Hide the Glow icon to reclaim space, choose where GlowBar appears, reveal it with hover, and enjoy numerous settings refinements and stability fixes.
Features
Hide the Glow icon: Reclaim menu bar space — you can now hide the Glow icon entirely and access hidden items through your hotkey.
Hide the GlowBar toggle: Same idea for the GlowBar button. Keep the feature, lose the icon.
Choose where the GlowBar appears: Anchor it to your icon, align it to the right edge of the screen, or have it pop up right under your cursor — pick what fits your workflow.
Hover to reveal the GlowBar: Flick your mouse toward the GlowBar and it opens automatically. It hides again based on your rehide preferences.
Focused display only: If you use multiple monitors, Glow can now show its overlay only on the display you're actively working on, keeping the others clean.
Always-Hidden section ↔ GlowBar: Switch between the classic inline Hidden section and the floating GlowBar panel — items move over automatically, nothing gets lost.
Improved
Clearer Essentials sections: Renamed to Startup & Dock and Display & Integration so each section's purpose is obvious.
Smarter Icon Animation tooltip: When Icon Animation can't be used (for example, with Motion off or the item counter enabled), the tooltip now tells you exactly why — no more guessing.
Smarter Contour Style option: The Contour Style picker only shows up when your corner radius are actually different. If all corners match, the option stays out of the way.
Reveal preferences stick: If you turn off hover, click, and scroll reveals on purpose, Glow remembers — it won't quietly re-enable hover when you relaunch.
Consistent section colors: Icons and accents across Settings now share the same section color, so the UI feels more coherent.
Fixed
Fullscreen glitches gone: Capsules could flicker or draw incorrectly when entering fullscreen. Transitions are now clean.
Overlay no longer gets stuck after fullscreen: In rare cases Glow stayed "paused" after exiting fullscreen and wouldn't come back. It now reliably resumes.
Hidden capsule rendering is more reliable: Fixed inconsistencies in how the hidden section's capsule appeared depending on icon visibility.
Dragging items in Layout Settings feels better: Drag operations no longer collide with background animations — rearranging items is smoother and more responsive.
Better drag diagnostics under the hood: When drags fail or time out, Glow now captures more context so issues are easier to track down.
v1.1.8
Stable
Advanced menu bar customization, smarter temporary display, improved reliability, and lower resource usage.
Features
Advanced Corner & Border Customization: You now have much more control over the look of your menu bar — customize the roundness and borders corner by corner to match your style.
Cleaner Settings UI: We've simplified the visual customization panel by removing redundant options, making it much easier to personalize the app.
Improved
Improved Vibrant Theme: The default profiles for the Vibrant appearance have been refined so the outlines look great right out of the box.
Smarter Temporary Bar Display: The feature that temporarily reveals your menu bar has been significantly reworked — it now responds better to your clicks and plays more nicely with other apps running on your Mac.
Lower Resource Usage: Glow is now smarter about caching data in the background (such as your monitor layout and IDs), resulting in faster rendering and less CPU overhead.
Internal Cleanup: We've done a thorough cleanup to remove unnecessary internal noise from the app's code, making Glow run quieter and more efficiently behind the scenes.
v1.1.5
Stable
Visual improvements including better Apple Logo alignment, smoother menu bar management, enhanced stability, and bug fixes.
Improved
Better Apple Logo Alignment: The Apple logo now sits perfectly on MacBook Pro and MacBook Air M2+ displays with a notch.
Refined Borders & Corners: Menu bar capsules now support fully rounded or sharp corners — choose the look that fits your style.
Improved Fullscreen Behavior: The overlay now correctly hides and reappears when you enter or exit fullscreen.
Smoother Hover Detection: Hovering over the hidden section area now responds more fluidly.
More Reliable Clicks: Improved detection to tell apart a click from a drag, so you no longer trigger accidental actions.
Automatic Recovery After Sleep: Glow now correctly reconfigures itself when your Mac wakes from sleep.
Hidden Item Count Badge On by Default: You can always see at a glance how many items are tucked away in your hidden section.
General Performance Improvements: Internal optimizations for smoother overall experience and lower resource usage.
Fixed
Fixed capsule spacing on both notch and non-notch displays.
Fixed overlay misalignment that could occur after dragging items.
Improved detection of popups and system windows to avoid interference with the menu bar.
v1.1.2
Stable
Personalize the Apple logo, organize your menu bar with Split View Mode, enjoy new GlowBar animations, and benefit from numerous improvements and bug fixes.
Features
Customizable Apple Logo: Personalize the Apple logo in your menu bar with new visual effects and dynamic colors that match your wallpaper.
Split View Mode: A beautiful new way to organize your menu bar with animated, separate sections featuring smooth transitions and highlights.
GlowBar Animations: Enjoy fluid animations when showing or hiding GlowBar, along with slick transitions when your content appears.
Improved
Smoother Drag & Drop: Organizing your menu bar items is now more stable and precise, especially when moving items between different sections.
Refined Layout: The Glow Icon and GlowBar Toggle now stay neatly together, and GlowBar panels always center perfectly below their control items.
Updated Themes: The Vibrant and Obsidian appearance presets have been updated to seamlessly integrate with the new Apple logo customizations.
Fixed an issue where menu bar icons could appear with incorrect sizing.
Resolved layout issues with notification badges to ensure consistent spacing.
Fixed a bug where item count badges wouldn't update immediately after dragging items.
Ensured the "Always Hidden" section remembers your preferred item positions correctly.
Improved accessibility descriptions for screen readers and other assistive tools.
v1.0.9
Stable
Introducing GlowBar, item count badges, and significant improvements to drag & drop precision.
Features
GlowBar: A brand new addition to your menu bar experience.
Item Count Badges: Keep track of your items with customizable badges right in the menu bar.
Improved
Precision Control: Refactored drag path calculations for pinpoint accuracy during item organization.
Improved Stability: Adjusted sensitivity with a 50% overlap threshold to prevent accidental moves.
Visual Feedback: Added clear visual cues during drag operations to improve usability.
v1.0.7
Stable
Enhanced the reliability of fullscreen state tracking with improved observer management and smarter retry logic.
Improved
Fullscreen Stability: Enhanced the reliability of fullscreen state tracking with improved observer management and smarter retry logic.
v1.0.6
Stable
Major improvements to fullscreen accuracy, significant performance optimizations, and smarter caching logic.
Improved
Smarter Fullscreen Detection: Introduced an observer pattern for per-display fullscreen state tracking, ensuring accurate behavior across multiple monitors
Improved Compatibility: Expanded the list of ignored applications for fullscreen detection to include screen recording processes
Faster Event Handling: Streamlined segment update handling and event monitoring with reactive debounce for improved responsiveness
Direct Frame Updates: Replaced NotificationCenter-based frame updates with direct callback handlers, reducing overhead and improving efficiency
Reduced Main Thread Contention: Offloaded heavy accessibility IPC operations to a dedicated background worker, minimizing UI freezes
Animation-Aware Caching: Cache refreshes are now deferred during active animations, preventing unnecessary operations and improving smoothness
Smarter Retry Logic: User-initiated retries and settings access now bypass the circuit breaker for more reliable cache updates
Enhanced Global Monitor Activation: Improved logic for global monitor activation with added stability
v1.0.3
Stable
Performance optimizations and enhanced multi-monitor support for a smoother experience.
Improved
Optimized Resource Usage: Significant reductions in CPU and RAM consumption through enhanced memory management and optimized image caching
Smarter Background Operations: Resource-intensive tasks are now suspended when in fullscreen mode to maximize performance
Accurate Display Handling: Fullscreen detection now operates on a per-display basis, ensuring correct behavior in multi-monitor setups
Improved Stability: Enhanced logic for handling fullscreen transitions and aggressive cleanup of orphaned panels to prevent visual glitches
v1.0.0
Stable
Your menu bar, reimagined. Glow transforms macOS with stunning visuals and fluid animations.
Features
Liquid Glass effects
Organize your icons into 3 customizable sections
Drag and drop to arrange your favorite apps
Multiple ways to reveal: hotkey, mouse movement, or click
Custom keyboard shortcuts for quick access
Dynamic wallpapers support
Optimized for macOS Tahoe
Fluid animations
And much more to discover...
Ready when you are
Glow up your menu bar.
Free trial. No subscription. Made for macOS 26+. Pay once and own it
forever.
