Basics
Getting started
Glow runs on macOS 26 & 27, on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
- Install it. Open the disk image, drag Glow into your Applications folder and open it from there. On macOS 27, Glow can only hide items when it runs from Applications.
- Follow the welcome. It asks for the permissions Glow needs and suggests looks for your desktop picture. The one you choose becomes your first Mood, Default.
- Find the Glow icon, the chevron to the left of your menu bar items. Click it to show or hide your Collapsible items. Right-click it for the Glow menu, with Glow Settings… (⌘,), Quick Settings… and Check for Updates….
Permissions
Review them any time in Settings › System › Privacy › System Permissions.
| Permission | What Glow uses it for |
|---|---|
| Accessibility Required | Recognizing your menu bar items, and clicking them for you from the Floating Bar and Glow Search. |
| Screen Recording Optional | Showing each item's real icon in the Floating Bar and Glow Search. Glow only takes still pictures of the menu bar; without it, you see the app's icon instead. |
| Menu Bar Files Required macOS 27 | Two protected files where macOS keeps your menu bar: select each one and press Grant Access. The first keeps your item order, and setup needs it. The second, optional, keeps Live Activities, AirDrop, Now Playing and other system icons in the bar while Glow hides items. |
| Focus Files Optional | Letting a Focus choose a Mood. Glow asks for it only in System Permissions, never during setup. |
The free trial unlocks every feature for 3 days. Once you buy a license, enter it in Settings › System › License.
The three sections
Every item in your menu bar lives in one of three sections:
- Visible
- Always in the menu bar.
- Collapsible
- Hidden until you reveal it, for example with a click on the Glow icon.
- Floating
- Off the menu bar, in the Floating Bar: a glass panel that drops down when you need it. Turn the Floating Bar on to use it.
Move an item
- Open Settings › Items. Each section is a row.
- Drag the item to another row, or right-click it and choose Move to Visible, Move to Collapsible or Move to Floating.
Items from a new app start in Visible: Glow only hides what you move.
On macOS 27, an app's items move together, and a Hidden row keeps the items you never want to see. What else is different
More: the List view, the Hidden row and icons
- Press the + beside a row (“Bring items here”) to pick items for it.
- Prefer a list? Switch to the List view at the top right and drag rows by their handle.
- Click a section's name to open its settings page.
- Hidden (macOS 27): its items never show, not when you reveal Collapsible, in the Floating Bar or Glow Search, or while you hold Show Full Menu Bar While Held. Right-click an item and choose Move to Hidden, or drag it there; drag it to a section to bring it back. Like the sections, Hidden belongs to the Layout.
- On macOS 27, items you switched off in System Settings › Menu Bar wait in Hidden while their app is open. Move one to a section and Glow turns it back on.
- On macOS 27, if an icon looks out of date, press Refresh Icons. Hidden items show for a moment while Glow reads them.
Menu bar
Collapsible
Click the Glow icon to show or hide your Collapsible items. By default, resting the pointer on it works too. To change how they appear, open Settings › Items › Collapsible and use the Reveal card:
- Reveal with: Hover (the default) or Click.
- Reveal on: Icon Only (the default), so moving across the menu bar never opens anything by accident, or Whole Bar, any empty part of the menu bar.
- Toggle Collapsible Section: a keyboard shortcut of your own.
The items hide again as soon as the pointer leaves the menu bar. To keep them longer, choose another Hide Strategy in the Hide card.
More: when items hide, the Glow icon and its counter
- Instant
- As soon as the pointer leaves the menu bar. The default.
- Delayed
- After 1 to 30 seconds (15 by default), set with Hide after.
- Focus Change
- When you click another window.
- Never
- Only when you hide them yourself.
- Glow never hides an item while its menu is open.
- With Hover, you can add a Hover delay of up to a second. Click the selected card again to use neither gesture: then only the icon and the shortcut reveal Collapsible.
- Change the Glow icon in the Glow Icon card: Chevron (the default), Arrow, Door, Eye, Circle, Square, Checkmark, or Custom for your own image.
- The number beside the Glow icon counts Collapsible's items. In the Item Counter card, turn it off, show Roman numerals or put it to the right of the icon.
- A light tap on the trackpad marks items showing or hiding, and swiping between Moods. Turn it off or change its Strength in Settings › Interactions › Feedback › Haptic feedback.
The Floating Bar
The Floating Bar is a glass panel that drops down from the menu bar with your Floating items. Click one and Glow opens its real menu.
- Open Settings › Items › Floating and turn on Enable. The Floating Bar icon joins your menu bar.
- Move the items you want there to Floating (see Move an item).
- Rest the pointer on the Floating Bar icon, or click it, and the panel drops down. Click an item to open its menu; when the menu closes, the item hides again.
More: shortcut, closing, keyboard, position and icon
- Shortcut: set Toggle Floating Bar on the same page.
- Reveal with: Hover (the default) opens the Floating Bar when you rest the pointer on its icon, after an optional Hover delay; Click opens it when you click empty space in the menu bar. If Collapsible also uses Click on the Whole Bar, hold ⌥ as you click; if Collapsible's Click is on Icon Only, empty space opens nothing.
- Hide Strategy: Instant as the pointer leaves the panel and its icon, Delayed, Focus Change when you click outside it, or Never, until you close it yourself.
- Keyboard: ⌥← and ⌥→ move the selection, ⌥↩ or ⌥Space opens the selected item, and ⎋ clears the selection. The app in front receives these keys too.
- Position: under its Icon (the default), at the Right Edge or at the Mouse.
- Icon: choose another on the same page, or import your own with Custom. Before you choose No Icon, give Toggle Floating Bar a shortcut, so you can still open the Floating Bar. Its Item Counter card puts a number on the icon.
- Shape-merge (Settings › General › Visuals) makes the panel melt out of its icon's capsule. It needs Motion, the panel opening under its icon, and Match the menu bar's finish (on by default, in the Mood's Floating Bar tab in Advanced).
- Control Center modules that macOS publishes without an identifier, such as Now Playing or Focus, can't go in the Floating Bar.
Use only the Floating Bar
If everything you hide is in the Floating Bar, turn Collapsible off: on the Collapsible Section page (Settings › Items › Collapsible), turn Enable off. Its items move to Floating. On macOS 27 the Glow icon also leaves the menu bar, and the Floating Bar icon takes over: right-click it for the Glow menu.
What else changes
- Glow always keeps at least one of the two sections on, so the Floating Bar has to be on first.
- Collapsible's gestures, its shortcut and its Item Counter stop working. The Floating Bar icon's counter now counts the items that moved, and on macOS 27 that icon can't be hidden.
- Turning Collapsible back on doesn't move its old items back: drag the ones you want from Floating. It works the other way too: turn the Floating Bar off and Floating's items move to Collapsible. Items in Hidden stay where they are.
- Both switches belong to the Layout, so a Layout for presenting can use only Floating while another keeps both.
Floating groups
Groups split Floating into named sets, and the Floating Bar shows one at a time: your developer tools in one group, utilities in another.
- On the Floating Section page, with the Floating Bar on, turn on Use Groups.
- You start with Group 1 and Group 2; New Group adds more, up to six counting All. Type in a group's name to rename it.
- In Settings › Items, Floating now has one row per group: drag items between them.
- With the Floating Bar open, press ⌘1, ⌘2… to switch groups, or ⌘0 for All. You can also click a group in the strip.
More: icons, order, shortcuts and the group strip
- All shows every Floating item. Group 1 gets the items that no other group claims.
- Click a group's round mark to pick an icon, and drag its grip (or use ⋯ › Move Up / Move Down) to reorder. Delete Group moves its items back to the default group; Group 1 and Group 2 can't be deleted.
- Give a group its own shortcut in its row: it opens the Floating Bar on that group from any app, and closes it when pressed again. All uses the Toggle Floating Bar shortcut.
- The app in front receives ⌘0, ⌘1… too, so a browser may switch tabs as well.
- Group Strip puts the strip at the Top (the default) or Bottom of the Floating Bar. Other Groups shows the groups you're not viewing as Shortcuts (the default, or a dot for a group without one), a Dot or Icons. Rest the pointer on one to see its name.
- Groups belong to a Layout, so each Layout can have its own. Turning Use Groups off shows all of Floating again and keeps your groups for later.
Layouts
A Layout keeps your arrangement: which section each item is in, which sections are on, and your Floating groups. Keep one for work and one for presenting, and switch with a click.
- Create one with New Layout in the Layout picker at the top of Settings › Items. There's nothing to save: Glow keeps the active Layout up to date as you arrange items.
- Switch from that picker, the Glow menu's Layout submenu, Quick Settings or the Cycle Layouts shortcut.
- Layouts never switch by themselves, but a Mood can switch one for you: see Mood Actions.
Moods and Liquid Glass
Moods
A Mood is a complete look for your menu bar: its style, glass, colors and Apple logo, the look of the Floating Bar and Glow Search, and, if you like, your desktop picture.
Apply a Mood
Your Moods are in a carousel in Settings › Workspace and in Quick Settings. Click a card at the side to bring it to the center, then click the center card to apply it. To browse, swipe with two fingers or drag the row.
Create and edit Moods
- Press New Mood at the top of Workspace, set up the look you want, then press Save Mood and name it.
- To change a Mood, right-click its card and choose Edit. Press Update Mood to keep your changes.
A Mood's page has three tabs: Shape, Look and System. For every setting, choose Advanced in the ··· menu at the top right; see Liquid Glass styles.
Your desktop picture
On the System tab, Desktop chooses what the Mood does with your desktop picture:
- Follow Desktop
- The Mood keeps no picture of its own, and its colors adapt to whatever picture you have. Default starts this way.
- Keep Picture
- The Mood saves the picture on screen and puts it back when you apply it.
Light and Dark
Turn on Adaptive in Workspace and choose a Mood for Light Mode and one for Dark Mode. Glow switches when macOS does.
More: transitions, suggested looks and system colors
- Mood Transition blurs the screen while a new Mood goes on, and the new glass, desktop picture, Layout and Dock settle in under the blur. It's on by default, under the carousel in Workspace. You can also switch it in Quick Settings' Visual Effects module. It needs Motion; with Reduce Motion on in System Settings, Moods change without the blur.
- Choosing the Mood you're wearing, unchanged since you applied it, skips the blur. Its Actions still run.
- The Look tab suggests three looks picked for your desktop picture: Balanced, Vibrant and Contrast. The Shadow, Border and Glass Fade switches above them change all three; click one to put it on your bar.
- While a Mood follows the desktop, anything you set by hand stays as you set it, marked with a small pin. Its menu has Back to Automatic to let the desktop decide again.
- Match system colors to your desktop, off by default, also sets macOS's accent, text highlight and folder colors from the picture, for every app. In Advanced, Change macOS Appearance stores those colors and an icon and widget style in the Mood, where your version of macOS allows it.
- Keep Picture puts the picture back on the current Space. Dynamic and aerial desktops can't be kept.
- Edit applies the Mood's look without running its Actions, and a Modified tag shows changes you haven't kept yet. Right-click a card for Rename… and Delete too; Default can't be renamed or deleted.
- Screen corners, Motion, Shape-merge and the displays that get the glass aren't part of a Mood.
Liquid Glass styles
The glass settings live on each Mood's page in Settings › Workspace, and the menu bar changes as you edit them. The Shape and Look tabs hold the essentials; for everything, choose Advanced in the ··· menu.
- Style
- Single: one shape across the menu bar. Paired: one capsule over the app's menus and one over your items. Sections: the app's menus plus one capsule per section.
- Glass
- On the Look tab, the suggested looks choose it for you. In Advanced, Glass Style steps through every Liquid Glass finish Glow offers.
- Corners
- Named shapes that look the same on every display: Fluid, Leaf, Drop, Link and Step.
- Inset
- How far the glass sits from the screen edges: Disabled, Minimal or Deep.
- Color and detail
- Tint, Muted Tint and Dim Background; Border and its color; Shadow.
- Glass Fade
- Fades the menu bar's top edge to black, so it blends into the display's bezel.
- Apple logo
- System, App Icon, Rainbow, Silver, Glass or Aqua.
More: Advanced, displays and full screen
- In Advanced, the tabs become Menu bar, Floating Bar, Glow Search and System, each with its own Shape and Look. Picking a floating panel shows it while you edit.
- Glass Style is a slider numbered 1 to 20; the Single style adds one more, the lightest of all.
- Advanced also sets each corner on its own (Sharp, Minimal, Smooth, Fluid or Custom) and, with several capsules, Corner Style: Unified or Alternating.
- Reach, Hold and Falloff shape Glass Fade. It doesn't apply to the Floating Bar or Glow Search.
- Choose which displays get the glass in Settings › General › Visuals › Show overlay on: Built-in, Main Display (the default) or All Displays.
- In a full-screen app, Glow steps aside and macOS shows its own menu bar.
- Rounded screen corners are in Settings › Desktop › Display › Screen corners, off by default.
Mood Actions
Besides its look, a Mood can set up the rest of your Mac: switch the Layout, change the Dock, run a shortcut, and tidy up or bring back your apps and windows.
- In Settings › Workspace, right-click a Mood's card and choose Actions…. Opening the page leaves your menu bar as it is.
- Choose what the Mood should do, then press Update at the top right. Nothing runs from this page.
What a Mood can do
Each of these starts at None, which leaves that part as it is:
- Menu Bar
- Switches to one of your Layouts, with the sections it turns on.
- Dock
- Puts one of your Dock layouts in the Dock, which restarts in under a second.
- Run Shortcut
- Runs a shortcut from the Shortcuts app. To turn on a Focus with the Mood, choose a shortcut that uses the Set Focus action.
- Desktop Beta
- Its Apps & Windows menu hides or quits every app but the ones you keep, or reopens your apps and puts their windows back.
Turn on with a Focus
In the Automation group, Turn On with Focus picks a Focus. When the Focus turns on, Glow chooses this Mood. When it turns off, the Mood you had before comes back, unless you chose another one in the meantime. It needs the Focus Files permission, in Settings › System › Privacy › System Permissions.
Actions run whenever you choose the Mood, from the carousel or from Glow Search, and when its Focus or Adaptive switches to it. Editing the Mood, a new desktop picture or starting Glow never runs them.
More: Apps & Windows, Dock layouts and details
Apps & Windows offers four choices:
- None
- Leaves your apps alone. Choosing None for a Mood that has a saved desktop removes it, after asking.
- Clean Slate
- Saves nothing. Choosing the Mood hides or quits every open app except the ones in its Keep Open list (Add App).
- Fixed
- Saves the apps and windows open now, and choosing the Mood always puts those back. To save them again, press ↻ beside the summary.
- Remember Last
- Like Fixed, but Glow saves them again each time you leave the Mood, so you pick up where you left off.
- With Fixed or Remember Last, choosing the Mood opens the apps that aren't running and puts each window back: same display, same Desktop, minimized or not. Browser tabs and full-screen windows are left out. Both need Accessibility.
- Switch off any app you don't want back. Other Apps chooses what happens to the open apps the Mood doesn't hold: Leave Open, Hide or Quit, which works like ⌘Q (Finder is hidden instead). With Clean Slate it offers only Hide and Quit.
- Without Receive beta updates, the Desktop group is dimmed, and a desktop already saved in a Mood is kept but not used.
- Make Dock layouts in Settings › Desktop › Dock › Layouts: New Layout saves the Dock as it is now, and Original is your Dock from before Glow changed it. Fill a layout's Apps and Folders and Links rows with the + beside each.
- Choosing a Dock layout puts it in the Dock right away. Glow saves a copy of your Dock first and puts it back if anything goes wrong.
- Each Focus chooses one Mood, and with Share Across Devices on, a Focus started on your iPhone counts too. A Mood chosen by a Focus never runs its shortcut, so the two can't keep switching each other.
- In Settings, a Mood with Actions shows small symbols after its name. If something couldn't run, its Actions page says what, next to Last time. Actions pause while Glow's license isn't active.
Visual feedback and effects
Move the pointer over Glow's glass and a soft light follows it, on the menu bar, the Floating Bar and Glow Search. On macOS 27, Glow Search and, in the Sections style, the capsules of the Glow icon and the Floating Bar icon also grow slightly and sink when you press. Your click still reaches the item underneath.
It's on by default. Turn it off in Settings › Interactions › Feedback › Visual feedback.
Visual Effects
Quick Settings' Visual Effects module turns Visual feedback, Mood Transition, Motion and Shape-merge off with one click, or one by one when you open it. Mood Transition and Shape-merge grey out while Motion is off. Its switch stays on while any of the four is on; with all four off, one click turns them back on.
- Motion
- Animates the capsules as they resize, the Glow icon and the Mood Transition. Off, changes are instant. In Settings › General › Visuals.
- Shape-merge
- Melts the glass: capsules merge and split, and the Floating Bar and Glow Search melt out of the menu bar. Needs Motion. In Settings › General › Visuals.
- Visual feedback
- The light under the pointer, and on macOS 27 the grow and the press.
- Mood Transition
- The blur while a new Mood goes on. Needs Motion. Under the carousel in Workspace.
Quick access
Glow Search
Glow Search finds a menu bar item by name, in any section, and opens its menu. It can find your Moods and Layouts too.
- Give it a shortcut in Settings › Glow Search › Toggle Glow Search. It has none by default.
- Press the shortcut and type part of a name. Matching is forgiving, so a few letters usually do.
- Press ↩ to open the item's menu, choose the Mood (Actions included) or switch to the Layout. ↑ and ↓ move through the results, and ⎋ closes the panel.
In the same pane, Search In adds Moods and Layouts to Menu Bar Items, and Search Window Size opens it Compact (the default, growing as you type) or Expanded. How it looks is part of the Mood.
Quick Settings
Quick Settings drops down from the menu bar with what you change most: your Moods, your Layouts and Glow's visual effects.
- Open it from the Glow menu (right-click the Glow icon or the Floating Bar icon) › Quick Settings…, or with the Toggle Quick Settings shortcut.
- Click a Mood at the side to bring it to the center, then click the center card to apply it, Actions included.
- The Layout module switches Layouts, and Visual Effects turns the effects off or back on.
Keyboard shortcuts
Glow's shortcuts start empty, so they never clash with yours. Each one is set where its feature lives, shown under its name. The section shortcuts and Toggle Quick Settings also show in the Glow menu.
| Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|
| Toggle Collapsible Section Settings › Items › Collapsible | Shows or hides Collapsible. |
| Toggle Floating Bar Settings › Items › Floating | Opens or closes the Floating Bar (on All, when you use groups). |
| Toggle Glow Search Settings › Glow Search | Opens or closes Glow Search. |
| Toggle Quick Settings Settings › Interactions › Keyboard Shortcuts | Opens or closes Quick Settings. |
| Cycle Layouts Settings › Interactions › Keyboard Shortcuts | Switches to the next Layout. |
| Show Full Menu Bar While Held macOS 27 Settings › Interactions › Keyboard Shortcuts | While you hold it, your Collapsible and Floating items show. So do the system icons macOS takes away while Glow hides, unless your Hidden row has items. Let go and they hide again. |
Inside the Floating Bar:
- ⌥← / ⌥→ move the selection, ⌥↩ or ⌥Space opens the selected item, and ⎋ clears it.
- With groups: ⌘0 shows All, and ⌘1, ⌘2… each group in order.
Reference
macOS 26 and macOS 27
The same Glow runs on both, but macOS 27 changed how the menu bar works, so a few things differ.
| macOS 26 | macOS 27 | |
|---|---|---|
| Hiding | Hidden items are pushed off the screen | macOS hides them in place; an app's items hide and show together, and a new icon from an app you've hidden joins its section |
| Always visible | Clock and Control Center | Clock and Control Center |
| Siri, Time Machine and VPN | Move like any item | Move between sections together |
| Hidden row in Settings › Items | Not available | Available |
| While Glow hides items | — | Until Menu Bar Files has both files, Live Activities, AirDrop, Focus, Now Playing and a few others leave the bar |
| Live Activities | — | With both Menu Bar Files, they sit in Collapsible's capsule, whether it's open or not |
| When the menu bar runs out of room | — | macOS tucks items behind a «‹‹» button; expanding Collapsible opens it, and those items still open from the Floating Bar and Glow Search |
| Menu Bar Files permission | Not needed | Required (the second file is optional) |
| Icon spacing | Settings › Items › Menu Bar Spacing | Not available |
| Show Full Menu Bar While Held | Not needed | Available |
| ⌘-drag in the menu bar | Moves an item to another section | Doesn't change sections: use Settings › Items |
| Under the pointer | The glass lights up | The glass lights up; Glow Search and the Glow icons' capsules in Sections also grow and sink |
Troubleshooting
Items move around, or my order doesn't stick
Another menu bar manager is probably running. Two apps that hide and reorder the same items fight each other, so quit one. Glow warns you when it spots one, and Settings › System › Troubleshooting › Diagnostics lists conflicting apps.
Glow says it can't style the menu bar
macOS is drawing a solid background behind the menu bar. Turn off “Show menu bar background” in System Settings › Menu Bar, or “Reduce transparency” in System Settings › Accessibility › Display. Glow's notice has an Open Settings button.
A banner says macOS stopped applying my menu bar order
Press Restart Menu Bar in the banner. Every icon blinks for a moment and your order comes back.
Hiding does nothing
On macOS 27, make sure Glow is in your Applications folder and that you're running that copy. On macOS 26, make sure Glow has Accessibility permission. Settings › System › Troubleshooting › Diagnostics shows which one is missing.
An item says “Hidden by macOS while Glow runs”
On macOS 27, macOS hides the items of apps that run from outside Applications. Click the warning sign beside the item in Settings › Items and choose Move to Applications.
Some icons vanished from the menu bar
On macOS 27, Live Activities, AirDrop, Fast User Switching, Focus, Now Playing and Timer leave the bar while Glow hides something. Grant both files of Menu Bar Files in Settings › System › Privacy › System Permissions and they stay. If your Hidden row is empty, you can also hold your Show Full Menu Bar While Held shortcut to see them.
My MacBook's notch hides some items
Settings › Items tells you how many items don't fit beside the notch, and warns you when even the Glow icon doesn't. Move some to Floating; Glow doesn't move them for you.
The menu bar hides automatically
Glow can't arrange or style a menu bar that macOS hides automatically. Turn that off in System Settings › Menu Bar.
How do I update Glow?
Choose Check for Updates… in the Glow menu, or go to Settings › System › Updates.