Bartender uninstall on Mac: remove the app, helpers and leftover files

To uninstall Bartender from a Mac, quit it from its menu bar icon, drag the app (named "Bartender 7", "Bartender 6" or "Bartender 5") from the Applications folder to the Trash, then remove the files it leaves in your user Library, the helper tool it installs with administrator rights, and its two entries in Privacy & Security. Dragging the app alone leaves most of that behind. The full list of paths below comes from the Homebrew package definition for Bartender, checked on October 18, 2026, which is the most complete public record of what the app writes to disk.

One note before starting. Many results for this search are about BarTender, the label design software for Windows made by Seagull Scientific. That is a different product. This guide covers Bartender the menu bar manager for macOS, sold at macbartender.com and published by Applause Group, Inc. according to the footer of its official site.

Which Bartender is installed

Bartender exists as three current major versions, and each one installs under its own app name. The official support page lists them as follows (checked October 18, 2026, on the Bartender support page):

Version	macOS it targets	App name in Applications
Bartender 7	macOS 27 Golden Gate	Bartender 7.app
Bartender 6	macOS Tahoe and Sequoia	Bartender 6.app
Bartender 5	macOS Sequoia and Sonoma	Bartender 5.app

It is common to find two versions side by side, because the support page itself advises installing the new version first and removing the older one once the new one runs correctly. Open the Applications folder and search for "Bartender" so that every copy is found, not only the one currently running.

All three versions share the same bundle identifier, com.surteesstudios.Bartender. That string is what the leftover files are named after, so the cleanup steps later in this guide apply whichever version was installed.

Before you uninstall

Three things are worth doing before anything is deleted.

Note the license. If there is any chance of reinstalling later, or on another Mac, keep the license key. Bartender's support page offers a license lookup that emails the key back, so a lost key is recoverable, but having it on hand saves a step. The same page states that one license covers all Macs the buyer owns and personally uses.

Decide whether to keep the settings. The support FAQ says Bartender 7 starts with fresh settings, though profiles may be importable, and that menu bar items can land in different positions after an import. If the plan is to move to a newer Bartender rather than leave it, keep the preference file described below instead of deleting it.

Expect the menu bar to change. Once Bartender quits, every item it was hiding returns to the menu bar at the same time. On a MacBook with a notch, some of those items will disappear behind the notch and look missing. They are still running. Rearranging is covered at the end of this guide.

Step 1: Quit Bartender and remove it from login

Click the Bartender icon in the menu bar and choose Quit. If the icon is hidden, open Activity Monitor, search for Bartender, select the process and click the stop button.

Next, stop it from launching at login. Apple's instructions for the current macOS are: choose Apple menu, then System Settings, click General in the sidebar, then click Login Items & Extensions (Apple Support). Select Bartender in the list of items that open at login and click the minus button below the list. In the section for apps allowed to run in the background, turn Bartender off if it appears there.

This order matters. If the app is deleted while it is still registered as a login item, macOS can keep a stale entry that points to nothing, and the background permission can linger in the list.

Step 2: Delete the app

Open the Applications folder in Finder and drag each Bartender app to the Trash. Apple's own guidance for apps installed from the internet is to check first for an uninstaller in the app's folder, and if there is none, drag the app to the Trash (Apple Support). Bartender does not ship a separate uninstaller, so dragging is the right move.

If Finder says the app is in use, it has not fully quit. Repeat the Activity Monitor step, or restart the Mac and try again.

Do not empty the Trash yet. If something goes wrong in the next steps, an app still in the Trash can be put back with File, then Put Back.

Step 3: Remove the leftover files in your user Library

The files below are the ones the Homebrew definition removes when Bartender is uninstalled with its full cleanup option (Homebrew cask for Bartender, version 7.0.5 on October 18, 2026). To reach them, open Finder, choose Go, then Go to Folder, and paste each path.

Path	What it holds
~/Library/Preferences/com.surteesstudios.Bartender.plist	Settings and item layout
~/Library/Application Support/Bartender 7	App data for Bartender 7
~/Library/Application Scripts/24J875RH8J.com.surteesstudios.Bartender	Scripts folder for the sandboxed parts
~/Library/Group Containers/24J875RH8J.com.surteesstudios.Bartender	Data shared between the app and its helpers
~/Library/Caches/com.surteesstudios.Bartender	Cache
~/Library/Caches/com.surteesstudios.Bartender.revenuecat	Cache for the purchase system
~/Library/Application Support/com.surteesstudios.Bartender.revenuecat	Purchase system data
~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.surteesstudios.Bartender	Web request storage
~/Library/Cookies/com.surteesstudios.Bartender.binarycookies	Cookies

Not every path exists on every Mac. A Bartender 6 or 5 installation will have "Bartender 6" or "Bartender 5" in the Application Support folder name instead of "Bartender 7". Move whatever is present to the Trash and skip the rest.

If the goal is to reinstall later with the same layout, leave the .plist file where it is. It is the one file that holds the arrangement of hidden and shown items.

Step 4: Remove the system helpers

Bartender also installs components outside the user Library, which require an administrator password to delete. The Homebrew definition lists these under its standard uninstall step, along with a background job registered under the label com.surteesstudios.Bartender.BartenderInstallHelper:

Path	Purpose
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.surteesstudios.Bartender.BartenderInstallHelper	Helper that performs privileged tasks
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin	Audio plug-in
/Library/ScriptingAdditions/BartenderHelper.osax	Scripting addition

Note the leading slash: these are in the Library folder at the top of the startup disk, not the one inside your home folder. Use Go to Folder with each path, move the item to the Trash, and enter the administrator password when Finder asks.

The definition also lists /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/BartenderSystemHelper.osax. On current macOS the System folder is protected, and that file normally does not exist there. If Go to Folder cannot find it, there is nothing to do.

For the background job, a restart after the helper file is removed is enough for it to stop loading. Users comfortable with Terminal can check with launchctl list and filter for "surteesstudios". If nothing is returned after the restart, the job is gone.

Step 5: Clear the privacy permissions

Bartender asks for Accessibility access and, in its default mode, for Screen & System Audio Recording access. (The Bartender 7 site notes that the app can run without screen recording and will then show app icons instead of images of the items.) Deleting the app does not remove these entries. Clear them so the list stays accurate and so a future reinstall starts from a clean prompt.

For Accessibility, Apple's path is Apple menu, then System Settings, Privacy & Security in the sidebar, then Accessibility (Apple Support). For screen recording, it is the same sidebar item, then Screen & System Audio Recording (Apple Support). In each list, select Bartender and click the minus button. If there is no minus button, turning the switch off is the fallback.

Bartender's own support page uses the same two locations when advising users whose permissions will not stick: remove Bartender from both lists, relaunch and grant access again. That advice is a useful repair step for anyone who is uninstalling only to fix a permissions problem rather than to leave the app.

Once both lists are clean, empty the Trash.

Checking that nothing is left

A short check after a restart confirms the uninstall is complete. Run through these four points in order.

1. Open System Settings, then General, then Login Items & Extensions. Bartender should not appear in either the login list or the background list.
2. Open Privacy & Security and look at Accessibility and Screen & System Audio Recording. Bartender should be gone from both.
3. In Finder, use Go to Folder with ~/Library, then search the Library folder for "surteesstudios". Set the search scope to the Library folder rather than the whole Mac, so results from other folders do not get mixed in. Anything that turns up belongs to Bartender and can go to the Trash.
4. Open Activity Monitor and search for "Bartender". No process should be running.

If an item keeps coming back after a restart, the most likely cause is a second copy of the app that was missed, for example an older Bartender 5 in a subfolder of Applications or in the Downloads folder. Search the whole Mac for "Bartender" by name and remove any remaining copy, then repeat the check.

The one-command route with Homebrew

If Bartender was installed with Homebrew, the whole sequence above can be replaced by one command in Terminal:

brew uninstall --zap --cask bartender

The --zap option tells Homebrew to remove the leftover files in the user Library as well as the app. Its standard uninstall step quits the app, unloads the background job and deletes the system helpers, which may prompt for an administrator password. The privacy entries in System Settings are not part of the cask definition, so Step 5 still applies.

If Bartender was installed from the official download rather than Homebrew, this command does not apply. Homebrew only removes what it installed.

After Bartender is gone

With Bartender removed, the menu bar returns to macOS defaults. Every app that adds a menu bar item shows it, in the order macOS assigns. Two built-in tools help put it back into shape.

First, hold the Command key and drag menu bar items left or right to reorder them, or drag them off the bar to remove those that support it. Second, System Settings has a Menu Bar section with an Allow in the Menu Bar list (Apple Support), where third-party items can be turned off one by one. Turning an item off there hides it without quitting the app.

On a MacBook with a notch, the built-in tools may not be enough, because items pushed behind the notch cannot be reached at all. That is the main reason people move to another menu bar manager rather than going without one. The options range from free open-source tools to paid apps, and the differences that matter are whether hidden items can be opened without expanding the bar, whether items can be found by name, and whether the app needs screen recording access.

What to change first

Start with the items that came back after the uninstall: turn off the ones in Allow in the Menu Bar that are never clicked, then Command-drag the rest into order. If items still disappear behind the notch, compare menu bar managers on the comparison page, or see what Koffret does with hidden items before installing anything new.