Customize the spacing between macOS menu bar icons
Adjust icon gaps and selection padding. Choose from presets or dial in exact pixel values. Works on any Mac running macOS 14+.

Built with Swift and SwiftUI. No Electron, no web views, no bloat.

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Screenshots

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macOS 26 Note: On macOS 26 (and earlier versions), spacing changes require a reboot or logout to take effect. This is a limitation of macOS itself — the system reads NSStatusItemSpacing and NSStatusItemSelectionPadding at login time and does not pick up changes to these preferences while a session is active.

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Download

Download the latest version from Releases. Unzip, move Menu Bar Spacing.app to Applications, and launch.

The app includes a built-in update checker — open About (click the ? icon) and click Check Now to see if a newer version is available.

Verification

Every release is scanned on VirusTotal before publishing. You can verify the download yourself:

SHA-256	70af1b5a33530c46c689a50e6e9c3c4a6c7a60f23ae7869972b7a73e4e534dc6
VirusTotal Report	View full scan results

To verify the hash locally: shasum -a 256 MenuBarSpacing.zip

Features

Spacing Control

• Adjust the gap between menu bar icons (0 – 30 px)
• Adjust the clickable selection padding around each icon (0 – 20 px)
• Link padding to spacing for proportional adjustments

Presets

• Compact — Maximum density (6 px spacing)
• Tight — Reduced gaps (12 px)
• Default — macOS default (17 px)
• Comfortable — Extra room (22 px)
• Spacious — Wide gaps (28 px)

Live Preview

• Approximate real-time visualization of how icons will look at the current spacing

Apply Options

• Apply & Reboot — saves settings and reboots immediately
• Apply & Log Out — saves settings and logs out
• Save Only — writes the preference without restarting
• Reset to Default — restores macOS default values

About & Updates

• Built-in update checker downloads new versions directly from GitHub releases
• GitHub repository link and support options (Buy Me a Coffee, GitHub Sponsors)
• Per-app language override with 8 supported languages

Localization

• 8 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Chinese (Simplified)
• Community translations welcome via pull requests

How It Works

Menu Bar Spacing writes to the macOS NSStatusItemSpacing and NSStatusItemSelectionPadding preferences via CFPreferences. These are system-level settings that control how much space macOS puts between menu bar icons.

Changes require a reboot or logout to take effect — this is a macOS limitation, not an app limitation. The app provides convenient buttons to apply and restart in one step.

Requirements

	Requirement
OS	macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later
Chip	Any Mac (Apple Silicon or Intel)

Getting Started

1. Download and install

Download the latest .zip from Releases, extract it, and move Menu Bar Spacing.app to your Applications folder.

2. Choose your spacing

Launch the app, pick a preset or use the sliders to set exact values.

3. Apply and restart

Click Apply & Reboot or Apply & Log Out to apply the changes. Your menu bar will reflect the new spacing after the restart.

Translations

This repository hosts the translation files for Menu Bar Spacing. You can help translate the app into your language or improve existing translations.

How to contribute

1. Fork this repository
2. Edit an existing file in the languages/ folder, or create a new one by copying English.xml
3. Translate the string values (the text between <string> tags) — do not change the key attributes
4. Keep any %1, %2, %@, %d placeholders in place — the app needs them
5. Submit a pull request

Current languages

Language	File	Status
English	English.xml	Complete
French	French.xml	Complete
German	German.xml	Complete
Spanish	Spanish.xml	Complete
Japanese	Japanese.xml	Complete
Korean	Korean.xml	Complete
Portuguese (BR)	Portuguese.xml	Complete
Chinese (Simplified)	Chinese.xml	Complete

Want to add a new language? Copy English.xml, rename it to your language name, translate the values, and submit a PR.

Bug Reports & Feature Requests

Please use Issues to report bugs or request features.

Support the Project

If Menu Bar Spacing helps you tame your menu bar, consider supporting development:

   

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Troubleshooting

"Menu Bar Spacing" Not Opened — Gatekeeper warning

Menu Bar Spacing is not yet notarized with Apple. On first launch you may see a Gatekeeper warning.

To fix this:

1. Click Done to dismiss the dialog
2. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security
3. Scroll down — you'll see a message that Menu Bar Spacing was blocked
4. Click Open Anyway

This only needs to be done once. After that, the app will open normally.

Nothing changed after applying

Menu bar spacing changes require a reboot or logout to take effect. This is a macOS limitation — the system reads these preferences at login time. Use the Apply & Reboot button for the quickest result.

Administrator password required when installing an update

When you click Install Now in the About window, macOS will show a password prompt before replacing the app in /Applications. This is expected — the app needs elevated permissions to overwrite itself.