[Feature Request]: Hide menu bar icons on inactive displays

[Gargling]

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Description

Hi, thank you for maintaining Thaw.

I would like to request a feature for multi-monitor setups: an option to show menu bar icons only on the currently focused/active display, and hide them on all inactive displays.

The reason is that when using multiple monitors, the menu bar icons on inactive displays can look visually messy. Some icons appear gray, while others remain white or use different visual states, so the menu bar looks inconsistent and cluttered.

Bartender has a feature that hides menu bar icons on displays that are not currently focused, and this makes multi-monitor setups look much cleaner.

This would be especially useful for users who work with multiple external monitors and want a cleaner, less distracting menu bar experience.

Thank you for considering this.

Additional Information

No response

[stonerl]

Hi @Gargling thank you for opening this feature request. Sadly this cannot be implemented due to limitations on how macOS handles the menu bar. Although it seems that there are multiple, internally it is just one menu bar. So we can address a menu bar on a particular screen.

[Gargling]

Hi @Gargling thank you for opening this feature request. Sadly this cannot be implemented due to limitations on how macOS handles the menu bar. Although it seems that there are multiple, internally it is just one menu bar. So we can address a menu bar on a particular screen.

@stonerl Thank you for the explanation. I understand that macOS may not expose separate menu bars per display through the standard APIs.

I was just wondering because Bartender seems to provide a similar user-facing behavior: showing menu bar icons only on the active/focused display and hiding them on inactive displays. I also wanted to say thank you — I’ve been using Thaw very reliably, and in many ways it feels even more stable than Bartender.