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Abyssal

Simplify, tidy and master your macOS menu bar¹.

Important

Abyssal requires macOS 14.0 Sonoma² or above to run.

Introduction & Usage

Fundamentals

Abyssal divides your menu bar into three areas - the Always Hide Area, the Hide Area and the Visible Area:

• The Always Hide Area Icons inside this area will be hided forever, unless you menually check them.
• The Hide Area Icons inside this area follow certain rules. More often than not, you don't see them.
• The Visible Area Icons inside this area suffer no restrictions. You can see them all the time.

The three areas are separated by two separators - the Always Hide Separator  (the furthest one from the screen corner) and the Hide Separator  (the middle one). Apart from these, there's another separator on the nearest side to the screen corner - the Menu Separator , which's position doesn't matter, but plays an important role.

Abyssal will automatically judge the order of the three separators, which means you don't need to care much about their position. For example, you are allowed to put the Menu Separator to the other side of the Always Hide Separator, as they will automatically swap their roles to the correct ones after your operation.

Showing & Moving the Separators

In many themes including the default theme, the separators are invisible (transparent) by default. If you open the menu, or move your cursor onto the menu bar³ and press the chosen modifiers, the separators will be visible (partly opaque). In the rest of the themes, the separators will always be visible, but their appearance may change automatically according to the status of Abyssal

The visibilities of the separators can also indicate:

• When using themes that automatically hide the separators, the Menu Separator will indicate the visibility of the status icons inside the Hide Area. If the Menu Separator is visible, then the status icons inside the Hide Area are visible. Otherwise the icons are hidden.
• When using other themes, all the separators perform together. If all of them are translucent, then the status icons inside the Hide Area are visible. Otherwise the icons are hidden.

Dragging the icons while holding ⌘ command can reorder the status icons and the separators. For example, to put more icons into or out of the Hide Area.

Clicking on the Separators

You can perform different actions by clicking on the separators of Abyssal, no matter whether they are visible:

The Always Hide Separator

• click / right click

  Show / hide the status icons inside the Hide Area.

The Hide Separator

• click / right click

  Show / hide the status icons inside the Hide Area.

The Menu Separator

• click

  Show / hide the status icons inside the Hide Area.

• ⌥ option click

  Open / close the preferences menu.

Preferences & Customizations

Let's take a look at how to customize Abyssal. Still remember? You can open the preferences menu by right click / ⌥ option click on the Menu Separator.

The preferences are explained as follows:

Theme

Style: Pop Up Button

Separators' appearances and behaviors differ from theme to theme. Some themes make the separators invisible by default, while others don't.

Auto Shows

Style: Switch Default: On

• On Abyssal will hide the status icons inside the Hide Area automatically when you are not using them, and show them when you need.
• Off You will need to manually show and hide the status icons.

Feedback Intensity

Style: Step Slider Default: ● · · · Disabled

• ● · · · Disabled

  Haptic feedback Disabled.

• · ● · · Light

  Light haptic feedback intensity.

• · · ● · Medium

  Medium haptic feedback intensity.

• · · · ● Heavy

  Heavy haptic feedback intensity.

Note

Due to the limitations of macOS, you may not feel a strong haptic feedback.

Dead Zone

Style: Slider Default: ⋯⋯●⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯ 25%

This option appears only on screens without notches. It configures the ignored status bar width on these screens in percentage.

Due to the limitations of macOS, Abyssal can't infer the available width used for collapsing (basically the full width minus the app menu width). You may need to toggle it manually in order to acquire a better experience.

Use Always Hide Area

Style: Switch Default: On

• On

  Completely disable the Always Hide Area and hide the Always Hide Separator.

• Off

  Enable the Always Hide Area and show the Always Hide Separator.

Modifiers

Style: List of Switches Default: ⌥ ⌘

• ⌃

  Whether to use ⌃ control as a modifier key.

• ⌥

  Whether to use ⌥ option as a modifier key.

• ⌘

  Whether to use ⌘ command as a modifier key.

Tip

Pressing only one of the chosen keys is enough to trigger the functions. It is recommended to keep the modifier key ⌘ command enabled.

Modifier Mode

Style: Pop Up Button Default: Any

• Any

  Pressing any of the selected modifiers will trigger the functions.

• All

  Pressing only all of the selected modifiers will trigger the functions.

Timeout

Style: Step Slider Default: · · · ● · · · · · · · 30 seconds

Set an optional timeout for Auto Idling to cancel automatically, ranging from 5 seconds to 10 minutes.

• · · · · · · · · · · ● Disabled

  Disable timeout for Auto Idling.

Reduce Animation

Style: Switch Default: Off

• On

  Animate the moves of Abyssal.

• Off

  Reduce the use of animation in Abyssal to gain a more performant experience.

Warning

If you are using an Intel chip Mac, it is recommended to keep the Reduce Animation option on to ensure the smoothness of Abyssal.

Starts with macOS

Style: Switch Default: Off

• Off

  Abyssal will run in background after macOS launched.

• On

  You need to manually run Abyssal after macOS launched.

What's More: Auto Idling

Due to the limitations of macOS, Abyssal cannot know whether you have opened a menu in the Always Hide Area or the Hide Area. If the Auto Hide function hides these status icons rashly after your cursor leave the menu bar, their menus will also move away. Therefore, Abyssal adopts an approach to avoid similar situations to the greatest extent.

Speaking specifically, when you click on a place in the menu bar where there is likely to have other status icons, and the status icon is likely to be inside the Hide Area or the Always Hide Area, Abyssal will choose to pause the Auto Hide and enter the Auto Idling state. When you finish the operation, just move the cursor over the Always Hide Separator or the Hide Separator, and you can cancel the Auto Idling state and resume Auto Hide to hide the status icons. Abyssal also provides an optional timeout to automatically disable the Auto Idling state, which can be configured in the preferences menu.

Auto Idling will enable automatically accordng to your clicking position, and it will distinguish between the Always Hide Area and the Hide Area - different areas trigger different reactions. It will only be activated when Auto Hide is enabled.

After you triggered or canceled Auto Hide or Auto Idling, Abyssal will generate a haptic feedback⁴.

Install & Run

Note

As an open-source and free software, Abyssal can't afford an Apple Developer Account. Therefore, you can't install Abyssal directly from App Store, and you may need to allow Abyssal to run as an unidentified app⁵.

You can download the zipped app of Abyssal only from Releases page manually for now.

Footnotes

1. Also known as Status Bar. ↩

2. ↗ Find out which macOS your Mac is using ↩

3. You need to move your cursor further away from the screen corner than the Menu Separator in order to trigger something. On monitors with notches, you may also need to move your cursor between the the screen notch and the Menu Separator. ↩

4. Your device must support haptic feedback. ↩

5. ↗ Open a Mac app from an unidentified developer ↩