WandelBar

Build your own background for the macOS menu bar.
Restore contrast, soften a busy wallpaper, or give the bar a completely different character.

WandelBar is a native macOS utility that turns the strip behind the menu bar into a customizable part of the desktop. It works with your current wallpaper and lets you add blur, tint, shadow, texture, and other treatments without replacing the menu bar itself.

Why it exists

macOS Tahoe hides the menu bar background by default. The cleaner appearance works on some wallpapers, but on bright or detailed images it can make menu bar icons and text difficult to read.

There is currently a system setting that brings the background back, but it offers one fixed result and may change along with future versions of macOS. WandelBar started as a way to restore contrast without depending on that single system treatment. It soon became something broader: a way to make the bar fit the wallpaper, recreate an older desktop style, or design an entirely personal surface.

The name is a bilingual wordplay: the German adjective wandelbar means “changeable,” while the app makes the menu bar itself changeable.

Note

WandelBar is designed primarily for macOS Tahoe. It can run on macOS 14 Sonoma and later, but on releases before Tahoe the system menu bar background cannot be disabled. It therefore covers most of WandelBar's treatment, leaving little practical reason to use the app there.

What you can customize

• Surface: blur radius, band height, edge fade, shadow strength, and shadow length.
• Color: solid or gradient tint, custom tint color, opacity, and saturation.
• Texture: bundled or imported PNG, JPEG, and HEIC images with blend, layout, position, and strength controls.
• Scope: use one design as the default or create an explicit override for the current desktop Space.
• System behavior: launch at login, keep the original wallpaper on the lock screen, and enable or disable the effect at any time.

Changes are rendered as you make them. WandelBar follows wallpaper, display, and Space changes, and restores the original wallpaper when the effect is turned off.

Preset catalog

See the complete preset catalog.

The visual catalog previews every preset on the current wallpaper, so you can compare treatments before applying one.

The app includes 26 built-in presets across four collections:

Collection	Style
Basic	Flexible starting points from a subtle wash to clear blur
Color & Tone	Dark glass, solid bars, monochrome, vivid color, and tinted treatments
Cupertino	Striped surfaces, metallic glass, and coastal translucent treatments
Redmond	Glossy blue, olive, slate, and noir treatments with a retro PC character

Every preset remains fully editable after it is applied. Use the Save Current card to capture your changes as a personal preset. Presets in My Presets can be renamed or deleted directly from their cards.

Search presets by name or personal tags, use the star to show favorites, or Undo the last preset application. Manage Textures… removes custom textures that are no longer in use.

Share complete preset packages

Export personal presets and their custom textures as one .wandelbar-presets file. Import previews the contents and lets you choose what to add without overwriting or applying existing presets.

Share to Discussions… prepares a GitHub post, a package and a preview using the sample or current wallpaper. Drag the attachments into the draft together, review it and publish when ready. See the sharing guide.

Community Gallery

Click the globe beside the favorites star to browse approved community packages, enlarge their previews and choose presets to import. Browsing requires no GitHub account.

Packages come from the official Preset Exchange and are verified before import. Read how approval works.

Download and install

Download the latest DMG from GitHub Releases.

1. Open the downloaded .dmg file.
2. Drag WandelBar to Applications.
3. Open WandelBar from Applications.

WandelBar is signed with Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Download official builds only from alexiosus/WandelBar.

See the changelog for what's new.

Use Options (⋯) → Check for Updates… to update without downloading a new DMG manually. Automatic checks and installation are optional; enable them in Update Settings.

Current release builds support Apple silicon Macs (arm64). macOS Tahoe still supports a small number of Intel Macs, but an Intel release is not currently provided.

Homebrew

Install from the official project tap:

brew tap alexiosus/wandelbar https://github.com/alexiosus/WandelBar
brew install --cask alexiosus/wandelbar/wandelbar

You can update from within WandelBar, or run brew upgrade --cask --greedy alexiosus/wandelbar/wandelbar.

Getting started

1. Open WandelBar. On macOS Tahoe, turn off System Settings → Menu Bar → Show menu bar background. WandelBar shows a one-time reminder with a button to open this panel.

   

2. Click WandelBar's icon in the menu bar.

3. Turn the app on. WandelBar saves the original wallpaper before applying its first effect.

4. Open Preset and choose a starting point, or adjust the controls manually.

5. Use Default for the shared design, or This Space for the current desktop Space.

6. Optionally enable Launch at Login or Don't Apply on Lock Screen.

Note

If the wallpaper is stored in a protected folder such as Downloads or Pictures, macOS may ask WandelBar for access to that folder. This is expected: the permission lets the app read the wallpaper file so it can generate previews and apply treatments. WandelBar does not use it to browse unrelated files.

Opening WandelBar.app again while the app is already running brings the existing settings popover forward.

Build from source

To build and package WandelBar locally:

git clone https://github.com/alexiosus/WandelBar.git
cd WandelBar
./Scripts/package_app.sh
open Build/WandelBar.app

The script creates Build/WandelBar.app. It uses an available Developer ID certificate when there is exactly one, or an ad-hoc signature when none is installed. Local packaging alone does not notarize the app. To create a DMG:

./Scripts/create_dmg.sh

Requirements

• An Apple silicon Mac for prebuilt releases
• macOS 14 Sonoma or later; macOS Tahoe is strongly recommended
• A still-image wallpaper or a Photos wallpaper that can be exported locally
• Swift 6 when building from source

How it works

WandelBar finds the wallpaper assigned to each active display and Space, renders a screen-sized copy with a Core Image treatment across the top, and asks macOS to use the generated image as the desktop wallpaper. The app modifies a copy; it never edits the source image.

Saved originals, generated wallpapers, and textures live under ~/Library/Application Support/WandelBar; settings and presets are stored in the app's local preferences. Rendering happens locally and off the main thread.

Privacy

WandelBar has no accounts or analytics. Rendering and personal settings stay on your Mac. The optional Community Gallery downloads content from GitHub, which receives normal connection information such as your IP address. It does not upload your wallpaper or local settings.

Sharing prepares local files for you to publish yourself. Packages include custom textures; current-wallpaper previews also include the visible wallpaper image. Photos access is requested only when needed to export a wallpaper from your library.

About WandelBar… includes the app version, official links, Ko-fi support and third-party notices.

Disk usage

WandelBar removes its unused generated wallpapers, but macOS may retain large cached copies. Options (⋯) → Maintenance → Clean up macOS wallpaper cache automatically can remove known old WandelBar copies. It is off by default and may prompt for access to data from other apps when enabled. Current wallpapers and unrelated files are preserved; older, untracked cache files are left alone.

Limitations

• WandelBar uses undocumented SkyLight APIs and macOS wallpaper-store data to identify active Spaces and their wallpaper sources. These internals can change in a macOS update.
• Full-screen Spaces are left untouched because the public desktop API cannot address them independently.
• Video and animated wallpapers, including Aerials and the animated Macintosh wallpaper, are not supported. WandelBar detects them and leaves the desktop unchanged instead of replacing the moving wallpaper with a still frame.
• Photos shuffle and live-provider configurations cannot be reconstructed through the public desktop API. While WandelBar is active, the currently visible Photos asset is treated as a still image.
• macOS chooses light or dark menu bar content based on wallpaper brightness. An unusually bright treatment can therefore change the system icon appearance.

Development

swift build
swift test
./Scripts/package_app.sh

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the project layout and bug-reporting checklist.

Trademark notice

WandelBar is an independent project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Apple Inc. macOS is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries and regions. The WandelBar name, logo, and app icon are reserved for official builds; forks and modified distributions should use different branding. See the branding policy for details.

License

WandelBar's source code and documentation are free software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 only (GPL-3.0-only), except where otherwise noted. Copyright © 2026 Alexey Eremeev.