Changelog

Recent Highlights

• Added System-Aware Dark Mode with automatic theme detection and macOS system accent color integration for a more native experience.
• Added Per-App Visibility Controls, allowing per-app overrides of global visibility so important apps stay visible while others can hide automatically.
• Added Custom Badge Styles (Text, Dot, Circle) with per-app and per-group preferences for more flexible notification display.
• Added CLI Integration, enabling badgeify command-line usage for scripting, automation, and monitoring.

v1.9.7

2025/11/21

New Features

• Added System-Aware Dark Mode that automatically followed your macOS appearance settings.
• Added System Accent Color Support that matched Badgeify’s colors with your macOS accent color preference.

Improved

• Redesigned UI with more authentic macOS styling.
• Refined spacing, colors, and visual details throughout the app for a more polished look.

v1.9.6

2025/11/20

Improved

• Ensured Circle badge style kept its empty indicator and highlight colors even when “Show Notification Count” was turned off.

v1.9.5

2025/11/19

New Features

• Added Per-App Visibility Controls, allowing you to:

  • Configure visibility for each app with independent settings.
  • Override global visibility preferences for specific apps:
    • Inactive icon behavior – chose whether to show or hide the app when it was not running.
    • Notification icon behavior – controlled how the app appeared when it had no notifications.
  • Kept important apps always visible while letting others hide automatically.

  

Improved

• Improved macOS Tahoe integration by:
  • Adding an adaptive liquid glass effect for windows on macOS Tahoe.
  • Providing a clean fallback to standard transparency on older macOS versions.
• Improved the onboarding experience by:
  • Allowing navigation of the welcome guide via Arrow keys and Enter.
  • Adding a “Need help?” troubleshooting link on the permission grant slide.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where custom highlight colors were not applied when “Show Notification Count” was disabled.

v1.9.4

2025/11/16

We updated app signing from a personal Apple Developer account to an organization account.
As a result, Accessibility permissions must be re-granted after this update.

How to re-grant Accessibility permissions:

1. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility
2. Remove Badgeify from the list by selecting it and clicking the “-” button
3. Re-add Badgeify by clicking the “+” button and selecting the app from the Applications folder

Improved

• Updated the sidebar and panels to use a softer translucent finish that felt more native to macOS.
• Improved tray icon reliability on macOS Tahoe by fixing issues where icons could disappear after being reordered.
• Optimized icon color detection for menu bar icons to improve performance and stability.

Bug Fixes

• Removed unused application integration experiments so that advanced settings focused on shipped and supported features.

v1.9.3

2025/11/01

Improved

• Added Single Instance Protection to ensure only one instance of Badgeify ran at a time and to bring the existing window to the front when relaunching.
• Improved autostart reliability so Badgeify started more consistently on login.

v1.9.2

2025/10/21

New Features

• Added CLI integration:
  • Bundled a badgeify command-line tool so you could query badge status without launching the UI.
  • Introduced list and status subcommands that returned JSON for easier scripting and monitoring.

v1.9.1

2025/09/30

Improved

• Improved license management by:
  • Showing the user email in license information.
  • Displaying the license plan and tier.
  • Adding a “Manage License” button for quick access to the license portal.

v1.9.0

2025/09/05

New Features

• Added smarter update settings so that:
  • Disabling automatic update checks also disabled automatic downloads.
  • Enabling automatic downloads also enabled automatic installation of updates.

Improved

• Improved menu bar behavior by:
  • Making icon display more reliable.
  • Improving stability when showing and hiding icons.
  • Improving detection of menu bar visibility changes.

v1.8.x

2025/08/08 – 2025/08/31

Improved

• Improved notification badge display logic for better accuracy by:
  • Making icons more accurately show or hide based on real notification status.
  • Enhancing visual consistency across badge styles (Text, Dot, Circle).
• Updated interface wording from “Show Notifications” to “Show Notification Count” for clearer meaning.
• Improved tray menu responsiveness when the refresh rate was disabled by:
  • Ensuring the menu updated correctly on hover even when refresh was disabled.
  • Improving handling of icon behavior settings when refresh rate was disabled.
• Improved menu bar icon refresh performance and further reduced CPU usage.
• Optimized the license activation process to improve stability and reliability.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where menu bar icons sometimes failed to display.
• Fixed an issue where the Upgrade pop-up window could appear repeatedly.
• Fixed an issue where the Discord icon could remain pinned permanently when the dot indicator was disabled.

v1.8.1

2025/08/07

New Features

• Added pin support for app groups, allowing you to:
  • Pin app groups to keep them always visible in the menu bar.
  • Have pinned groups behave consistently with pinned individual apps.

Improved

• Improved icon update performance by:
  • Optimizing icon change detection for significantly faster response times.
  • Reducing system resource usage during menu bar updates.
• Improved app group display by:
  • Making group transparency behavior consistent with individual apps.
  • Enhancing visual consistency across all menu bar items.

v1.8.0

2025/08/04

New Features

• Added customizable notification badge styles, allowing you to:
  • Choose from three styles for each app or group:
    • Text – classic numeric count (default).
    • Dot – minimalist dot indicator for unread notifications.
    • Circle – iOS-style badge with notification count.
  • Set a different badge style preference for each app and group.
• Applied custom highlight colors across all badge styles.

Improved

• Improved Discord and Slack dot indicator integration by:
  • Fixing dot indicator display issues across notification behaviors.
  • Aligning their appearance with the new badge style system.

v1.7.x

2025/07/21 – 2025/07/27

New Features

• Added app group transparency behavior, allowing:
  • Group icons to become transparent when all apps in the group had no notifications.
  • Group behavior to remain consistent with individual apps for a unified visual experience.

Improved

• Improved the color picker experience by:
  • Making color selection faster and smoother, reducing lag and stutter.
  • Keeping the color panel open to allow adjustment of multiple colors.
  • Automatically closing the panel when it lost focus to avoid lingering on the desktop.
• Adjusted transparency effects by reducing transparency levels to make semi-transparent icons clearer and easier to recognize.
• Improved menu bar icon visual effects handling for more consistent appearance.
• Improved highlight color application so app group highlight colors were correctly applied.

v1.7.1

2025/07/13

Improved

• Improved menu bar appearance detection for a smoother visual experience.
• Improved compatibility with macOS Tahoe 26.

v1.7.0

2025/06/09

New Features

• Added a “Badge refresh interval” setting to control menu bar icon refresh frequency and:
  • Allowed setting the refresh interval to Slow, which reduced CPU usage to around 0.5% on average.

Improved

• Optimized memory consumption and CPU usage for better overall performance.
• Improved system resource management to minimize background impact.
• Reorganized Advanced settings to make them clearer and easier to navigate.

v1.6.x

2025/05/06 – 2025/05/16

Improved

• Improved overall application stability, resulting in fewer crashes and smoother behavior.
• Optimized application performance and reduced the package size.
• Reduced Docker monitoring frequency from 500ms to 1000ms, lowering resource usage.
• Improved menu bar icon update logic for more efficient and reliable updates.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the application could crash under certain conditions.

v1.6.1

2025/05/03

New Features

• Added a Discord dot indicator toggle to app settings so users could enable or disable Discord’s dot indicator.

Improved

• Reduced background memory usage by approximately 50%.
• Improved overall application performance and responsiveness.
• Improved system tray icon management for more predictable behavior.

v1.5.x

2025/01/03 – 2025/03/12

Improved

• Improved menu bar visualization by:
  • Displaying app icons within group menu items.
  • Adding tooltips to settings options to improve clarity.
  • Enhancing drag-and-drop behavior for app management with more intuitive draggable icons.
• Improved Slack integration by adding a Slack dot indicator toggle that allowed users to control its visibility.
• Improved licensing and distribution by:
  • Reducing app size from 46MB to 30MB for faster downloads and better performance.
  • Enhancing license verification reliability.
  • Updating the license verification endpoint to resolve SSL issues.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where badges might not display when an app had a very large number of unread messages.

v1.5.1

New Features

• Added an Experimental Features section in Advanced settings so users could:
  • Try upcoming features before they were officially released.
  • Enable or disable app-specific integrations as needed.

Improved

• Redesigned the Advanced settings page with a cleaner and more structured layout.

v1.5.0

New Features

• Added application-specific menu items integration by:
  • Integrating browser tabs for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
  • Allowing quick access to open browser tabs directly from menu bar icons.
  • Enabling right-click on browser icons to view and switch between active tabs.

v1.4.x

Improved

• Improved app detection and identification on non-English systems.
• Optimized settings window performance, especially when switching between tabs.
• Improved overall responsiveness of the settings interface.
• Improved error handling to provide a more stable experience.
• Optimized group and app data retrieval for better performance and reliability.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the menu bar icon would not display if a certain app could not be found.
• Fixed potential errors that occurred during license deactivation.

v1.4.1

New Features

• Added global keyboard shortcuts, allowing users to configure shortcuts for quick access to Badgeify settings.

Improved

• Improved the support experience by including richer system information in feedback submissions.
• Improved dark mode detection for better compatibility with different macOS themes.

v1.3.x

Improved

• Updated semi-transparent icon colors to better match native macOS icons.
• Added an option to show a transparent icon when an app had no notifications.
• Improved tray management to prevent the app from becoming unresponsive.
• Fixed broken links to website pricing pages.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed app crashes on macOS versions below 14.
• Fixed menu bar background color detection when using colored icons.
• Fixed an issue where the Dock icon could remain visible after closing the settings window on macOS Sequoia.

v1.3.0

This update introduced new customization options and improved the UI for a more native macOS experience.

New Features

• Added a “Pin to menu bar” option for icons so pinned icons remained visible regardless of global visibility settings.

Improved

• Improved Badgeify’s own icon behavior so it no longer displayed in the menu bar when no app icons were shown.
• Improved app launch handling so repeatedly opening the app reliably brought up the settings window.
• Integrated the native macOS color panel for selecting highlight colors to provide a more familiar and intuitive color selection experience.

For more details, see
Enhanced Customization and Native macOS Experience

v1.2.x

Improved

• Added support for Ctrl-click to open the menu when clicking an icon.
• Optimized Finder behavior when “When clicking an active app’s icon” was set to Focus/Hide by:
  • Changing Finder’s behavior to Focus/Minimize to better match its unique nature.
• Improved Finder window focus detection.
• Optimized badge status labels to avoid displaying Handoff text.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where highlight colors were not applied when Slack displayed a dot notification.

v1.2.0

This update introduced new customization options for notifications.

New Features

• Added customizable notification highlight colors so you could:
  • Set unique highlight colors for each app or group.
  • Improve visual distinction between different notifications in the menu bar.

Improved

• Improved error messages for failed license key activation attempts to make troubleshooting clearer.

For more details, see
Introducing Customizable Notification Colors

v1.1.0

This update added Slack dot badge support and addressed WhatsApp notification issues.

New Features

• Added Slack dot badge support, displaying a dot indicator in the menu bar for Slack notifications.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where notification counts were not displayed for the latest version of WhatsApp.

v1.0.0

🎉 First major release! After months of development and user feedback, Badgeify 1.0.0 introduced App Groups for better organization.

New Features

• Added Application Groups, allowing you to:
  • Organize multiple apps under a single menu bar icon.
  • Use custom icons for application groups.
  • Display the total notification count for all apps within a group.

Improved

• Updated the onboarding carousel to introduce the new app groups feature.

For more details, see
Introducing App Groups for Powerful Menu Bar Management

Pre-1.0 (v0.2.x – v0.4.x)

Before the 1.0.0 milestone, Badgeify laid the foundation for today’s experience with core functionality, UI polish, and early customization options.

New Features

• Added a Free version with:
  • Support for up to 3 apps in the menu bar.
  • Core notification tracking and quick-launch functionality.
• Added a “Show transparent icon when app isn’t running” setting.
• Added a “Hide icon when no notifications” option to reduce visual noise.
• Added a “Show/Hide Notifications” tray menu item.
• Added a “Quit” option in the tray menu for each application.
• Added drag-and-drop app management in the UI.
• Added an onboarding carousel to help new users understand core concepts.

Improved

• Improved the settings layout and information hierarchy for a clearer interface.
• Improved the settings window behavior so it remembered its last position.
• Increased the menu bar icon size to 64×64 for better readability.
• Improved license key management and refined the pricing model.
• Improved accessibility integration and Finder handling for more predictable behavior.
• Improved overall stability, compatibility, performance, and menu bar update smoothness.

For more details on custom icon usage, see Use Your Own Icons to Customize Your macOS Menu Bar