This guide walks through everything you need to get Lounge running on your Mac, from download to your first customized menu bar layout. It should take about five minutes, including granting the one permission Lounge needs.
Requirements
Lounge requires macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later. It runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, and works whether or not your MacBook has a notch — the notch-aware panel is a bonus, not a requirement.
1. Download and install
Download Lounge directly — no App Store required. Because Lounge relies on the Accessibility API to reposition menu bar items, it can't be distributed through the Mac App Store; it's signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple instead, so Gatekeeper will let it run without extra steps. Drag it into Applications and launch it like any other Mac app.
2. Grant Accessibility permission
On first launch, macOS will ask you to grant Lounge Accessibility permission. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, and toggle Lounge on.
This permission is the one non-obvious step in setup, and it's worth understanding why Lounge needs it: hiding and revealing icons isn't a visual trick, it's a real repositioning of a hidden NSStatusItem that expands to push everything to its left off-screen, then shrinks back down to reveal it. macOS treats repositioning another app's menu bar items as an accessibility-level operation, so it requires explicit user approval — the same permission screen recording tools and window managers use. If you skip this step, Lounge will launch but the hide/reveal mechanism won't work, and you'll see icons sitting in the menu bar with no way to sort them.
3. Organize your menu bar
Once permission is granted, Lounge shows a divider marker in your menu bar, alongside the Lounge icon itself. Hold ⌘ and drag any icon left or right across the divider to sort it into the visible or hidden section.
A practical approach for your first pass: work left to right across your existing menu bar and make a quick call on each icon —
- Keep visible: things you check constantly, like Wi-Fi, battery, volume, and your input source
- Move to hidden: rarely-used utilities, background sync tools, one-off menu bar apps you installed once and forgot about
This only takes a minute or two the first time, and Lounge remembers the layout after that — newly installed apps land in the visible section by default, so you'll only need to re-sort as new icons show up. For a more detailed sorting workflow, see how to declutter your macOS menu bar.
4. Learn the shortcut
⌘⇧L toggles the hidden section instantly, from any app, without touching your mouse. This is the shortcut you'll use daily — press it to peek at a hidden icon, then press it again to tuck everything back away.
If you're on a MacBook with a notch, you don't need the shortcut at all: just hover near the notch to open the same panel visually, with both visible and hidden icons laid out in clear sections. It's the same underlying panel either way, just triggered differently.
5. Customize in Preferences
Open Lounge's preferences panel to fine-tune:
- Launch at login — so Lounge is running before you even open your first app
- Icon style and divider character — match your aesthetic
- Animation speed — snappier or smoother transitions
- Custom keyboard shortcut — remap away from ⌘⇧L if it conflicts with another app's binding
- License and subscription management — all in one place
6. Try clipboard history
Lounge includes a built-in clipboard history view, so you don't need a separate clipboard manager running alongside it. Copy something, then check the clipboard section in the panel to search and reuse recent snippets without breaking your workflow or leaving your current window.
7. Wire up agent notifications (optional, Lounge Pro)
If you write code with AI agents, Lounge Pro can surface notifications from Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, or Aider directly in the hidden panel via a local HTTP listener — useful for knowing when a long-running agent task finishes without keeping a terminal window in view. The agent tutorials have copy-paste setup instructions for each tool.
Pricing and trial
Lounge costs $3.99/year, and every subscription starts with a 7-day free trial — no credit card commitment required to explore the full feature set, including clipboard history and agent notifications. See the pricing section for details.
Next steps
Once you're set up, read how to declutter your macOS menu bar for a practical sorting workflow, or what Lounge is for a deeper look at the hide/reveal mechanism. If you're comparing options, see how Lounge stacks up against Bartender, Ice, and Hidden Bar.