Apple menu () randomly opening by itself — bug, hardware issue, or something else?

I have same problem

Macbook Pro 16-inch, 2021

Chip Apple M1 Pro

Memory 16 GB

macOS Sequoia 15.3.2

When I startup Antrophic's stand-alone Claude app, the Apple menu gets selected.

Control-F2 is the keyboard shortcut to select the Menu Bar (Apple Menu will be selected). If you have any apps that remap keyboard shortcuts, that will be the cause.

You can also check at  > System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Keyboard, and it will show the shortcut used to select the menu bar. Once the menu bar is selected, you can navigate to the different menus with the arrow keys and hit return to open them. You can also try unselected that shortcut to see if it stops.

lucasjdol wrote:

Thanks, but there's no other shortcut assigned to this action and, as far as I can see, no other apps that can cause it.

Any other ideas?

Did you try unchecking that shortcut in Settings to see if it stops?

I'm having the same issue on MBP 2023 M3 Max 64GB Sequoia 15.4.1 (24E263). The Apple menu sometimes randomly pops up while I am moving the mouse pointer with trackpad. Pretty sure that I didn't touch the keyboard.

august159 wrote:

I have the same issue.

Is anyone of you using Bartender ? Killing it seems to resolve the issue for me, but Bartender is so useful that I would be disappointed to lose access to it, even temporarily.

Great suggestion! For any problem with the menu bar not working as expected, a third party system modification that changes the behavior of the menu bar would be the first thing to check. The latest version of Bartender is 5.0.52 if that helps to identify if the problem occurs on the latest release and if so, their support is available at support@macbartender.com.

Good news folks!

if you use the Feedback option in Bartender, it will open a window to send them a snapshot of your system and your Bartender settings.

I sent them a message this morning, and they replied with this:

”Thank you for reaching out about the issue with the Apple menu randomly opening when Bartender is running. This is a known issue with Bartender on macOS Sequoia. We have released a test build, version 5.3.5, which includes several fixes that may help resolve this problem. You can download this test build from the test build section on our website. Please give this version a try and let us know if it resolves the issue for you.

Your feedback would be invaluable in helping us ensure the software works smoothly for everyone.

Thank you,

Support Team”

Im updating to Sequoia 15.5 at the moment, after reboot I’m going to install it and see how it goes.

If you do too, be sure to send feedback either way…

I had the same issue. Apparently it is an issue with Bartender the Menu bar app. If you are using this, you can at this stage update to the test build that apparently solves this issue. If you are not running Bartender it is coming from somewhere else. :)

Update:

I got this from Bartender, and after I tried this entire email’s suggestions I still had the problem. Maybe for anybody else this might work?

Thank you for reaching out about the issue with the Apple Menu flashing and popping up unexpectedly when using Bartender. It seems like you might be experiencing a known issue that we are actively investigating. 

To address this, please try the following steps:

1. Update Bartender: Ensure you are using the latest version of Bartender, which is 5.3.5. You can download it from our website: https://macbartender.com/Bartender5/release_notes/

2. Disable Bartender Options: Go to Bartender's settings and un-tick the option to show hidden menu bar items when clicking on empty menu bar space. This has been a temporary solution for other users experiencing similar issues.

3. Screen Recording: If the problem persists, please provide a screen recording showing the behavior. This will help our team diagnose the issue more effectively.

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work towards a fix. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please let us know.

PWolverine wrote:

I thought my issue was fixed with the latest test version, but it just popped up agin. I'll try option two, but if that doesn't work i'm off to ICE for a bit. I don't know how you are expected to screen record it since it is a random occurrence, not happening all the time.

So i'll try option 2, if that doesnt' work I'm going to swap to ICE for the moment (https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice) and hope there is a fix for Bartender soon.

Before posting a link to an alternative, it may be more prudent to test it first. You should note that there have been 72 open bug issues reported for that app including occasional crashes that were just reported 4 days ago on that same GitHub page. That would seem pretty serious.

FWIW, I have three Macs running Sequoia 15.4.1, including an M1 MacBook Air and none have ever opened the Apple Menu at random. Try booting into Safe Mode, run for a time to see if it occurs then. If not, it's some third-party software you have installed.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

Bartender team has advised me to disable "Triggers" feature while they release a fix... and so far it seems to solve the issue ! 🥳

I e-mailed and was told the following, I installed the 5.3.6 test build. So far I haven't had the issue happen, but will give it some time. Make sure to select test build. I guess at least we know where the problem lies, I also have "Ice" the free menubar prograb like Bartender, works the same but there is no issue. So if you are still having the issue and want to try another similar program, give "Ice" a go in the meantime.

E-mail from Bartender:

Thank you for reaching out about the issue with the Apple menu randomly opening when Bartender is running. This is a known issue with Bartender on macOS Sequoia. We have released a test build, version 5.3.5, which includes several fixes that may help resolve this problem. You can download this test build from the test build section on our website. Please give this version a try and let us know if it resolves the issue for you. 

Your feedback would be invaluable in helping us ensure the software works smoothly for everyone.

I have the same issue.

Is anyone of you using Bartender ? Killing it seems to resolve the issue for me, but Bartender is so useful that I would be disappointed to lose access to it, even temporarily.

I am using Bartender 5.3.5 and have turned the Triggers function off to test this, but unfortunately this does not fix the issue.

By the way, the issue is made worse when I am running Windows 11 under Parallels Desktop as well. When starting my VM it is sure to pop up several times until everything is loaded.

In general, the menu popping up seems to stop or at least occur a lot less after a few minutes of starting to use my Mac - usually after waking up from sleep or a restart.