You could use modern flyout. It allows you to increase or decrease (also to 0) the number active of media sessions displayed. Source: 12 months ago

If you don't want to mess around with any of your program's settings, you can install ModernFlyouts and change its' settings to never show any popups. Source: about 1 year ago

Modern​Flyouts for better looking flyouts for volume and media. Source: about 1 year ago

This may not be the perfect fix you are looking for, but I faced the same problem as you (wanted flyouts but also wanted explorerpatcher for other functionality that it brought), and my solution was to use ModernFlyouts (link here). Source: about 1 year ago

You can try ModernFlyouts, it has a few customization options so maybe you can get a more minimal experience that way https://modernflyouts-community.github.io/. Source: about 1 year ago

The open-source Hidden Bar is my current solution to this problem, but I think I prefer this native fix. https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden

  brew install --cask hiddenbar

. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago

There's Hidden Bar but I think it's a lot like Bartender. It has an arrow too if that's what you want. Source: about 1 year ago

Hidden is a great free and open-source alternative. Source: about 1 year ago

Hidden bar is the best one from my experience and it’s open source! Source: about 1 year ago

Dozer (free - open source), HiddenBar (free), free alternatives to bartender, however, only does 1 thing and that's hiding the icons, not adding an extra menu, nothing just icons here, icons gone. Source: about 1 year ago