How to hide menu bar icons on Mac
Updated 2026 · a 5-minute read
The menu bar in the top-right of your Mac fills up as you install apps, and a crowded bar isn't just ugly — on Macs with a notch it can push icons behind the notch where you can't reach them. Here are three free ways to hide menu bar icons, from the quickest to the most thorough.
Method 1: Rearrange with ⌘-drag (built in)
macOS lets you move menu bar icons directly. Hold ⌘ Command, click an icon,
and drag it left or right. Release where you want it. For many system icons you can even drag
them off the bar to remove them.
This is the fastest fix when you just want to reorder a couple of icons or push the important ones to where you can always see them. It doesn't hide anything on its own, though — for that, keep reading.
Method 2: Turn icons off at the source
Some icons don't need hiding — they can be switched off entirely. This is cleaner than hiding, because the icon never occupies a slot in the first place. Here's where the switches live:
| Icon | Where to turn it off |
|---|---|
| Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Sound, AirDrop, Focus, Screen Mirroring, Now Playing, Display, Battery, Accessibility, Hearing, Fast User Switching, Keyboard Brightness, Stage Manager | System Settings → Control Center → set each to Don't Show in Menu Bar |
| Spotlight | System Settings → Control Center → Menu Bar Only section |
| Siri | System Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri (or Siri & Spotlight on older versions) |
| Time Machine | System Settings → General → Time Machine → Options |
| Clock / date | System Settings → Control Center → Clock Options (can't be removed, but can be shortened) |
| VPN status | Appears automatically while connected; controlled by your VPN app |
| Third-party apps | Almost always a "Show icon in menu bar" checkbox in the app's own preferences |
Work through Control Center first — most people find three or four items there they've never once clicked, and each one you remove is a slot returned to something you actually use.
Shorten the clock — the single biggest space win
The clock is frequently the widest item in the entire menu bar. In System Settings → Control Center → Clock Options, turning off the day of the week and the date, or switching to a 24-hour format, can free up more room than removing two or three icons. If you're fighting for space on a notched MacBook, do this first.
Method 3: Hide icons behind a toggle with a menu bar organizer
When you want icons available but out of the way, a menu bar organizer hides them behind a single control. It works with a thin divider: everything to the left is hidden, everything to the right stays visible. Click a chevron to reveal the hidden icons when you need them, click again to tuck them away.
Barkeep does exactly this, for free. It also lets you group apps into a single button that opens a labelled dropdown, and it can show CPU, memory and network usage in one menu bar slot — so you reclaim space instead of adding to the clutter.
How it works, briefly
The organizer's divider is an invisible menu bar item that grows very wide on demand, pushing the icons to its left off the edge of the screen. Nothing is deleted; the icons are just parked out of sight until you reveal them. It needs no special access to do this.
Which method should you use?
Start with Method 2 for icons you never use, Method 1 to arrange the rest, and Method 3 if your bar is still crowded. Most people end up combining all three: a few always-visible icons on the right, everything else one click away.
A setup that works well for most people:
- Prune. Turn off every Control Center item you don't use, and shorten the clock. This alone often reclaims four or five slots.
- Prioritise. Decide the three to five icons you genuinely need visible at a glance — usually battery, Wi-Fi, and one or two app icons that carry status you act on.
- Position. ⌘-drag those to the right of your organizer's divider.
- Forget it. Everything else lives behind the chevron, one click away.
Troubleshooting
An icon reappears every time I restart
The app is recreating it at launch. Hiding it behind a divider is a display-level fix, so it persists; but if you'd rather it never appear, look for the "show in menu bar" setting in that app's own preferences, or stop it launching at login via System Settings → General → Login Items.
I dragged an icon off the bar and now it's gone
For Control Center items, re-enable it in System Settings → Control Center. For third-party apps, toggle the app's own "show icon" setting off and on, or quit and reopen the app.
An icon is missing but I never removed it
On MacBooks with a notch, icons that get pushed far enough left are simply not drawn at all. The app is running and thinks the icon is showing — macOS just isn't painting it. Free up space to the right of it and it comes back.
Icons rearrange themselves when I dock or undock
They haven't reordered; the layout was re-clipped for a different screen width. See the multiple-monitor guide for how to set up an arrangement that survives docking.
Does hiding icons save memory or battery?
No — and it's worth being clear about it. Hiding an icon doesn't quit the app or suspend it; the app carries on doing whatever it was doing. Hiding is purely visual. If you want to reclaim resources, quit the app or remove it from your login items instead.
Related: How to declutter your Mac menu bar · Show CPU and memory in your menu bar