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:

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Sound, and other Control Center items: open System Settings → Control Center, find the item, and choose "Don't Show in Menu Bar."
Spotlight and Siri: each has its own toggle in System Settings.
Third-party apps: most have a "Show icon in menu bar" checkbox in their own preferences — Dropbox, 1Password, and many others.

If you never use an icon, this is cleaner than hiding it.

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.

Get Barkeep — free