MenucoveHow to hide menu bar icons on a Mac.
A few icons in the menu bar are handy. Twenty is noise, and on a MacBook with a notch some of them disappear anyway. Here’s every way to clean it up, from what’s built into macOS to apps that do it for you.
In this guide
Built into macOS
Rearrange or remove icons with ⌘-drag
Hold ⌘ and drag any icon left or right to reorder it. Drag it down, out of the menu bar, and let go to remove it. This works for system icons and many apps. Icons hidden behind the notch can’t be dragged, because you can’t see them.
Turn off system icons in Control Center settings
Open System Settings › Control Center. Each system item, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Sound, Focus or Now Playing, has a menu to show or hide it in the menu bar. Many can still be reached from Control Center itself.
Turn off app icons in Menu Bar settings (macOS 26)
On macOS 26 Tahoe, System Settings › Menu Bar lists apps with an “Allow in the Menu Bar” switch. Turn one off to take its icon out of the bar.
Use each app’s own setting
Many apps have a “Show in menu bar” option in their settings. Turning it off removes the icon while the app keeps working.
Hide the whole menu bar
In System Settings › Control Center, “Automatically hide and show the menu bar” hides the entire bar until you move the pointer to the top of the screen. It frees space, but it hides your app menus and the clock too.
Where the built-in ways fall short
- Removed means gone. Once an icon is off, you can’t click it. To use that app’s menu, you have to go back to Settings and turn it on again.
- No middle ground. macOS has no “keep it, but out of the way” option.
- The notch still wins. On a notched MacBook, macOS still drops icons that don’t fit, with no warning. Our notch guide covers that in detail.
Menu bar managers
A menu bar manager adds the missing middle ground: icons you hide stay running and stay reachable. They differ in how much they do:
- Simple dividers hide everything to one side of a marker. Click the marker to show them again.
- Full managers add a hidden section, search, hotkeys, profiles and triggers, and a separate bar for icons the notch would cover.
- Calm, focused apps keep a few favorites and put everything else one click away.
We compared the main options, including Bartender, Thaw, Ice, Hidden Bar and Barbee, feature by feature, with sources. Read the comparison.
Hiding icons with Menucove
Menucove is the calm, focused kind. Setting it up takes about thirty seconds:
- Pick your favorites. Open Your menu bar in Menucove and press Show on the few icons you use every day.
- Tuck the rest away. One click, and everything else leaves the bar.
- Click the crab. Every tucked-away app is there, with search. Click one and its real menu opens.
Tidying needs no special permission. Opening menus and moving icons use macOS Accessibility, which Menucove asks for only when you choose to. An icon moves only when you ask, Undo puts it back, and quitting Menucove brings every icon straight back.
Give your menu bar some room.
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