Clean Up the Right Side of Your Menu Bar

The right side of your Mac's menu bar can get crowded with lots of menu bar icons from system settings or third-party apps. Learn how to remove some and access the same functions almost as easily.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can cleanup the right side of your Mac's Menu Bar. 
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So more and more today I'm hearing that people have a crowded right side of their Mac's Menu Bar. This is where there are certain elements like the Clock, Spotlight, Siri, but then also a variety of other controls that you can access. You've got System Controls that could be there but also third party apps can be on the right side of the menu bar. 
The right side of your Mac's Menu Bar may look like this. It may be crowded with different buttons that allow you to access menus. A lot of these are system functions. Like there's WiFi, Bluetooth, Sound, and so on. Others may be from third party apps. Like here is my own ClipTools app. But you are limited as to the number of items that can be included here. If you've got a MacBook with a notch in it then you typically need to have everything to the right side of that notch. Even without the notch you're going to start loosing items off the left end if there are too many items to the right. Typically when I help people who have a problem where there are too many items there are many there are many that they are just not using, or at least not using them enough to justify them being here in the Menu Bar all the time. 
The first thing you want to do in cleaning this up is look for items that you pretty much never use. You may have just added them there because it was neat to add them there and it was convenient, or you may have used them in the past but you don't need them now. To get rid of an item all you need to do is hold the Command Key down and drag it down. For instance, let's say you don't need this one here. You just never use it. You can Command click and drag down and you could see it changes to include a little x there in the pointer and you just release and it goes away. Another way to get rid of items is to go into System Settings and then go to Control Center. Control Center is, of course, this item here but the section of System Settings is not just for the Control Center but for the entire right side of the Menu Bar. For each of the items here you can decide whether it is shown in the Menu Bar by simply selecting the option. 
So, for instance, if I don't need Displays shown I can turn it Off here and it is the same as getting rid of it by Command dragging it down. 
Now let's say that the case isn't that you never use the item but that you rarely use it. So maybe it doesn't justify being there all the time. We've got some different options. For instance, some of these items here allow you to change from Show in Menu Bar to Don't Show in Menu Bar, or Show When Active. So when there is actually a good case for it being there it will be there. So, for instance, for Now Playing I could have it set for When Active and now you can see it goes away. I'm not playing any music. The Music App isn't being used so it is not going to be there. But when I'm playing music in The Music App, it will appear. 
Another thing to consider is the fact that the Control Center includes most of these. Especially things that relate to the system. So you don't always need to have them here to get quick access. For instance, here's Bluetooth. I can click there and get access to the Bluetooth items. Now if I'm constantly switching On and Off and connecting new Bluetooth devices it may be handy to have it here. But if you find you're using that once a day or less then note you have it here in Control Center right under Bluetooth. You can get to the same items by clicking to the right of the item and you could see it is exactly the same as this. So I could Command Drag this away and now I know I can still access Bluetooth pretty quickly with just one extra click on the Mouse or Trackpad. But I've saved all that space up here. So take a serious look at each of the items and consider how often you use them. 
For instance a home Mac probably you don't need to change WiFi that often whereas if you travel with your Mac or use your Mac, say, around school or work campus, then WiFi maybe when you access all the time. But even with it not shown in the Menu Bar you could still easily access it right here in Control Center. The same with other items. Here is AirDrop, for instance, and it is easy to just have that not shown and save that space. For Focus, maybe only when it is active. Sound can also be easily accessed right here in Control Center with the slider and then accessed to all the items. Then you've got other items if you scroll down here in System Settings. So for Accessibility Shortcuts it might be handy to have it here. But I can also turn it Off here and then turn it On in Control Center. Now you can see it appears as a button there. For Fast User Switching I can have that turned Off here and I can have it as a button in Control Center. 
Now there is more that you can do to shrink what's in here. For instance, you've got your Clock here and you can set the Clock Options there in System Settings. So I can have it show the Date but maybe not the day of the week. Maybe I don't need A.M. and P.M. If you really want to shrink is down you can have it never show the Date and switch to an analog style clock. Then it is as small as possible. You also, for Date, can set it to When Space Allows. So if this gets crowded as items are in use and are shown maybe the Date is Hidden but other times maybe it is shown. 
You also have the ability to get rid of some other items like Siri and Spotlight. Now with Spotlight you can Command Drag it down to get rid of it. But you don't seem to be able to do that with Siri. But here in the Control Center portion of System Settings you do have the ability to turn Off Siri in the Menu Bar. Siri is still active. You can still use the Siri Shortcut here and Hey, Siri that is set in the Siri Spotlight part of System Settings. So here I have the keyboard shortcut set to Hold Command Space and that's all I really need. I don't need to have to click up here to access Siri. For Spotlight as well. I could have that not shown in the Menu Bar because I can just use Command Space to bring up the Spotlight Menu. 
So consider whether or not you actually need those things in the Menu Bar. If you have space, fine. But if it is really crowded then you may have to make some tough choices and just rely on the keyboard shortcuts for some things. Another thing to consider is that you could rearrange the items here. So, for instance, if I am using my own ClipTools App here and it is really important to me, I may want to hold down on the Command Key and then drag it to the right. Remember as this fills up its items to the left that are going to be removed to make space. So put the ones that are most important to you to the right. 
So using these techniques take the time to cleanup the right side of your Mac's Menu Bar. Get the most important things all the way to the right. Remove things that you can easily access in other ways, or rarely need. I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 13 Responses to “Clean Up the Right Side of Your Menu Bar”

Doug

1 year ago

Good suggestions. I've been using Bartender 4 on my MacBook Air. It's got such a small screen and the notch, so that's really helped.

Great info EXCEPT I was hoping it would apply to my iMac, OS Catalina Version 10.15.7. I cannot find the "Control Center" you refer to?

Gary Rosenzweig

D: Control Center was added 2 versions back, in Big Sur.

nick

Gary: there doesn't seem to be a way to remove the Eject icon from my menu, I don't see it listed in the Control Center and can't remove it with CMD-drag. When I click on the icon it shows a No Drives greyed out message, I'm guessing it's not an option to remove it. thx

Nick: See https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/eject-cds-and-dvds-from-your-mac-mchl2f6b0645/mac

Louis Martin

Using a Mac since 1984 and with each new OS's, things gets easier to do but with exceptions for simple things. On my right menu bar in Ventura, at the end of a short list of items appears the hour (my choice) but not the date or day. There is no immediate one-click way on Ventura to get the date et day. On older OS's like SL, clicking on the hour got you the day and date. Now on Ventura clicking on the hour, you get no new recent notification and a modify widgets. Trivial but still noteworthy.

Louis: Why not click Edit Widgets and then add a small Calendar widget to the very top? Then you can easily see a nice date when you click the time.

Your suggestion works. But it is not evident to find this out by ourself. Is this noted somewhere ? Or found out by exploring ?

Louis: You find out by learning about the Notification Center widgets. But I think a calendar widget may even be there by default. Maybe at some point you removed it? I have several videos on them, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go1obgrOyYk

David Tattersall

Gary, many thanks for another great video, the right of my menu bar is now cleaned up. Is there anyway to force the menu bar to temporarily show items hidden behind the notch so I can see what is hidden?

David: Not really. They aren't technically "behind" the notch but are not shown at all because space isn't available. All you can do is to remove the items you don't want like I show here and add any back that you want after deciding what to keep.

Thanks for clearing that up and your quick reply.

Bruce Mann

I found that if you have ONE too many icons in the right side of the menu bar (third party app), the last one is indeed hidden behind the notch. You can cmd-drag one of the visible icons into the notch, and the previously hidden icon switches position with it. It doesn't really solve anything, but it does work. (This is on 14" MBP/M1).

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Clean Up the Right Side of Your Menu Bar

Comments: 13 Responses to “Clean Up the Right Side of Your Menu Bar”

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