Why Did My Mac Menu Bar Disappear?

If you notice that the Menu Bar at the top of your screen is missing, it is probably because you are using an app in Full Screen mode. You can customize how this works in System Preferences. You can also use Mission Control and Spaces to have the Menu Bar present for some apps and not others.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Wondering why your Menu Bar is missing? Let me show you.
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Now the Menu Bar is this strip across the top of your Mac screen. It usually has the Apple Menu here to the left. Then the name of the app you are currently using and different menus depending upon which app you're using. Here I'm using the Finder. If I switch say to Notes you could see it says Notes and it has menus specific to Notes. If I switch to something else like Mail it has mail and then menus specific to Mail. To the right I'm going to see various different buttons depending upon how you have things configured on your Mac. So this is the Menu Bar. 
But what happens if I were to switch, say, here to Safari. Watch what happens to the Menu Bar. You could see it disappears. Where did it go? Well, it is still there. If I move my pointer to the top of the screen you can still it appears. So you can always access the Menu Bar. If it is hidden you simply move the pointer to the top. It appears and you can use it and then you can move the pointer down. But why is it hidden here? 
Well, the reason is because Safari is in full screen mode. So at some point I clicked this green button here or I went to the View Menu and the bottom item here allows you to toggle between full screen mode and regular window mode. So if I exit full screen mode you can see Safari is now a window, like this, and the Menu Bar is there. If I go back into full screen mode you can see the Menu Bar disappears. By default when you're in full screen mode for a window it won't have the Menu Bar there. So the simple answer is if you want to get the Menu Bar back simply exit full screen mode for that app. Have it as a normal window on your desktop and you'll have the Menu Bar. 
But there are actually specific settings to control how this all works that you should know about. So let's go into System Preferences and then let's go to Dock & Menu Bar and then make sure Dock & Menu Bar is selected here. Then look at the bottom. It shows Menu Bar and two checkboxes. The bottom one is Automatically Hide and Show the Menu Bar in Full Screen. So with this On it's behaving exactly as I described. You go into Full Screen Mode and the Menu Bar disappears unless you move your pointer to the top. I want to turn this Off. The Menu Bar will now show in Full Screen Mode. But it doesn't take effect right away. Let's go back to Safari and you can see there is still no Menu Bar there. That's because I put this in Full Screen Mode before I changed the settings. So let's turn Off Full Screen Mode. It's back to a window. Turn it back On again and now you could see Full Screen Mode includes the Menu Bar here at the top. So it is always visible. 
Now there's another setting down here. Automatically Hide and Show the Menu Bar on Desktop. This is new in macOS Monterey. You can turn this On and it will hide the Menu Bar on a regular desktop, one that you can use to show windows like this one. So now it behaves the same way with bringing the pointer to the top will bring down the Menu Bar. But if the pointer is below that the Menu Bar is going to be  hidden. So you can choose to hide the Menu Bar here if you want. So if you're not seeing the Menu Bar on your desktop like this make sure that you have this not checked. So with both of these not checked now in regular desktop window mode I see the Menu Bar and in full screen mode I see the Menu Bar. 
Now let's launch another app and let's take that to full screen mode by clicking the green button here. So now I've got Photos full screen. I've got Safari full screen and if I go to another app that is on that first desktop, like System Preferences, you can see I'm back here and I've got the Menu Bar showing here. You can see this a little more clearly if you go to Mission Control. So in Mission Control you can launch by using Control, not Command but Control, and Up Arrow. Now you could see here at the top I've got one regular desktop for windows. Then a full screen Safari and a full screen Photos. I can switch to anyone of these and you could see the Menu Bar there at the top of both of them. So I can switch easily to that. Let me go Control Up Arrow again and switch to this. I can also use Control Left and Control Right to go between spaces including full screen apps and desktops. So I can travel between all three of these and see the Menu Bar is there for all of them. 
So what if I wanted there to be a Menu Bar here for Safari but no Menu Bar here for Photos. Well, there is no way to actually set that because there is one checkbox here. That checkbox is for ALL full screen apps. But you can compromise by taking one of these full screen apps. Instead of having it full screen give it its own desktop. So let's take Photos out of full screen mode. So now it is here on the regular desktop along with System Preferences. These two windows are both there. Let's go to Mission Control again, Control Up Arrow. I'm going to add a second desktop. There it is. I'm going to move this window to it. So I have Desktop 1 and Desktop  2 as well as this full screen window here. So now when I go to Desktop 2 I see the Photos App. I want this window to cover the entire screen like it does here. If it doesn't for you, if it is like this, a quick way to get it full screen that doesn't involve having to drag each side out is to hold the Option Key down and double-click any corner. That will expand all the corners to meet the corners of the screen. So now this is kind of full screen. It's still a window but it is filling everything here. I can see this when I go to Mission Control. I can see here how this nicely fills everything and here I've got an example of a window not filling everything. 
Let's go back into Preferences. Let's check this here so it will Hide the Menu Bar in Full Screen Mode. So now if I go back to Safari that change won't take place right away, remember. So I'm going to exit full screen mode and enter it again. Now Safari has no Menu Bar. But if I were to use Mission Control and go to Desktop 2 where I have Photos there is a Menu Bar here because it is a regular desktop with a window on it. I've just chosen to only put one window on this desktop. Have this one window fill the entire screen so it kind of simulates being a full screen app but I get my Menu Bar here while still avoiding having a Menu Bar on a full screen app like here. 
So you really can pick and choose exactly what you want if you set the options right. Now I should note that it is possible for an app to disable the Menu Bar entirely for that app. Usually you see this in games. A lot of times games want to go full screen, get rid of the Menu Bar, and use their own menu system that looks the same between Mac, Windows, and consoles and all of that. Occasionally I've seen it in some really high level pro apps like 3D apps and music production apps and things like that. But for the most part you usually see it in games. So if could simply be that the game you're playing has a full screen mode that excludes the Menu Bar no matter how you have things set in System Preferences. 
Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 2 Responses to “Why Did My Mac Menu Bar Disappear?”

Cynthia Tollen

2 years ago

My Apple Icon, all of icons on top menu bar are gone. I have tried everything, can't get Apple icon back or even View. It happened after an Apple upgrade yesterday. Any help? Thanks

Gary Rosenzweig

Cynthia: Sounds like you are in Full Screen mode or you have hidden the Menu Bar in System Settings. Watch this video and it explains it.

Comments Closed.

Why Did My Mac Menu Bar Disappear?

Comments: 2 Responses to “Why Did My Mac Menu Bar Disappear?”

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