How to Customize the Mac Menu Bar: Icons and the Notch

Reorder menu bar icons by holding ⌘ and dragging them. Hide extra ones in System Settings → Menu Bar (macOS 26 and later): system icons under Menu Bar Controls, third-party ones under Allow in the Menu Bar. On a MacBook with a notch, icons that don’t fit slip behind it.

You install a new utility and its icon never shows up in the menu bar. The app is running, but the icon seems to have vanished. On a MacBook with a notch — the cutout for the camera — this happens when there are too many icons on the right: the extra ones quietly slip behind the notch.

The menu bar is for things that change and that you check at a glance. Everything else is detail.

Why icons disappear

The menu bar has two halves. On the left are the menus of the active app: File, Edit, View and so on. On the right are status icons: Wi-Fi, battery, the clock, icons from apps. On laptops with a notch, the camera sits between the two, and there is less room than it looks.

When the icons run out of space, macOS doesn’t shrink them and doesn’t warn you — the leftmost ones simply aren’t shown. Apps with long menus make it worse: switch to Xcode or Photoshop and some of your icons are gone; switch back to the Finder and they return.

If an app’s own menus end up behind the notch, there is a built-in fix. Quit the app, select it in the Finder, press ⌘I and turn on “Scale to fit below built-in camera”. While that app is open, the menu bar and windows move below the camera. The option usually only appears for apps that haven’t been updated for notched displays.

How to rearrange them

Hold ⌘ and drag an icon to a new spot in the menu bar. This works for system icons and most app icons. A system icon can be ⌘-dragged off the menu bar to remove it. App icons don’t always go that way; the settings below are more reliable.

Put the icons you care about most on the right, near the clock: when space runs out, the ones on the left disappear first.

How to hide them with built-in settings

In macOS 26 Tahoe and later, everything lives in System Settings → Menu Bar:

• Menu Bar Controls — the system icons: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Battery, Sound, Focus, Weather, Time Machine and more. Some offer Show When Active or Always Show, so the icon only appears while the feature is on;
• Allow in the Menu Bar — a list of third-party apps. Turn one off and its icon leaves the menu bar while the app keeps running.

You can also add icons from Control Center: click its icon, choose Edit Controls, and drag items onto the menu bar or off it. Reset Control Center in the same settings pane puts everything back.

In macOS 14 Sonoma and 15 Sequoia, system icons are managed in System Settings → Control Center, and there is no separate list for third-party apps — you remove their icons in each app’s own settings.

What to keep

Sort your icons into two kinds:

• live indicators — things that change: the time, battery, a timer, Mac load, VPN status. You want to see these without clicking;
• launch buttons — things you press once a day: display settings, AirDrop, notes. They belong in Control Center or Spotlight.

A typical engineer’s set: clock, battery, Wi-Fi, VPN, Mac load and a focus timer. Six icons, and each one tells you something. What to use for the load indicator and how many icons to give it is covered in the guide to menu bar system monitors.

If you are still short on space

1. Remove icons for apps you haven’t used in a week, via Allow in the Menu Bar.
2. Switch system icons to Show When Active.
3. Check each app’s own settings: many have an option along the lines of “Show in menu bar”.

There are also third-party menu bar managers that tuck extra icons into a separate strip. They are a reasonable choice if you really have a lot of icons, but try the built-in steps first; they are often enough.

Hiding the menu bar automatically

System Settings → Menu Bar has “Automatically hide and show the menu bar”, with Always, On Desktop Only, In Full Screen Only and Never. A hidden menu bar comes back when you move the pointer to the top of the screen.

On a small screen that gives your windows an extra row. But your indicators then only show up on demand, which defeats the point of keeping them in the menu bar. Right next to it is “Show menu bar background”: since Tahoe the menu bar has no background by default, and turning one on makes icons easier to read over a busy wallpaper.

In the app

Mac Resources puts a badge in the menu bar styled like the keyboard layout indicator: an icon and the percentage of whichever of CPU, memory and GPU is busiest. It refreshes every two seconds and turns red above 80%. Network, disk and battery aren’t on the badge — they are in its menu: CPU, Memory, Disk used, GPU, Battery. While Prevent Sleep is on, a lock appears on the badge. You move it with the same ⌘-drag. If it keeps turning red, it’s time to look at why your Mac is slow.

Pomodoro shows an icon for the current session and the time left, such as “24:13”. Click it for the dial, the controls, today’s total, and links to the main window, the floating timer and settings. Turn the countdown off with “Show remaining time in the menu bar”, and the Dock icon with “Show in Dock”. If your menu bar is full, there is a floating timer instead: ⇧⌘F.

Two icons that change instead of ten that just sit there.

Your second display case is desktop widgets. And if you want the timer to silence notifications too, see Focus mode during a pomodoro.