How to organise a crowded Mac menu bar

A crowded menu bar isn’t just untidy. On a MacBook, anything that doesn’t fit to the right of the notch is pushed out of sight, and macOS decides which icons that is. Organising the bar means you decide instead.

Step 1: Sort every icon into three groups

Go through your menu bar from right to left and put each icon in one of three groups:

• Always: you glance at or click it several times a day: battery, Wi-Fi, a timer, your VPN.
• Sometimes: you need it now and then: a sync app, a screenshot tool, a password manager.
• Never: it only shows that an app is running.

Step 2: Remove the “never” icons

1. Open System Settings → Menu Bar.
2. Switch off Apple items you put in “never” under Menu Bar Controls.
3. Switch off third-party apps you put in “never” under Allow in the Menu Bar.

The apps keep working; only their icons go. See how to hide menu bar icons for every option.

Step 3: Put the “always” icons on the right

Hold ⌘ and drag your “always” icons to sit just left of Control Center and the clock. Icons on the right are the last to be pushed behind the notch or into the overflow arrow, so the ones you need most should live there.

Step 4: Hide the “sometimes” icons

This is the group macOS has no good answer for. Turning them off means going into System Settings every time you need one. A menu bar manager lets you keep them one click away instead: drag them behind its divider and they stay hidden until you reveal them.

Step 5: Let the bar change with what you’re doing

Some icons matter only in certain situations: the battery on the go, the display menu when a monitor is plugged in, a VPN on public Wi-Fi, meeting tools during work hours. Menu bar managers with rules can reveal those icons automatically and tuck them away again afterwards.