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Use the Command Key to Rearrange and Remove Menu Bar Icons

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Is your Mac’s menu bar overwhelmed with icons? They’re helpful little critters, but finding one can be difficult when you have too many and they’re in no particular order. The hidden trick to cleaning up your menu bar relies on the Command key.

  • Rearrange the menu bar icons in an order that makes sense to you by Command-dragging them around. You can’t move the Control Center icon or put anything to its right, but every other icon is movable.
  • Delete unnecessary Apple-provided status icons by holding down Command and dragging them off the menu bar. (To put one back, select the “Show icon-name status in menu bar” checkbox in its System Settings screen.) You can’t remove the clock, Control Center, or the Siri icon this way, though you can turn off Siri in System Settings > Siri & Spotlight. Command-dragging to delete doesn’t work for non-Apple apps; instead, look for a preference in the app itself.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Valentyna Yeltsova)

Social Media: If your Mac’s menu bar is a mess, you can use the Command key to rearrange the icons and remove those you never use.

Not a Fan of Big Sur’s Translucent Menu Bar? Here’s How to Disable It

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In macOS 11 Big Sur, Apple went back to a design direction from the earliest days of Mac OS X: a translucent menu bar. Since its color changes depending on the desktop picture, many people aren’t enamored of it (left, below). Luckily, reverting to the traditional opaque menu bar is simple. Open System Preferences > Accessibility > Display and select Reduce Transparency. That will turn the menu bar gray again and make other windows and menus opaque, too (right, below). Simple gray might not be as whizzy as fancy transparency, but it’s more predictable and easier to see.

(Featured image by aung nyi on Unsplash)

Make Your Mac More Useful by Managing Menu Bar Icons

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If your Mac is anything like ours, it’s suffering from an infestation of menu bar icons. Sure, the Wi-Fi menu is essential, and many others can be helpful. But if you have too many, or they’re in random order, finding one when you need it can be frustrating. You can employ two techniques to increase the accessibility of your menu bar icons:

  • Delete any Apple-provided status icon you don’t use by holding down the Command key and dragging it off the menu bar. (To put it back, select the “Show icon-name status in menu bar” checkbox in the associated System Preference pane.) Command-dragging to delete won’t work for most apps with a menu bar icon; for them, look for a preference in the app itself.
  • Rearrange the menu bar icons in an order that makes sense to you by Command-dragging them around. You can’t move the Notification Center icon or put anything to its right, but every other icon is movable.

(Featured image based on an original by Patrick Ward on Unsplash)