Published Apr 4, 2023, 2:16 PM EDT
Yash is an author at MUO who writes for the site's Android, iOS, and Mac verticals. He found his passion for writing while he used to develop apps for the web.
In 2018, he decided to combine his experience in tech with his love for gadgets and venture into journalism. Since then, he has written hundreds of features, how-tos, and explainers for multiple online publications to help users get more out of their tech.
Yash also writes at How-To Geek, while reviewing consumer tech products to help people make the right purchase decisions at TechPP. He's been using a Mac for work since 2017. On the mobile side, he likes to use both iPhone and Android to feed his curiosity.
Many developers nowadays offer menu bar functionality with their apps to offer quick and easy access to some of their features on the Mac.
Although this is useful, it has one problem: having too many apps in the macOS menu bar can quickly make it cluttered and require the system to hide some icons to prevent crowding your menu bar.
But thanks to apps like Hidden Bar, you can prevent this and get the most out of the menu bar on your Mac. Let's check out Hidden Bar and see how you can use it to declutter your Mac's menu bar.
Hidden Bar is a menu bar management app that lets you manage app icons on the menu bar of your Mac. It essentially divides the menu bar into two parts: Hidden and Shown, and requires you to move the menu bar items around—based on how often you need them—to either section accordingly.
Hidden Bar is lightweight, completely free to use, and offers the following features:
- Global shortcut to quickly toggle menu bar items
- Auto-hide options
- Full menu bar support
- An always hidden section
- Auto-startup after system log in
Download: Hidden Bar (Free)
Hidden Bar is simple to use. Once you've downloaded and installed the third-party app on your Mac, here's how you can use it to hide menu bar items from your Mac's menu bar:
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Launch Hidden Bar. When it opens the Settings page, minimize it for now. We'll come back to it later.
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Now, you should see an arrow (>) icon in the menu bar. Click it to reveal all the menu bar items. Here, you'll also see a vertical bar (|). All the items to the left of this bar are hidden, whereas the ones on the right will always be displayed in the menu bar.
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Hidden Bar is configured to hide all menu bar items by default. So, we need to configure it as per our preference. To do this, expand the menu bar again by clicking the arrow (>) icon. Now, press the Command key and drag the item you want to be visible in the menu bar at all times to the right of the vertical bar.
- Repeat the process for all the menu bar icons you want to be visible and accessible all the time in the menu bar. Once done, Hidden Bar will keep all your hidden items under the arrow (>) icon while the rest remain visible.
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If you want to access a hidden item, hit the arrow (>) icon to reveal all the menu bar items.
Hidden Bar will then automatically hide the apps after 10 seconds. If you wish to do it immediately, simply click the arrow (>) icon again.
Hidden Bar offers many useful features, as we've shared above. However, recommend enabling a few of these options to make the most of the app.
1. Auto-Start Hidden Bar at Launch
Open Hidden Bar, and in the General tab, toggle on the checkbox for Start Hidden Bar when I log in. This will automatically start Hidden Bar when you restart your Mac and log in, so you don't have to do it manually every time.
2. Use the Always Hidden Section to Hide Items Permanently
Hidden Bar comes with an "Always Hidden" section. It's available as an optional feature, and it comes in handy when you've got certain menu bar apps on your menu bar that you rarely use but can't get rid of, as that'll close the app.
To use the always hidden mode, check the box next to Enable always hidden section.
Then, click the arrow (>) icon in the menu bar, and move the icons you want to hide forever to the extreme left—beyond the vertical bar (|).
Lastly, we suggest setting up a global shortcut to expand and close the Hidden Bar quickly. Doing so eliminates the need to use the mouse whenever you want to access the hidden menu bar items on your Mac.
To do this, click the Set Shortcut button in the General section of the app and press the key combination you want to use.
Now, whenever you want to expand the Hidden Bar on your Mac, simply use this keyboard shortcut. When you're done, you can press the key combination again to hide the menu bar items.
Hidden Bar isn't the only menu bar management app. Bartender has been doing this for a while, but it's a paid app. Fortunately, Hidden Bar unlocks this functionality for free and does its job pretty well.
Sure, it isn't as feature-rich as Bartender, but it covers all the features you need to keep your menu bar organized. Plus, it's actively developed, so new features come along regularly.
Now that you know how to keep the menu bar organized, check out some of the best menu bar apps for the Mac to best utilize this space.