The term “audit” usually brings up negative connotations, but if it’s been a while since you last examined your Mac’s menu bar, it may be time to conduct your own internal investigation.
Over the years, my Mac’s menu bar has been littered with a slew of menu bar icons. They seem to multiply, like Tribbles. And, like most Mac users, I’ve used third party tools like Ice and Bartender to manage them. While it felt good to sweep menu bar icons “under the rug” by hiding them from view, it never felt quite right. I also found myself wondering what some of the menu bar items were. (It would be nice to have the option to view the name of the menu bar item by hovering your Mac’s cursor over it, but I digress…)
Why?
Because, in my day-to-day work, I use but a handful of menu bar icons on a regular basis. With that in mind, I conducted my own internal audit to decide what menu bar items should stay and what should go.
Chances are good that if you have a Mac app that includes a menu bar item, you can hide it by visiting the application’s settings.
But that can take a lot of time.
Thankfully, in macOS Tahoe, we finally have a Menu Bar category in System Settings. In the Menu Bar settings, one can selectively hide or reveal menu bar items in one convenient location. Having this built-in option eliminated my need for using a third party menu bar manager.
macOS Tahoe also lets menu bar items live in the Control Center, which can be convenient for those “once in a blue moon” times where you need to access a specific menu bar item.
This is the point in the article where I share what’s on my Mac menu bar. Your mileage may vary. From left to right:
- 1password: quick access to my passwords
- PastePal: my clipboard manager of choice
- LeaderKey: Quick access to my most often used apps
- HandMirror: for those times where I need to make sure I’m presentable for a Zoom call
- Klack: a tactile mechanical keyboard simulator
- Cursor Pro: for toggling a custom cursor for teaching demonstrations
- Hazel: an automation tool for organizing files
- SuperCharge: a Swiss-army knife of Mac conveniences
- OneSwitch: another collection of quick Mac shortcuts
- iStat menus: a Mac system monitor
- Fantastical: my calander app of choice
- CleanShot X: a fanastic screen recording / screen capturing utility
- SoundSource: an app that lets me select audio inputs and outputs based on any given application I’m currently running
- Keyboard Viewer: (I can’t seem to find where to turn this off)
- Control Center: rarely used, but can’t hide this one, too.
- Date and Time: A must-have for me.
If I’m being ruthless, I could probably remove one or more menu bar items from this list. But 13 menu bar items (not including Keyboard Viewer, Control Center and Date and Time) seem manageable for my own workflow.
