Remove Unwanted Menu Bar Icons
TMO Quick Tip - Remove Unwanted Menu Bar Icons
by , 7:30 AM EST, February 29th, 2008
Your Mac's menu bar holds all kinds of useful tidbits, but that doesn't mean everything you see there is a welcome addition. Sometimes applications add their own menu bar items that take up space you would rather use for something else. Luckily, removing those extra icons is easy to do.
![]() Find the item you don't want... |
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Just Command-click the item you want to remove and drag it out of the menu bar. When you release the item it will disappear in a puff of smoke.
![]() ...and Command-drag it out of your menu bar. |
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If you want to move were an item sits instead, you can Command-click it left or right. This is handy if you want your menu bar items organized in a specific order.
iSync's menu bar item automatically appears in my menu bar whenever there is a problem with synchronizing my iPhone. That's fine because it alerts me to the problem; unfortunately the icon doesn't go away once the issue is resolved. Since my menu bar is already loaded to the gills with other things I find more useful, I like to get rid of the iSync item right away.
Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.
if you have tips or tricks to share, or Mac-related questions you want answered.
Observer Comments
Slight tangent, but I noticed in those images that you run LittleSnitch. I don't know about you, but I found that having the meters enabled in the menu bar sometimes causes very bad things to happen to my computer. At times it eats a ton of CPU, causes freezes, and once caused a kernel panic. I like LittleSnitch's meters more than MenuMeters', but the instability made me switch back.
Ever since 10.0, non-Apple developers have wanted to use the native API's that Apple uses to create these MenuBarItem's. But instead they created a whole new API for third-party developers, completely separate from the API Apple uses, but that also provides a substandard UI [cmd-drag down or drag sideways doesn't work, doesn't behave like a normal menu if you mouse-down, then drag sideways. Only those developers willing to use Apple's reverse-engineered API AND use a hack to prevent Apple from blocking the loading of non-Apple menubaritem's get the 'good' UI.
OMG! I've been searching for the cause of exactly the kind of instability issues you describe, which started vaguely about the time I bought the indispensible Little snitch. I've dumped the menu icon (via the pref pane rather than the method described above)and if the freezes stop I owe you a beer or 30!
What is the 'Menu Meters' you describe? (I'm only a very recent - and very happy - switcher)
As someone mentioned, some icons won't respond to the above method (eg. stuffit), and theres no option I can find to get rid of the blighter...is there an alterntive method? (and no, I'm not sticking black gaffer tape on my new iMac!)
Sat Mar 01, 2008 7:28 pm Subject:
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