How to auto-hide the menu bar on macOS

To auto-hide the menu bar on a Mac, open System Settings > Control Center, scroll to Automatically hide and show the menu bar, and set it to Always. The bar then slides out of view and reappears when you push your pointer to the top edge of the screen. This is built into macOS, so you do not need any extra software.

That is the whole answer. The rest of this guide covers the exact steps with the menu names as they appear today, what the setting actually changes, and the one limitation that surprises most people: it is all or nothing across every display.

The exact steps to auto-hide the menu bar

The setting lives in Control Center, not where most people would guess. Here is the path on current macOS:

1. Open the Apple menu in the top-left corner and choose System Settings.
2. In the sidebar, click Control Center.
3. Scroll down to the Menu Bar Only section.
4. Find Automatically hide and show the menu bar.
5. Open the dropdown and pick Always.

There are four choices in that dropdown. They behave like this:

• Always: the menu bar is hidden everywhere and only appears on hover.
• On Desktop Only: hidden on the desktop, shown inside apps.
• In Full Screen Only: the classic behavior, hidden only when an app is full screen.
• Never: the menu bar is always visible. This is the default.

If you want the bar gone as much as possible, choose Always. To bring it back, move your pointer to the very top edge of the screen and the bar slides down. Move away and it slides back up.

Where this setting used to live

If you followed older instructions and could not find it, that is because Apple moved it. On macOS Monterey and earlier it lived under System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar. Since macOS Ventura reorganized everything into System Settings, the menu bar controls sit under Control Center. Same feature, new home.

What the setting actually does

When you set it to Always, macOS hides the menu bar from view and reclaims those pixels for your apps, so a maximized window can use the full height of the screen. The bar is not removed. It is parked just off-screen and pulled back when your pointer reaches the top edge.

This is a clean, supported behavior with no third-party software involved. It is also instant and reversible. If you decide you miss the menu bar, switch the dropdown back to Never and nothing about your system has changed.

A few things worth knowing:

• The notch still matters. On a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air with a notch, hiding the menu bar does not remove the notch. The camera housing is physical. When the bar is hidden, the area around the notch goes black or shows your wallpaper, depending on your setup. There is more nuance in the MacBook notch and the menu bar.
• Hover is the only way back. There is no keyboard shortcut to toggle the bar. You reveal it by moving the pointer to the top edge, every time.
• Menu bar icons are unaffected. Your battery, clock, Wi-Fi, and app icons all still live in the bar. They are just hidden along with it until you hover.

The one big limitation: it is global, not per-display

Here is the catch that sends people looking for alternatives. The built-in setting applies to every display at once. There is no native way to hide the menu bar on one monitor while keeping it visible on another. Apple has never shipped per-display menu bar control.

That becomes a real problem in a common setup: one screen you want to protect and another you do not. Say you have a MacBook with its built-in display and an external OLED monitor on your desk. macOS draws a menu bar on each. If you turn on auto-hide to spare the OLED from a bright, static bar, you also lose the bar on the MacBook, where you may have wanted it. Turn it off to keep the MacBook bar, and the OLED gets a permanent menu bar again.

There is no dropdown for "hide on this display only." We go deeper into why in why macOS can't hide the menu bar on just one display.

Why this matters for OLED screens

The menu bar is the most static, always-on bright element on a Mac. On an LCD or mini-LED display, which is what current MacBook Pro screens and the Pro Display XDR use, that is fine. Those panels do not suffer permanent wear from a static image.

On an OLED panel, every pixel is its own light source and ages with use. A bright bar in the exact same place for hours every day can wear those pixels faster than the rest of the screen. Over a long enough time, that uneven wear can become burn-in: a permanent ghost of the bar that does not fade. That is different from image retention, a temporary afterimage that clears on its own. For the full picture see why an always-on menu bar is the worst thing for an OLED screen and OLED burn-in vs image retention.

Most Macs and Apple displays are not OLED, so for many people the menu bar is purely a screen-space preference. OLED on the desktop today usually means an external monitor from a brand like LG, Samsung, ASUS, or Dough. If you run one of those next to a built-in LCD, the global on/off switch is exactly the wrong tool, because the display you want to protect and the display you want to leave alone need opposite settings.

Common questions while you are in the settings

Does auto-hide work in full screen apps?

Yes, and it always has. Even with the dropdown set to Never, the menu bar hides automatically when an app goes full screen and reappears on hover. The Always option simply extends that behavior to every context.

The menu bar still shows when I hover. Is it broken?

No, that is the intended design. Hide and show means the bar reveals on hover by definition. There is no built-in mode that removes the bar entirely with no way back, because you still need access to app menus and status icons.

What if I want the menu bar gone on only my OLED monitor?

That is the gap the built-in setting cannot fill, and it is the reason per-display tools exist. If your goal is to protect a single OLED screen while leaving your other displays normal, a per-monitor approach is the right fit. TuckBar hides the system menu bar on only the displays you tag, painting your live wallpaper over the bar so it seems to vanish, while your other monitors keep their bar exactly as it is. It is free, open source, and notarized. If a single global switch is all you need, the built-in setting is perfect and you can stop here.

The short version

The built-in way to auto-hide the menu bar on a Mac is System Settings > Control Center > Automatically hide and show the menu bar > Always. It is reliable, reversible, and free. Its one real shortcoming is that it treats all your displays as one. If you have a single screen, or you are happy hiding the bar everywhere, the native setting is genuinely all you need. If you need to protect one specific OLED monitor without changing the others, that is where per-display tools come in.