OS X El Capitan: Auto-hide the menubar

OS X El Capitan has some great new features such as Split-View, a revamped Notes, and the ability to pin tabs in Safari. But it also does something that most people don’t know about: OS X El Capitan lets you auto-hide the menubar so you can take full advantage of your entire screen.

Anyone who has used previous version of OS X knows that – until El Capitan – it hasn’t been possible for users to hide the menubar. It was always there at the top of your screen whether you wanted to see it or not.

But those days are finally over. Auto-hiding the menubar in OS X El Capitan is easy and I’ll show you how to do it in this tip.

How to auto-hide the menubar in OS X El Capitan

1. Go to Settings.

2. Go to General.

3. Click the checkbox next to “Automatically hide and show the menubar.”

4. Close the Settings menu.

Now the menubar should be hidden at the top of your screen. To see it again, just place your cursor at the top and it will appear the same way that the Dock appears if you choose to auto-hide it.

Secret confessions of an OS X menubar hater

I can’t really convey to you how happy I am that I can finally hide the menubar in OS X El Capitan. For years it has annoyed me by preventing me from using my entire screen, and now I can finally hide it. I can remember numerous times when I stared at the screen of my iMac and wished I could move or hide the menubar, just to get it out of the way.

Frankly, I have to admit that I’m very surprised that Apple added the ability to auto-hide the menubar in OS X El Capitan. I didn’t even know that such a feature was even on their radar, so imagine my surprise when I found out that Apple had decided to loosen up and give OS X users a choice about whether to see the menubar at all times.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand fully that the menubar is quite useful for certain things. And I’m not saying I’d want Apple to get rid of it altogether. But it has always taken up a bit of space at the top of the screen that I’d rather use for a larger application window.

So it’s great that users now have the option to decide for themselves if the menubar appears all the time in OS X El Capitan. I’m not sure how many users are like me and wanted the option to hide the menubar, but at least it’s there for them now. The ability to auto-hide the menubar might be a very pleasant surprise for some users when they upgrade to OS X El Capitan.

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