Mac Menu Bar Notifications App

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Menu Bar Apps Mac

macOS is designed to be easy to navigate for the average computer user, but finding some tools and features can be arduous, especially if you are going through System Preferences. Luckily, the Mac has a Menu bar (the small strip at the top of your screen) which has some very useful shortcuts to the most important features.

What's on the Menu bar?

Jul 14, 2020 A curated directory of 450+ Mac menu bar apps. Small apps to help you become more productive and maximize your workflow with MacOS (last updated: July 14, 2020). To the collections. Main Content. The Mac menu bar is prime real estate! Your Mac menu bar is a highly customizable space. By adding a few extra applications you get an awful lot more. Feb 27, 2019 Open your Notification Center by clicking the button on the top right of your menu bar. Click Notifications and at the bottom right of the window, click on the gear icon to open the settings. When the pop-up window displays, you’ll see a list of all apps using notifications on your Mac. App menus get priority, and if you’re working with an app with lots of menus, some of your menu bar extras simply disappear. Here's the menu bar on my 27-inch iMac. Jan 06, 2020 System status menu - The System status menu includes third-party widgets that you can download from the Mac App Store, the volume controls, Wi-Fi status, AirPlay, the battery (on laptops), and the date and time.; Spotlight - Spotlight is the Mac's system-wide and online search tool. You can type anything into the Spotlight search and you will almost definitely find what you are looking for.

The best way to make the most out of the Menu bar on the Mac is to get to know what's on it.

Apple menu - This is where you find important system tools and features, like information about your Mac, System Preferences, access to the App Store (and whether there are updates for apps), recently opened items, a shortcut to putting your Mac to sleep, restarting your Mac, shutting down your Mac, and logging out of your account.
App menu - Just past the Apple menu icon is the currently-selected app menu. When an app is open and in use, you'll see such categories as File, Edit, View, Window, Help, and more. Each app has a different menu layout.
System status menu - The System status menu includes third-party widgets that you can download from the Mac App Store, the volume controls, Wi-Fi status, AirPlay, the battery (on laptops), and the date and time.
Spotlight - Spotlight is the Mac's system-wide and online search tool. You can type anything into the Spotlight search and you will almost definitely find what you are looking for.
Siri - With Siri on the Mac, you can use the personal digital assistant to look up information, add events to the calendar, set reminders, and a whole lot more.
Notification Center - You can set widgets in Notification Center to provide quick access to things that matter the most to you, like the weather, your daily schedule, iTunes control, and special content from some third-party apps.

With InstaCal you can access your calendar from anywhere, simply by clicking the date in the menu bar. Always available in your Mac menu bar, InstaCal is quick and convenient and can be opened at any time. You can also add, view and edit reminders.
Oct 09, 2018 Note that the Notifications icon in macOS is designed to sit in the far right corner of the menu bar and cannot be moved elsewhere. How to Remove System Icons From the Menu Bar.
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET To force quit a Mac app, you can call up the Force Quit Applications menu from the Apple menu button in the upper-left corner or by hitting Command-Option-Esc.

How to remove widgets from the Menu bar on the Mac

Over time, the Menu bar can start to get cluttered, especially when you add third party widgets. You can remove macOS status widgets if you don't use them.

Right-click or control-click on a widget in the Menu bar.
Select Open Preferences.
Untick the box for Show in Menu bar.

In third-party apps (like Fantastical 2, when you click on the widget, there is usually a settings icon (it looks like a gear), which you can click on to quit or disable Menu bar access.

How to change the date and time in the Menu bar on the Mac

You can change the date, time, time zone, and look of the Date & Time of your Mac.

Note: If you manually change the date and time on your Mac, you could negatively impact programs running on your computer, and possibly get banned from certain games that consider time alterations a method of cheating at a game, so tread lightly.

How to manually change the date and time

Click on the date and time in the Menu bar in the upper right corner of your screen.
Click on Open Date & Time Preferences.
Click the Date & Time tab.
Click the lock to make changes.
Enter your administrator password and click Unlock.
Untick the box for Set date and time automatically.
Select a new date.
Select a new time.

You can also set the date and time automatically for a different country. You can set it for the U.S., Asia, or Europe.

How to manually change the time zone

Click on the date and time in the Menu bar in the upper right corner of your screen.
Click on Open Date & Time Preferences.
Click the Time Zone tab.
Click the lock to make changes.
Enter your administrator password and click Unlock.
Untick the box for Set time zone automatically using current location.
Click on a new region.

How to change the look of the date and time Menu bar widget

Click on the date and time in the Menu bar in the upper right corner of your screen.
Click on Open Date & Time Preferences.
Click the Clock tab.
Click the lock to make changes.
Enter your administrator password and click Unlock.
Click Digital or Analog to change what the clock looks like.
Tick the box for Show the day of the week to show the day of the week.
Tick the box for Show date to show the date.

How to use the battery widget in the Menu bar on Mac

The battery widget in the Menu bar, which will only appear on Apple laptops, shows you how much juice you have left before you'll need to charge up again. It also shows a few interesting facts about your usage.

Click on the battery widget.
- The first status shows approximately how much time left you have before your battery runs out. It also shows whether your laptop is running on battery power or if it is plugged into an outlet.
- The second status shows which program is being a battery hog. This is helpful if you notice that your battery is draining much faster than normal. It could be a buggy app.
Click on Show Percentage to show, in numbers, how much battery power is remaining.
Click on Open Energy Saver Preferences to adjust how long your screen and hard drive stay awake when not in use.

How to use Spotlight on the Mac

Spotlight is your Mac's systemwide search. When you type in a term, it will search for apps, documents, files, emails, and more. It will also search the internet, your contacts, directions in Maps, currency conversions, calculations, and a whole lot more. It's your one-stop shop for shortcuts to everything you use on your Mac.

How to use Siri on the Mac

Just like Siri on the iPhone and iPad, Siri on the Mac can be your personal virtual assistant. It searches your Mac for files and folders, schedules calendar events, and keeps important search results in your Notification Center. Need to know something? Siri can help with that.

How to use Notification Center on the Mac

Notification Center is a side panel that you can access whenever you want to quickly see what's on deck for today, what the weather looks like for the afternoon, or your list of things to do today. With third-party Notification Center widgets, you can stylize your Today view with all of your most important productivity apps.

How to rearrange Menu bar icons

Hold down the command key on your keyboard.
Click on the icon you would like to move. Make sure the command key is still pressed.
Drag the icon to its new location.
Let go of the mouse and command key to let the icon fall into place.

Bonus: Pro tips for Menu bar widgets on the Mac

Pressing the option key on your keyboard while clicking on some of the built-in Menu bar widgets will call up different information.

Option + Click on Wi-Fi to call up additional information about your wireless network, such as your IP address, the router address, your security type, and more. You can also create a diagnostic report and open a wireless diagnostic.
Option + Click on Bluetooth to see additional information about your Bluetooth connection, including its version and address. You can also create a diagnostic report on your Desktop.
Option + Click on Notification Center to manually turn Do Not Disturb on or off.

macOS Catalina

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The Notification Center on your Mac is just as handy as the one on your iPhone or iPad. The Today View is perfect for those apps you use all the time like weather or a to-do list. The Notifications View lets you quickly glance at notifications you’ve received and missed.

You can easily forget that you have this convenient spot on your Mac. And at the same time, it can get so full that it’s just overwhelming to use. Customizing the Notification Center is key to making it work for you and here’s how to do it.

For more help with your Mac:

Contents

2 Customize the Notifications View Settings
3 Make the Notification Center Yours

Customize the Today View Settings

The apps in the Today View are easy to add and remove. Open your Notification Center by clicking the button on the top right of your menu bar. Click Today and at the bottom of the window, click Edit.

On the left, you’ll see the apps currently in your Today View and on the right, you’ll see others you can add.

To remove an app from Today View, click the minus sign in red on the corner of the app. You’ll see it move from the left to the right.
To add an app to Today View, click the plus sign in green next to the app. You’ll see it move from the left to the top on the right.
To rearrange apps in Today View, select one, hold and drag it to its new position in the list, and release.

You’ll notice at the bottom of the editing window a button for App Store. If you click this, you’ll be taken right to the Mac App Store to a page with additional widgets you can download if you like.

After you finish removing, adding, or rearranging apps in Today View, click Done on the bottom left to close the editing window.

Customize the Notifications View Settings

Open your Notification Center by clicking the button on the top right of your menu bar. Click Notifications and at the bottom right of the window, click on the gear icon to open the settings.

When the pop-up window displays, you’ll see a list of all apps using notifications on your Mac. Showing some apps in your Notification Center makes sense like Reminders, Calendar, Mail, and Messages. But there are others that you probably don’t need notifications for such as Safari, Photos, Books, or Home.

This is all completely up to you, of course. Just remember that the point of the Notifications View is to see those alerts most important to you.

Remove Apps from the Notifications View

As you click each app on the left, you’ll see its settings on the right. Keep in mind that these are all of the notification settings for the app, there are only a couple that apply to the Notification Center. So, while you may remove apps from the Notification Center, you can still receive other alert types.

Select an app that you’d like to remove and on the right uncheck the box for Show in Notification Center.

Sort Apps in the Notification Center

Along with the ability to remove apps from the Notification Center, you can decide how the alerts are sorted.

At the bottom of the settings window, select the drop-down box for the Notification Center sort order. You have three options for sorting your alerts.

Recents: Your notifications are sorted automatically according to the time they arrive with the most recent at the top.
Recents by App: Your notifications are grouped by app and the app with the most recent notification is automatically listed first.
Manually by App: Your notifications are grouped by app, similar to above, but are sorted by the order you select in the Notifications settings. Here’s how to use the Manually by App option.

Once you select that option for the sort order, you can move the apps in the list on the left.

Select the app you want to move.
Hold the app as you drag it to its new position.
When you see the line showing where the app will fall, release.
Now your apps will be sorted in your Notification Center in the order you want them.

Make the Notification Center Yours

With a few simple tweaks, you can have the Today and Notifications Views in the Notification Center show exactly what you want. It doesn’t take much time, isn’t a tedious task, and gives you the results that make the Notification Center work best for you.

Are you going to take a few minutes to customize your Mac Notification Center? Let us know how you like to arrange the views.

Sandy worked for many years in the IT industry as a project manager, department manager, and PMO Lead. She then decided to follow her dream and now writes about technology full-time. Sandy holds a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology.

She loves technology– specifically – terrific games and apps for iOS, software that makes your life easier, and productivity tools that you can use every day, in both work and home environments.

Her articles have regularly been featured at MakeUseOf, iDownloadBlog and many other leading tech publications.