How to Automatically Hide Your Mac’s Menu Bar and Dock

The menu bar at the top of your Mac’s screen serves an important purpose. It displays vital important information and provides quick access to the tools and shortcuts pertaining to the app that is open. While this is useful, you don’t always need the menu bar. There are times when you require additional screen space, so what could be better than setting the menu bar to hide automatically?

Just like in Windows, macOS offers an option to automatically hide the menu bar when you don’t interact with it for a few seconds. It will re-appear only if you move your cursor to the top of the screen. As an added benefit, you can even set the dock to auto-hide and enjoy more screen space.

Let’s take a look at how you can set the menu bar and the dock to hide automatically in macOS. This option is available in OS X El Capitan and later.

How to Automatically Hide the Menu Bar on Mac

Step 1:  Click the Apple logo in the menu bar and choose System Preferences.

Step 2: Open General.

Step 3: Tick the option that says “Automatically hide and show the menu bar”.

The menu bar will hide immediately. To view it, simply move the cursor to the top of the screen and it will re-appear, unless you drag the cursor away. You can also view the menu bar by pressing the Ctrl+F2 keys.

How to Hide the Dock on Mac

There are two ways in which you can hide the dock on your Mac.

1. Hide the dock permanently with a keyboard shortcut

To hide the dock permanently, press the Command+Option+D keys. The dock won’t appear unless you press the combination keys again to unhide it.

2. Set the dock to auto-hide

Just like the menu bar, you can set the dock to auto-hide when you don’t need it. Here’s how:

Step 1: From the Apple Menu, choose System Preferences.

Step 2: Click on Dock.

Step 3: Tick the option that says “Automatically hide and show the Dock”.

That’s it. The dock will hide automatically and won’t appear unless you move your mouse to the bottom of the screen.

The additional screen space created from hiding the menu bar and the dock might not be a game changer, but if you’re using a MacBook with a small screen, then it’s going to make a big difference.

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