While Hides sits in your menu bar for easy access, you might want to set a keyboard shortcut hide the windows even quicker. Select Hide All Apps in the Preferences to do this. Then click Record. If you find that you’re missing a few controls on your Touch Bar when you go to conceal it on your Mac, Hide My Bar even comes with an option to virtually recreate a few of them.
A completely cluttered desktop is the last thing I want to see on my Mac. However, I do have to deal with the messed up display quite often. Many a time, I save files on the desktop to find them a bit more conveniently. And if I forget to clean them up in time, they pile up to clutter the entire screen. But when that happens, I run to some of the easy-to-use tricks to hide desktop icons on Mac to get rid of the mess immediately. So, why not give them a try straight away!
How to Hide Desktop Icons on Mac Using Terminal
Step #1. Launch the Terminal app on your Mac. (Simply search it in the Spotlight and open it.)
Step #2. Now, you have to type the following command:
Step #3. Next, press Enter and then type the second command given below:
Step #4. Next up, hit the enter key.
Voila! Check out the desktop; there won’t be any files on the screen.
Don’t worry, they are just hidden and you can still find them in the Finder → Desktop section.
However, if you ever want to show them on the desktop again, simply enter the following command and hit return/enter key.
Use HiddenMe App to Hide Desktop Icons on Mac
If you want to have an even easier option or don’t wish to deal with the Terminal commands too often, there is an app called HiddenMe that can let you quickly remove all the files from the desktop. Moreover, it’s available for free and works like a native feature on the Mac.
Step #1. First off, download HiddenMe on your computer and launch it.
Step #2. Now, check out a circle icon in the menu bar. Click on it and then select Hide Desktop Icons.
Now, all the files will go away from the screen. If you want to bring them back, click on the circle icon and then select Show Desktop Icons.
Note: if you ever want to remove the HiddenMe icon from the menu bar, click on it and select Quit.
Use Desktop Stacks on Mac
Apple has introduced a new Stacks feature in macOS Mojave to let users keep the desktop neat and clean. So, how does this feature work? Well, it basically organizes all the files into file types and then places them on the right edge of the screen.
However, you have the option to stack them based on date added, date modified, and more. To use it, right-click on the View menu and select Use Stacks. To sort or group stacks based on your preference, right-click on the desktop and then select Sort stacks by/Group stacks → choose the preferred option.
Workaround: The Old-Fashioned Way of Cleaning Up the Mess
It’s the old-fashioned way of clearing out the mess. And I think you probably already know about it.
Just drag the icons from the desktop to another folder for removing it.
How To Hide App Bar On Mac
Alternatively, you can drag the unwanted icons to Trash to remove them. Alternatively, you will also right-click on the icon and choose “Move to Trash.”
Wrapping up:
Hopefully, you have got all the tricks required to keep your Mac desktop clean or remove the clutter instantly. Let us know your feedback down below in the comments.
You would like to refer these posts as well:
Jignesh Padhiyar is the co-founder of iGeeksBlog.com who has a keen eye for news, rumors and all the unusual stuff that happens around Apple products. During his tight schedule, Jignesh finds some moments of respite to share side-splitting contents on social media.
- https://www.igeeksblog.com/author/iosblogger/
- https://www.igeeksblog.com/author/iosblogger/How to Share Purchased Apps Between iPhones and iPads
- https://www.igeeksblog.com/author/iosblogger/
- https://www.igeeksblog.com/author/iosblogger/
| Click here to return to the 'Auto-hide the dock and menubar on a per-app basis' hint |
I am just using the dock hiding part of this for some app's you just have to add them to a list under Special Features and set dock hiding to ON
This is only for the dock hiding part
Be sure that it goes in alphabetical order, otherwise it won't work (i.e. LSUIPresentationMode goes after LSMinimumSystemVersion but before NSAppleScriptEnabled).
What?
Hide Mac Address Free
Dictionary files do not have to be in order. They don't even preserve order. As long as you keep the key and value together (i.e. don't put the key at the top and the value at the bottom, or any other combination of non-adjacent positions), and don't mix them into any of the other keys or values or between the key and value of any other pair, it will work, regardless of whether you keep it sorted.
This is fantastic. I was actually working on a picture-frame and info station based on an aging G3 Powerbook. I needed an easy way to hide the menu-bar and here it is! (This also works on the Finder.)
Now if only there were an easy way to make this change system-wide instead of per-app...
http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/
I remember looking at menushade a while back but didn't recall transparency being an option. I see that it now is, however, it still leaves the menu bar shadow visible, and the space is still unusable by anything but the menubar.
What I'd love is something like menushade, but allows you to use the space the menubar usually takes up (which this hint allows you to do).
Menufela (ninjakitten.us) allows hiding the menu bar for all apps.
Doesn't quite work with Photoshop CS3. I launch Photoshop and the menubar and dock both disappear. But when Photoshop is fully loaded they both return. Any ideas?
You are not alone. I tried this on multiple applications and it did not work as stated. The dock and menu would be hidden while the application was loading, but then as soon as the application was loaded, both the menu and dock reappear. I give it 1 star for getting my hopes up and wasting my time.
Fantastic hint! This is something I've wanted to do with my favourite app, Google Earth, for some time, but I have not wanted to install APE. Full screen viewing goodness with just a couple of moments copy and paste. Well done, cheers.
We are going to appreciate this when we set up kiosks and public displays. Super hint!
Ip Hide Mac
... which has never performed reliably for me, in all the years it's been out. Editing plists is a cinch, tho, with Property List Editor, whiich gets hauled out of the Developer Folder and put right in Utilities. It comes in handy sooo many ways.
Dockless does something completely different: It hides an app from appearing *inside* the Dock and it *removes* its menubar for good. In other words: Dockless turns a full app into an 'invisible' background process. I use a couple of apps that require such a treatment although the developers might have done it themselves in the first place, e.g. Hardware Growler or the PageSpinner helper app PageViewer.
I've tried applying this on finder, works like charm exept it's disabling spotlight… :/
Any idea ?
How did you manage to do this with the finder? The hint works for firefox and mail for me but, I'd like to do this with preview and finder too.
Mac How To Uninstall App
However, one thing that should be mentioned, if you decide to do this with the Property List Editor (recommended), you need to change the Class for the LSUIPresentationMode entry you create to Number. By default it will come up as String, which will not work. Then for the Value field, put in 4.
Why the hell would you want to go full-screen in a document window, unless you're some sort of one-track minded PC user?
Mac windows don't maximize--they zoom to fit their contents. Where it makes sense to present an application full-screen, such as in QuickTime Player or the iTunes visualizer, that option is provided. Anywhere else, maximized windows are sacrilege.
This works less than perfectly for me.
You can hide the menu bar in the Finder, but Spotlight stops working.
When using BBEdit with the Finder's menu bar hidden, the Finder's menu bar becomes active when trying to use BBEdit's menu options.
In Firefox, the menus don't work, at least not the history—this was enough to make me remove the edit from Firefox's info.plist.
Did I do something wrong? Hasn't anyone else experienced this behavior?
I get the same behaviour in firefox, but if i want to use the history i can choose 'show in sidebar' and it works, i think it's a small price to pay, although i would like it to work properly.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
I signed up just to say thanks. I've been needing this for so long - I use remote desktop in x11 (best windows client) and it's a 'mare always having things stuck under the menu.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
How can I get this to work with Microsoft Word 2004? Does it only work with Cocoa apps?
This still seems to me like an excellent hint if I were able to implement it properly however so far it has only succeeded in nearly giving me a stroke...
I am a newcomer to the 'mac' world and have only had my macPro (running leopard) a few weeks so it was perhaps slightly over zealous of me to dive into adding lines of code however I was careful to input the code as instructed above and made sure there were no errors...obviously I did something wrong though as I am now unable to boot my machine into Leopard and get instead an unresponsive blue screen of death. I do not even get as far as the log in screen.
I have tried using 'command' + 'S' at start-up. After running 'fsck -y' it tells me the 'HD is ok'.
I originally applied the additional lines of code outlined to the safari info.plist file.
Any and every bit of help would be tremendously appreciated. I am at a total (and panicked) loss...(I dont even care if it involves a fresh intall and loss of all existing data but the cd drawer wont even respond to allow me to insert the Leopard disk!)