This free app solves a small but annoying issue with Mac computers - and it's incredible Apple hasn't released a tool like this yet
- If you own a Mac computer, have you ever looked at the top right corner of your screen and wondered where all of those app icons came from?
- Believe it or not, Apple's operating system for Mac computers does not have a built-in way to hide app icons in your menu bar, especially if you don't want or need them.
- Developer Matthew Palmer built a great utility that solves this issue, called Vanilla.
- Vanilla is totally free to download.
If you own a Mac computer, look at the top right corner of your screen. You'll probably see several little app icons.
Some of the most popular apps, like Google Drive or the Adobe Creative Cloud, load up your menu bar with icons. But maybe you don't want to bother with deleting those apps, or trying to find a setting to turn off those icons.
Enter Vanilla, the easiest way to manage all of those annoying app icons in your menu bar.
Just visit this website, and click the big green button that says "Download Vanilla for free."
Once it's finished downloading, move the file to your Applications folder, and open it up.
You'll notice your menu bar just got a couple of new symbols: a carrot sign, and a dot. Click the command (⌘) key and drag and drop your icons as you please: The ones you want to hide go between the carrot symbol and the dot, while the icons you want to show will go to the right of the dot, like so:
When you click on the carrot, it will collapse to the location of the dot, hiding the app icons you've chosen to bury. It looks like this.
You can reveal your app icons again by pressing the carrot sign one more time.
The app is free and works great as-is, but if you pay $5, you can unlock the "Pro Version" of Vanilla, which features some nifty abilities like being able to toggle your icons with keyboard shortcuts, or the ability to completely remove the menu bar icons you don't want.