You may want to change from the icon to your name or vice versa maybe you just want to remove the Fast User Switching menu altogether. That’s the Fast User Switching menu, and it allows you to switch among users without having to log in or out. There may be an icon that looks like a silhouette of a tiny person in your menu bar, or your name may be up there instead. There are several changes you can make without any extra applications, but to make the most of your menu bar, you may want to look beyond what comes standard on your Mac.

Replacement menu bar icons (You can create these yourself or find them via an internet search.)Īll of these are optional, and the tools you end up using will depend on what you want to do with your menu bar.

If you don’t like the Apple menu icon, we’ll even take a swing at hiding that, too. In this tutorial, we’ll go through the process of customizing and removing third-party and Mac OS X system menu bar icons, look at how to replace application and system menu bar icons with your own and try out a couple of third-party applications for managing your menu bar. Worse yet may be the OS X system icons, some of which you never use but can’t seem to remove without a herculean effort on your part.

There may be icons up there for unidentified applications or icons you’d like to get rid of if you just knew how.

The Mac OS X menu bar is a great tool for increasing your productivity, but left unchecked it just ends up a big mess.

Change mac menu bar settings