hi this is gary with macmost.com
wondering why your menu bar is missing
let me show you
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now the menu bar is this strip across
the top of your mac screen it usually
has the apple menu here to the left then
the name of the app that you're
currently using and different menus
depending upon which app you're using
here i'm using the finder if i switch
say to notes you can see it says notes
and it has menus specific to notes if i
switch to something else like mail it
has mail and then menus specific to mail
and to the right i'm going to see
various different buttons depending upon
how you have things configured on your
mac so this is the menu bar
but what happens if i were to switch say
here to safari watch what happens to the
menu bar
you can see it disappears
where did it go
well it's still there if i move my
pointer to the top of the screen you can
see it appears so you can always access
the menu bar if it's hidden
you simply move the pointer to the top
it appears and you can use it and then
you can move the pointer down
but why is it hidden here
well the reason is is because safari is
in full screen mode
so at some point
i clicked this green button here
or i went to the view menu and the
bottom item here allows you to toggle
between full screen mode and regular
windowed mode
so if i exit full screen mode you can
see safari is now a window
like this and the menu bar is there
if i go back into full screen mode you
can see the menu bar disappears by
default when you're in full screen mode
for a window
it won't have the menu bar there so the
simple answer is if you want to get the
menu bar back simply exit full screen
mode for that app have it as a normal
window on your desktop and you'll have
the menu bar but there are actually
specific settings to control how this
all works that you should know about so
let's go into system preferences and
then let's go to
dock and menu bar and then make sure
docker menu bar is selected here and
then look at the bottom and it shows
menu bar and two check boxes
the bottom one is automatically hide and
show the menu bar in full screen
so with this on it's behaving exactly as
i described you go into full screen mode
and the menu bar disappears unless you
move your pointer to the top
remember to turn this off the menu bar
will now show in full screen mode but it
doesn't take effect right away let's go
back to safari and you can see there's
still no menu bar there that's because i
put this in full screen mode before i
change the setting so let's turn off
full screen mode it's back to our window
turn it back on again and now you can
see full screen mode includes the menu
bar here at the top so it's always
visible now there's another setting down
here automatically hide and show the
menu bar on desktop this is new in mac
os monorail
you can turn this on and it will hide
the menu bar on a regular desktop one
that you can use to show windows like
this one
so now it behaves the same way with
bringing the pointer to the top will
bring down the menu bar but if the
pointer is below that the menu bar is
going to be hidden so you can choose to
hide the menu bar here if you want so if
you're not seeing the menu bar on your
desktop like this
make sure that you have this
not checked so with both of these not
checked now
in regular desktop windowed mode i see
the menu bar and in full screen mode i
see the menu bar now let's launch
another app
and let's take that to full screen mode
by clicking the green button here
so now i've got photos full screen i've
got safari full screen and then if i go
to another app that's on that first
desktop like system preferences you can
see i'm back here and i've got the menu
bar showing here
you can see this a little more clearly
if you go to mission control so mission
control you can launch by using control
not command but control and up arrow and
now you can see here at the top i've got
one regular desktop for windows
then a full screen safari and a full
screen photos and i could switch to any
one of these and you could see the menu
bar there at the top of both of them
so i can switch easily to that let me go
ctrl up arrow again switch to this i can
also use control left and control right
to go between spaces including full
screen apps and desktops so i can travel
between all three of these and see the
menu bar is there for all of them
but what if i wanted there to be a menu
bar here for safari but no menu bar here
for photos
well there's no way to actually set that
because there's one checkbox here that
checkbox is for all full screen apps but
you can compromise by taking one of
these full screen apps instead of having
it full screen give it its own desktop
so let's take photos out of full screen
mode so now it's here on the regular
desktop along with system preferences
these two windows are both there
let's go to mission control again
control up arrow i'm going to add a
second desktop
there it is
i'm going to move this window
to it
so i have desktop 1 and desktop 2 as
well as this full screen window here
so now when i go to desktop 2
i see the photos app i want this menu to
cover the entire screen like it does
here if it doesn't for you if it's like
this a quick way to get it full screen
that doesn't involve having to drag each
side out is hold the option key down and
double click any corner and that will
expand all the corners to meet the
corners of the screen so now this is
kind of full screen it's still a window
but it's filling everything here
and i can see this when i go to mission
control i can see here how this nicely
fills everything
and here i've got an example of a window
not filling everything
let's go back into preferences let's
check this here
so it will hide the menu bar in full
screen mode so now if i go back to
safari that change won't take place
right away remember so i'm going to exit
full screen mode and enter it again now
safari has no menu bar
but
if i were to use mission control and go
to desktop 2 where i have photos
there is a menu bar here because it's a
regular desktop with a window on it i've
just chosen to only put one window on
this desktop have this one window fill
the entire screen so it kind of
simulates being a full screen app but i
get my menu bar here
while still
avoiding having a menu bar on a full
screen app
like here so you really can pick and
choose exactly what you want if you set
the options right now i should note that
it is possible for an app to disable the
menu bar entirely for that app
usually you see this in games a lot of
times games want to go full screen get
rid of the menu bar and use their own
menu system that looks the same between
mac windows and consoles and all of that
and occasionally i've seen it in some
really high level pro apps like 3d apps
and music production apps and things
like that but for the most part you
usually see it in games so it could
simply be that the game that you're
playing has a full screen mode that
excludes the menu bar no matter how you
have things set in system preferences
hope you found this useful thanks for
watching
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