MacOS – Menu bar missing on second screen after El Capitan update 10.11.5

macosmenu barsoftware-update

I was on El Capitan 10.11.4 and just updated to 10.11.5. Now the menu bar is missing on my second screen which is an enormous pain in the apple.

I have tried:

  • Searching Google and AskDifferent and wading through many answers for much older OSX versions that no longer are relavent
  • Rebooting
  • Confirming that it's not just my display setup hiding the menu bar above the visible area
  • Moving different apps into the second screen
  • Turning off and on the System Preferences > General > Automatically hide and show the menu bar setting
  • Turning on mirroring and then turning it off
  • Killing and relaunching Finder
  • Petitioning the ghost of Steve Jobs for help

Best Answer

You only get a menu bar on anything other than your primary monitor if you have
System Prefs > Mission Control > Displays have separate Spaces checked.

It's not a setting to idly switch on & off if you have a very specific setup because it can seriously mess up your workflow... I did it once before to test a feature for SE, took me days to get my 12 spaces back together :(

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