Windows – Hide application menu bar

applicationsmenu barwindows

How can I hide the Menu Bar? I am on mac Osx moutain Lion (10.8)

Yes, one can full-screen an app, but it does not solve my problem. Here are 2 scenarios to explain my problem:

Scenario 1:

I am running macvim in one space and Chrome in another. Chrome by default 'merges' it window top bar with the tabs, but macvim does not. So, on my macvim I can see both the menu bar and the window's top bar. While chrome's window is indeed useful (It contains tabs..), macvim's top bar is useless. All the info is in the powerline I'm using.

Scenario 2:

I have 2 displays, full-screen apps appear only on one screen and there is no way to have another app on the other screen (Unless if I missed that!). So I'd rather have, again, macvim on the first big display and chrome on the small one. But then again, macvim's window topbar is here, taking useless space.

I hope I made the point clearer!

Best Answer

You can make the menu bar of an application hide automatically by adding this to the Info.plist:

<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>4</integer>

Windows can't be moved over the freed up space though.

If the application is signed, modifying the Info.plist invalidates the code signature. It also makes sandboxed applications like TextEdit and Chess crash on launch.

Related Solutions

MacOS – Make the Menu Bar never show while in Full Screen

Save the following AppleScript to a file named fullscreen.scpt:

use framework "AppKit"
use scripting additions

repeat with runningApp in current application's NSWorkspace's sharedWorkspace's runningApplications()
    if runningApp's isActive()
        set frontApp to (localizedName of runningApp) as text
        exit repeat
    end if
end repeat

tell application "System Events"
    tell process frontApp to set isFullScreen to value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of first window
    if frontApp = "Finder"
        tell process frontApp to set value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of first window to not isFullScreen
    else if isFullScreen
        do shell script "lsappinfo setinfo -app " & quoted form of frontApp & " ApplicationType=Foreground"
        tell process frontApp to set value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of first window to false

        (*fix to make sure the menu bar is not stuck*)
        delay 0.42
        tell application "Finder" to activate
        tell process frontApp to set frontmost to true
    else
        do shell script "lsappinfo setinfo -app " & quoted form of frontApp & " ApplicationType=UIElement"
        tell process frontApp to set value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of first window to true
    end if
end tell

From terminal, compile it to an application with the following command:
```
osacompile -o "/Applications/Full Screen.app" fullscreen.scpt
```
Open the Full Screen.app's Info.plist (e.g. vim '/Applications/Full Screen.app/Contents/Info.plist') and add the following to the dict:
```
    <key>NSUIElement</key>
    <true/>
```
Add Full Screen.app as an exception in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility.
Launch Automator and create a new Service.
Change "Service receives" to "no input in any application".
Add a Library > Utilities > Launch Application action.
Configure the action to launch the previously created Full Screen application.
Save the service as Full Screen and close Automator.
On System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, scroll down to the bottom of the list and the just created Full Screen service should be listed there. Associate an unique Command shortcut for it, like Shift+Command+\ or Command+F11 for example.

This creates a shortcut to cause an application to enter full screen while removing the menu bar, or to exit full screen bringing the menu bar back. It provides an alternative full screen shortcut!

For application-specific full screen launchers, check my other answer.

Caveats

There may be some disadvantages and/or misbehavior using this approach:

It works by setting ApplicationType=UIElement, which causes the application icon not be added/highlighted in the Dock and make the application inaccessible via Command+Tab. The Command+Tab issue was reported in comments, I didn't notice it since I mostly use the Mission Control overview to change between full screen applications.
It may not behave as expected for some specific applications, I've noticed issues with the Activity Monitor application (which is generally not used full screen anyway) and there's a report on Chrome, which I didn't try since I use Firefox and it works great.

MacOS – way to make the Menu bar show at all times in fullscreen windows

I've been annoyed by this, too, and the simple, yet very, very painful answer is to hold alt ⌥ option and press the green title bar button (which should turn into a + when you hold option/alt)

enter image description here

If this doesn't make it cover the screen, you can finish the job by holding alt ⌥ option and double-clicking a corner to resize the window to fill the screen.

If you make your dock hide by default, this essentially gives you a "fullscreen" program with the menu bar always shown.