A Closer Look at Menu Bar Extras

Introduction: In this video, we’re going to take a look at menu extras. Menu extras work a little bit different than application menus. Let’s see what I mean. Let’s go to my Mac. We know that when we go to the left side of our menu bar, we have our application menus, and this will change depending on which application we’re in. If we go over to the right side of our menu bar, you’re going to see we have these little icons here. These are what we call menu extras, which do not change depending on which application you’re in. If I go over to my calendar, click on it, and we can see that the menu bar on my left has changed. It’s showing my calendar options in the menu bar, but if we go over to the right, my menu extras have not changed.

Menu Extras: What can we do with these menu extras? What they do is allow us access to different features no matter which application we’re in. As an example, I’m using ScreenFlow to record this video. Right now, I’m in the finder, and let’s say I wanted to pause the recording. Well, I don’t have to open up ScreenFlow, what I can do is I can go to ScreenFlow’s menu extra, click on it and then I can go on, pause it or stop it. I no longer have to open up the application. I also can easily switch to a different network, or since I have an Apple TV, I can also mirror my screen or my display on my Apple TV. It doesn’t matter which app I’m in; I always have access to these different options. Now, what we can do is we can move these around as well as remove them.

Moving Menu Extras Around: To move them around, we hold down the command key, so I’m going to hold down the command key and click, and then you can see it turns gray, and I drag it. Now I just moved my WiFi. Let’s go and move it back. Hold down the command key, click, and drag. If I want to remove the menu extra, then what I do is hold down the command key again, click, and drag it off of the menu bar. I’m going to remove this mirroring option. I don’t use it, so I no longer want to have it in my menu bar.

Removing Menu Extras: I drag it down, and you’re going to see we have an X there. All I have to do is let go, and I removed it from my menu bar.

Viewing More Information: Then we also have more options depending on the menu extra. If I go up to my WiFi here, I click on it, and I can select a different WiFi signal, but if I go and hold down the option key and click on it, you’re going to see I have more information. I can see the security channel, what the country code is, as well as other information. Now, this does not work with every menu extra. If I go over to my ScreenFlow and hold down the option key, I do not see any other information. It’s the same information as if I click on it. Not all menu extras have these different options. Now, where can I find these menu extras to add to my menu bar, or maybe what I want to do is I want to add that mirroring option back? Well, it depends on if it’s an application or if it’s part of the Mac. In this case, with ScreenFlow, it’s part of the application. What I need to do is I need to go to the application’s preferences. If I go down to ScreenFlow here, and we can see ScreenFlow is in my menu bar.

Where do we find the preferences? Underneath the name and you’re going to see Preferences. I selected, and our first option here under general is “Show ScreenFlow options in the menu bar.” All I have to do is just deselect this, and it’ll hide it, select it, and it’ll put it back in the menu bar. That’s how it works with specific applications. I’m going to close this. What about for macOS features? What I would like to do is, I would like to add that display back into the menu bar, or what I want to do is I want to add the volume in the menu bar. Well, then what we need to do is we need to go to our system preferences. Now, what I do is I go down to our dock, and I have my system preferences.

I click on it, and let’s take a look at displays first. Now I go to my displays preferences. This is where I have all the preferences for my displays, and you’re going to see at the bottom, I have “Show mirroring options.” I turn this on, and now we have my mirroring options again. I want to add the volume. I’m going to go and remove this, and now I’m going to go to my sound. I click on this icon, we’ll talk about system preferences later on in the tutorial, but I click on this icon here, and it shows me all of my system preferences. I go over to sound and down at the bottom; we have show volume in the menu bar. I click on it, and now I can see the volume.

I click on the volume, and I can go and adjust the volume, and then I can also set what the output device is. If I hold down the option key on it, hold down the option key and click, I can also set what the input device is. We’ll show you one more. I’m going to click on all my system preferences here, and let’s say I wanted to show my Bluetooth options. I want to see what devices are connected via Bluetooth. I go over to Bluetooth, and you’re going to see “Show Bluetooth in menu bar.” I click on it, it adds it to my menu bar, and now I can see what devices are added to it. I can also turn Bluetooth off, so I’m going to turn this back off.

So those are menu extras on the Mac.