Apple's 2021 MacBook Pro models unexpectedly came with a display notch, or as Apple calls it, a camera housing, which sits dead center at the top of the screen. This article covers all the ways you can conceal the notch or at least make it play nice with your apps using software-based solutions.

macbook pro 2021 notch feature
The inclusion of a notch on the redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro allowed Apple to slim down the display bezels and move the menu bar up around the camera housing to leave more screen real estate below, but it was a controversial decision.

For some users, the appearance of the notch in the center of the menu bar is a blight on an otherwise fantastic screen. For others, its location actively interferes with app menu items. Either way many would rather not have it at all. Thankfully, there are ways to hide the notch to varying degrees or make it compatible with app menu bars.

Let's take a look at the available tricks below, starting with how to conceal the notch completely.

Hide the Notch With Fullscreen Mode

The easiest way to make the notch essentially invisible when you're using a specific app is to use it in fullscreen mode. If you click the green button in the row of traffic lights at the top-left corner of the app window, the app will expand to fill the screen. This automatically hides the contents of the menu bar by turning it black.

macos notch hides in full screen
You can hover over the menu bar with your mouse pointer to reveal the menu items, but the effect is such that you don't even see the notch is there in front of you for as long as you stay in fullscreen mode. To exit out of fullscreen, simply click the green traffic light button again.

Apps That Hide the Notch Completely

If you don't like the notch staring you in the face while you look at the display, there's an app for that. While the following third-party apps don't outright cancel the notch, they at least make its existence less obvious by forcing a black menu bar, similar to how macOS Monterey adds a black bezel to the top of the display when apps are in fullscreen mode, only by adapting your chosen wallpaper instead, like so.

remove notch app feature2
Forehead (Free): Besides letting you switch between your default wallpaper and a black notchless one, Forehead includes options to round the corners of the screen, similar to the rounded top corners of the new MacBook Pros. The ability to simulate a notch on older Macs is coming in an update.

TopNotch (Free): Offers the same features as Forehead, and also supports Dynamic Wallpapers, works with multiple displays and spaces, and remains in the background and detects for wallpaper changes.

De-Notch-ifier ($9.95): Offers the same features as TopNotch, just in the form of a dropdown menu in the menu bar. De-Notch-ifier isn't a completely new app, rather it's a pre-configured version of Boring Old Menu Bar that gives you a boring old non-transparent menu bar on macOS Big Sur and later. If you buy one app, you get the other for free.

Scale App Menu Bars to Adjust to the Notch

In some cases, older apps that make extensive use of menu bar items may have some of their content concealed beneath the camera housing, making for an unsightly appearance and difficulty accessing menu options. Going fullscreen or hiding the notch with a third-party app doesn't solve this issue, so what can be done to fix it?

notch behavior feature
Fortunately, Apple was wise to the potential issue of having menus or menu items in the menu bar inadvertently being hidden behind the notch. In macOS Monterey, there is a compatibility setting called "Scale to fit below built-in camera," which adjusts an app's settings so that it either uses the whole display or uses only the area below the camera housing.

"Scale to fit" ensures the menu bar and app windows appear below the built-in camera on your Mac and are always visible. Moreover, if the app has menu bar items or windows that would appear behind the camera housing, all open apps or apps that share the same space appear below the camera until you quit the app using the scaled setting.

Here's how to turn it on for an individual Mac app.

  1. Close the app that you want to adjust for the notch.
  2. Launch Finder and select the Applications folder.
  3. Right-click (Ctrl-click) the icon for the app in question and choose Get Info.
    mac app notch get info

  4. Check the box next to Scale to fit below built-in camera.mac app scale below camera

Now restart the app, and as it launches you should see the screen automatically scale to fit its entire menu bar below the notch area, ensuring all of the app's menu bar items stay visible.

Related Forum: macOS Monterey

Popular Stories

reset password request iphone

Warning: Apple Users Targeted in Phishing Attack Involving Rapid Password Reset Requests

Tuesday March 26, 2024 4:34 pm PDT by
Phishing attacks taking advantage of Apple's password reset feature have become increasingly common, according to a report from KrebsOnSecurity. Multiple Apple users have been targeted in an attack that bombards them with an endless stream of notifications or multi-factor authentication (MFA) messages in an attempt to cause panic so they'll respond favorably to social engineering. An...
iPhone Home Screen Gradient Blank Spaces 1

Sources: iOS 18 Lets Apps Be Placed Anywhere on Home Screen Grid

Sunday March 24, 2024 1:33 pm PDT by
iOS 18 will give iPhone users greater control over Home Screen app icon arrangement, according to sources familiar with the matter. While app icons will likely remain locked to an invisible grid system on the Home Screen, to ensure there is some uniformity, our sources say that users will be able to arrange icons more freely on iOS 18. For example, we expect that the update will introduce...
Generic iOS 18 Feature Purple

iOS 18: What to Expect From 'Biggest' Update in iPhone's History

Wednesday March 27, 2024 11:10 am PDT by
At least some Apple software engineers continue to believe that iOS 18 will be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Below, we recap rumored features and changes for the iPhone. "The iOS 18 update is expected to be the most ambitious overhaul of the iPhone's software in its history, according to people working on the upgrade," wrote Gurman, in a r...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces WWDC 2024 Event for June 10 to 14

Tuesday March 26, 2024 10:02 am PDT by
Apple today announced that its 35th annual Worldwide Developers Conference is set to take place from Monday, June 10 to Friday, June 14. As with WWDC events since 2020, WWDC 2024 will be an online event that is open to all developers at no cost. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. WWDC 2024 will include online sessions and labs so that developers can learn about new...
apple maps 3d feature

Apple Maps May Gain Custom Routes With iOS 18

Tuesday March 26, 2024 3:10 pm PDT by
Apple may be planning to add support for "custom routes" in Apple Maps in iOS 18, according to code reviewed by MacRumors. Apple Maps does not currently offer a way to input self-selected routes, with Maps users limited to Apple's pre-selected options, but that may change in iOS 18. Apple has pushed an iOS 18 file to its maps backend labeled "CustomRouteCreation." While not much is revealed...
iPad Pro 2024 Landscape Camera Feature

New iPad Pro Again Rumored to Feature Landscape Front-Facing Camera

Monday March 25, 2024 5:43 am PDT by
The next-generation iPad Pro will feature a landscape-oriented front-facing camera for the first time, according to the Apple leaker known as "Instant Digital." Instant Digital reiterated the design change earlier today on Weibo with a simple accompanying 2D image. The post reveals that the entire TrueDepth camera array will move to the right side of the device, while the microphone will...
sonoma desktop wwdc

Apple Releases macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 With Fix for USB Hub Bug

Monday March 25, 2024 10:10 am PDT by
Apple today released macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, a minor update for the macOS Sonoma operating system that launched last September. macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 comes three weeks after macOS Sonoma 14.4. The ‌‌‌‌macOS Sonoma‌‌ 14.4‌.1 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible Macs using the Software Update section of System Settings. There's also a macOS 13.6.6 release for those who...