The Battery Anxiety
By default, macOS displays a small battery icon in the top-right corner of the menu bar on all MacBooks. To provide more detailed information, Apple allows users to enable a “Show Percentage” option, which adds the exact numerical percentage of the remaining battery charge right next to the battery icon.
While knowing your exact battery level seems useful, many users find it actively detrimental to their productivity. Constantly seeing the number tick down from 100% to 99%, then 98%, can induce a low-level “battery anxiety,” causing you to worry about charging instead of focusing on your work. The visual battery icon itself provides more than enough information to gauge if you need a charger soon. If you want a cleaner menu bar and wish to break the habit of obsessively checking your battery drain, hiding the exact percentage is a highly recommended psychological tweak.
How to Hide the Battery Percentage
You can remove the numerical percentage via the Control Center preferences.
- Click the Apple Logo in the top-left corner of your screen and select System Settings… (or System Preferences).
- In the left-hand sidebar, click on Control Center.
- In the right-hand pane, scroll down to the section labelled Other Modules.
- Locate the Battery option.
- Look for the toggle switch labelled Show Percentage.
- Click the toggle switch to turn it Off.
The numerical value will immediately disappear from your menu bar, leaving only the minimalist battery icon. If you ever do need to check the exact percentage, simply click the battery icon once; the percentage will still be visible inside the dropdown menu.