The Stage Manager Indicator
Apple introduced Stage Manager as a radical new way to organize overlapping windows in macOS. It allows you to group applications and slide them in and out of the center of your screen from a dock on the left-hand side. To make toggling this feature easy, macOS allows you to place a dedicated Stage Manager icon directly in your top menu bar. Clicking this icon lets you instantly turn the feature on or off, and access its specific settings (like whether to show recent apps or desktop items).
However, if you have tried Stage Manager and decided you prefer the traditional Mac window management system (or if you just leave Stage Manager permanently enabled and never need to toggle it), this menu bar icon is completely useless. It takes up valuable horizontal space that could be better utilized by third-party utilities or system stat monitors. If you don’t frequently toggle the feature on and off, you should remove the shortcut from your menu bar.
How to Hide the Stage Manager Icon
You can remove the Stage Manager indicator via your System Settings.
- 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.
- Look at the right-hand pane under the Control Center Modules section.
- Locate the entry for Stage Manager.
- Next to it, you will see a dropdown menu (it likely says “Show in Menu Bar”).
- Click the dropdown menu and change it to Don’t Show in Menu Bar.
The Stage Manager icon will instantly disappear from the top of your screen. (Note: You can still turn Stage Manager on and off via the main Control Center panel; this just removes the dedicated, standalone icon).