Starting with macOS Big Sur, Apple introduced the “Control Center” to the Mac, borrowing the concept heavily from iOS. This menu, accessed via an icon resembling two toggle switches in the top-right corner of your menu bar, provides quick access to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirDrop, screen brightness, and volume sliders.
However, many veteran Mac users prefer to have dedicated, individual icons for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth directly on their menu bar for faster access, rendering the all-in-one Control Center redundant. Furthermore, the Control Center icon takes up valuable space on crowded menu bars, especially on MacBooks with display notches. If you never use the unified panel, you might want to remove its icon to reclaim space.
How to Remove the Control Center Icon on macOS
Unlike standard menu bar icons (which can be removed by holding Command and dragging them off the bar), macOS fiercely protects the Control Center icon. However, you can force it to hide using a Terminal command.
- Click the Launchpad icon in your dock, search for Terminal, and open the application.
- In the Terminal window, carefully copy and paste the following command exactly as written:
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.controlcenter.plist ControlCenterIconVisible -bool false - Press Enter to execute the command.
- To apply the change and force the menu bar to refresh, you must restart the SystemUIServer process. Copy and paste this second command:
killall SystemUIServer - Press Enter again.
Your menu bar will briefly flash and reload. The Control Center icon will vanish, leaving you with a cleaner menu bar. Note that this only hides the icon; if you ever need to access those settings, you can still find them within the standard System Settings application.