Quick answer
You cannot remove the notch, but you can make the menu bar around it black so the camera housing disappears into it. Black Menu Bar ($0.99 on the Mac App Store) does it without touching your wallpaper — no replacing, repainting or copying it, so dynamic, shuffling and per-Space wallpapers keep working — and it works on macOS 26 and macOS 27. The built-in alternatives each cost something: a resolution that stops below the camera (System Settings → Displays) gives up a strip of screen height, and a wallpaper with a black top edge means giving up the wallpaper you have.
Why the notch shows at all
MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models with a camera housing in the display put the menu bar on either side of it. Since macOS 26 Tahoe the menu bar has no background by default: the wallpaper shows through behind the menu titles, so a light or colorful wallpaper frames the black camera housing and makes it stand out. macOS 27 Golden Gate keeps the same design.
Each built-in method below works the same way: it makes the area around the camera black, so the housing blends in. They differ in what they cost you — screen space, your wallpaper, or the app you are in.
Black Menu Bar and the built-in methods compared
| Method | Where the notch disappears | Changes your wallpaper? | Keeps your full screen? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Menu Bar | Everywhere | Never touches it | Yes |
| Resolution below the camera | Everywhere | No | No — gives up a strip of screen height |
| Wallpaper with a black top edge, by hand or with a wallpaper app | Behind the menu bar | Yes — replaced or repainted | Yes |
| Full screen | Only inside the full-screen app | No | No — the app is shown below the camera |
| Get Info checkbox | Only while that app is open | No | No — that app is shown below the camera |
Hide the notch without losing screen or wallpaper: Black Menu Bar
The built-in resolution below the camera shrinks your screen. Wallpaper apps such as TopNotch and Boring Old Menu Bar replace your wallpaper with a generated copy that has a black band painted in. Black Menu Bar does neither.
It never touches your wallpaper — no replacing, no repainting, no copying. It makes the menu bar solid black, and your dynamic wallpaper keeps changing through the day, your shuffling collection keeps shuffling, and every Space keeps its own picture. Your screen stays at full size, and the camera housing blends into the black bar.
It works on macOS 26 Tahoe and macOS 27 Golden Gate. There is one setting, the Black Menu Bar switch in the app's menu bar menu, next to Quit; turn it off or quit the app and the menu bar is back to normal, with nothing to restore. It costs $0.99 once on the Mac App Store, stays out of your Dock, leaves System Settings alone, and collects nothing.
Built in: a resolution that stops below the camera
Your built-in display has scaled resolutions that leave out the strip where the camera sits. The top of the screen then stays black, the camera housing sits inside that black strip, and the menu bar moves below it. The price is a few dozen points of screen height, everywhere, all the time.
- 1
Open System Settings → Displays. Choose the built-in display if more than one is connected.
- 2
Show the resolutions as a list. Control-click the resolution thumbnails and choose Show List, or click Advanced and turn on Show resolutions as list.
- 3
Turn on Show all resolutions if you only see a few sizes. Turn it on if you do not see a size that matches the next step.
- 4
Pick the size with your current width and a slightly smaller height. To undo it, pick your previous size from the same list.
Built in: a wallpaper with a black top edge
Because the menu bar has no background in macOS 26 and 27, it shows whatever is at the top of your wallpaper. A wallpaper that is black along the top edge gives you a black menu bar. Picking black from the Colors section of System Settings → Wallpaper does it in one click; an image editor can paint a black band across the top of a picture.
The cost is the wallpaper itself: you give up the one you have, dynamic wallpapers and shuffling collections change the top edge over the day, and each Space and display can need its own edited picture. Wallpaper apps automate the editing by replacing your wallpaper with a generated copy — compared in the guide below.
Comparison
TopNotch alternatives compared
Which notch apps change your wallpaper and what each says about macOS 27.
Built in: full screen and the Get Info checkbox
On a MacBook with a camera housing, macOS shows full-screen apps below the camera and leaves the strip at the top black. Click the green button in the window's top-left corner or press Control-Command-F; move the pointer to the top of the screen to see the menus. It only covers that one app.
If an app's menus disappear behind the camera, Apple's fix is a checkbox in Finder: quit the app, select it in the Applications folder, choose File → Get Info, and turn on "Scale to fit below built-in camera" (on macOS 27 it reads "Automatically size to fit on screen"). While that app is open, it and the apps that share its space are shown below the camera. The checkbox is only there for apps that have not been updated for the camera housing.
To hide the notch everywhere, not just in one app, Black Menu Bar makes the menu bar solid black without touching your wallpaper, on macOS 26 and macOS 27.
FAQ
How do I hide the notch without changing my wallpaper or my resolution?
Use Black Menu Bar. It makes the menu bar solid black and never touches your wallpaper — no replacing, repainting or copying it — so dynamic, shuffling and per-Space wallpapers keep working, and your screen keeps its full size. It works on macOS 26 and macOS 27.
Can you remove the notch on a MacBook?
No. The notch is the camera housing, part of the display hardware. Black Menu Bar makes the menu bar around it solid black, so the housing blends in.
What is the best way to hide the notch on a MacBook?
Black Menu Bar costs $0.99 once: one switch makes the menu bar solid black and the notch blends in, it never touches your wallpaper, and it works on macOS 26 and macOS 27.