The compact Control Strip contains up to four items.
To add a button, drag it down from the screen into the Control Strip on the Touch Bar using your mouse. You can add buttons for brightness, Spotlight, Mission Control, Play/Pause, Screenshot, Do Not Disturb, Dictation and much more.
Navigate to Keyboard and press the ‘Customize Control Strip…’ button. To add a new item to the Control Strip, open the editing mode like so: Launch System Preferences. Similar to the Touch Bar app region, the Control Strip can be fully customized. The Control Strip includes an expand button - the small disclosure triangle - to reveal even more system controls for media playback, brightness, volume and more. The Control Strip is situated on the right-hand side of the Touch Bar, featuring system shortcuts that do not change on a per-application basis. Add buttons to the Touch Bar Control Strip Drag this into the Touch Bar to replace everything with the default options for that app.
Enter the Customize Touch Bar mode and find the ‘Default Set’ item in the tray. If you customize an app’s Touch Bar setup and later regret it, you can always return to the default configuration. You can also use the touch input directly - just drag an item on the Touch Bar screen to the trash icon on the left side of the screen. To remove an item, you can move your cursor down the screen and into the bar, hold down and pull it upwards to delete it. If you look closely, the buttons in the Touch Bar shake slightly to indicate they can be edited (just like jiggle mode on the iPhone home screen). Remove buttons from the Touch Bar within appsĮnter the customize view again by going to the View menu in a compatible app, and select ‘Customize Touch Bar…’. Drag it down past the bottom of the screen into the Touch Bar. Use the trackpad to position the item and release to place. This reveals a drawer of options for the current context - in this example, I’m using Safari Touch Bar customization.Ĭhoose an item to add to the Touch Bar by clicking on it with the mouse and dragging it down. If present, click it to open the editing view. You can find out if the app supports customization by launching an app that works with the Touch Bar, opening the View menu in the menu bar and looking for the ‘Customize Touch Bar…’ option. Unfortunately, not all Touch Bar apps support Touch Bar customization. This means that in addition to the default set of buttons, sliders and interface widgets, you can tweak the Touch Bar to suit your workflow. Not all apps support the Touch Bar (although more are adding integration all the time) but those that do can allow users to customize the visible controls. The escape key can’t be changed but you can customize both the center app region and the Control Strip … Add buttons to the Touch Bar within apps There is a persistent virtual esc key on the left, a Control Strip region on the right containing system controls and a middle section dedicated to the app that is frontmost.
For now, though, this Touch Bar how-to is relevant to owners of the 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.īy default, macOS sets up the Touch Bar with a three section layout. Eventually, we expect Apple to bring the Touch Bar to more of its lineup like the Retina MacBook and maybe even desktop Macs with a keyboard accessory.
Here’s how to do that and a lot more …Īpple debuted the Touch Bar with the 2016 MacBook Pro in October. For example, you can remove the Siri button from the Touch Bar. You can add new buttons for a particular app, take others away, as well as adjust the persistent Control Strip items on the right side of the Touch Bar. You can also take this one step further and change what the Touch Bar offers yourself: Apple has made it pretty customizable. Depending on the app, the Touch Bar changes context and shows relevant buttons for what you are doing. The 2016 MacBook Pro adds a new way of using macOS with the addition of the Touch Bar, featuring dynamic touch controls, sliders and buttons, close to your fingers next to the row of static keys. How to customize the Touch Bar on these Mac laptops: