Make the window title less chunky in big sur

Question

In Big Sur the window title bar looks too chunky in icon only mode. It looks like the bar was designed for "Icon + Text" but doesn't shrink when you remove the text.

Example:

Icon and Text:

Icon only:

Text only:

Is there a way to shrink the size of the title bar so that it doesn't look so chunky. So it looks more like this:

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 23 '20 at 11:24

5

good news, the chunky bars problem is being worked on: here's MEMiniMe.

it needs macForge, and it isn't working on mac m1 yet as far as i know, but hopefully ..soon.. we'll have a solution for these horrible fat bars.

answered Dec 23 '20 at 11:24

nsklaus

57

Maybe i misse something or this is an extreme example of blowing solutions out of the water with complicated stuff, see my answer which works fine for me on Intel Macs. – Lothar Aug 18 '21 at 23:15

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '21 at 23:13

2

Based on the MeMiniMe answer, i looked at the code and all it does is to use the undocumented "setToolbarStyle" function which is defined as normal in the Cocoa headers.

[toolbar setDisplayMode:NSToolbarDisplayModeIconOnly];
[window setToolbarStyle: NSWindowToolbarStyleUnifiedCompact];

answered Aug 18 '21 at 23:13

Lothar

121

And what files here need to be changed or added to? – scribe Apr 29 '23 at 06:52
In Swift, it would be as simple as window.toolbarStyle = .unifiedCompact – Wizard of Kneup Jul 05 '23 at 07:24

laktak · Answer 3 · 2020-11-16T08:17:58.473

1

defaults allows you to set some "hidden" settings for the window style. At the moment I only found one that allows you to go back to the old toolbar style with

defaults write -g NSWindowSupportsAutomaticInlineTitle -bool false

If there are other NSWindow setting in Big Sur then they may be listed on macos-defaults.com in the future.

edited Nov 16 '20 at 08:17

answered Nov 15 '20 at 22:36

laktak

3,198

2

That just makes it bigger. – Simon O'Doherty Nov 16 '20 at 00:58
@SimonO'Doherty You are right - I was testing VMware and thought the title got smaller. – laktak Nov 16 '20 at 08:19
made it smaller for me after reboot – Arunas Bart Aug 25 '21 at 12:55

score -2 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 14 '20 at 12:03

It is possible to use the open source app ThemeEngine to edit .car files and tweak all the UI. The V.3 branch is for macOS Big Sur and later.

I tested it on Big Sur and an Apple M1 and, from what I can tell, every part of the theme is modifiable. colours, icons, traffic lights, size of the different UI elements, .etc.

A short feedback report can be found here. This is screenshot of the app:

The downside is that SIP needs to be disabled, a few actions in Terminal are required and you must reboot to apply the modifications, each time. But it does work.

Make the window title less chunky in big sur

4 Answers4