Apple's menu bar items can disappear behind the MacBook Pro's notch, a UI flaw that has persisted across multiple macOS generations. With just four or five third-party icons in the menu bar, it is common for one to end up hidden by the cutout. Despite Apple's focus on user experience design, the company has left this problem unfixed for years.

A workaround exists through two terminal commands that halve the spacing between menu bar items. Reducing the default spacing from 16 to 8 pixels pushes icons left enough to clear the notch. The commands adjust NSStatusItemSpacing and NSStatusItemSelectionPadding, and require a logout and login to take effect. Reversing the change is straightforward if the result feels too cramped.

The notch issue is just one of several long-running macOS bugs. Spaces, Apple's virtual desktop feature, still has a bug where apps after restart land on the wrong desktop or become trapped between them. The author believes Apple's own team does not use Spaces, which explains why the bug persists. These are basic fixes that should have shipped long ago.