How to customize Control Center on Mac (macOS 26 and 27)

What's in Control Center

Click the Control Center icon (two small switches) near the right end of the menu bar. On macOS 27, Apple lists the controls it starts with: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirDrop, Focus, Stage Manager, Screen Mirroring, Display, Sound and Now Playing (Apple, Quickly change settings with Control Center). Drag a slider to change a setting, click an icon to turn something on or off, or click an item or its arrow for more options.

macOS 26 rebuilt Control Center. Apple's summary: "Add new controls from Mac and even iPhone apps, including from your favorite third-party apps. Arrange them however you like, and even create pages of controls. You can also place controls right into the menu bar for easier access" (Apple, What's new in macOS Tahoe 26). macOS 27 keeps the same design: Apple's Control Center guide for it is almost word for word the one for macOS 26.

Customize Control Center on macOS 26 and 27

1. Click Control Center in the menu bar, then click Edit Controls at the bottom of the panel. The Controls Gallery opens next to it.
2. Add a control: drag it from the gallery to a place in Control Center. Click a category in the gallery's sidebar to narrow the list.
3. Remove one: drag it out of Control Center.
4. Rearrange: drag controls to new positions.
5. Resize: Control-click a control and choose a different size.
6. Click Done.

Those steps come from Apple's guide, which is the same for both versions (Apple, Use Control Center on Mac).

What you can add

The Controls Gallery "shows all available controls that you can easily drag and drop straight into Control Center", in Apple's words. Among them:

• Controls that used to be elsewhere, such as Battery, Accessibility Shortcuts and Fast User Switching, which Apple names as controls "that don't appear by default".
• Controls new to the Mac in macOS 26, "including setting a timer, tiling your windows, or running a shortcut" (Apple, macOS Tahoe features). Apple also mentions Quick Note, Put Display to Sleep and Color filters as controls you can add.
• Controls from apps, including other developers' apps. macOS 26 brought Apple's Controls API to the Mac, so an app you install can add its own controls to the gallery.

A tip for the battery: Apple notes "the percentage is always shown when Battery is in Control Center". Adding Battery is a tidy way to see the level without putting the number in the menu bar; how to show battery percentage on a Mac covers the menu bar option.

Put controls in the menu bar

Any control can also live in the menu bar, where it's one click away:

• From Control Center: Control-click the control and choose Copy to Menu Bar or Add to Menu Bar. While editing, you can also drag a control from the gallery or from Control Center straight to the menu bar (Apple, Customize the menu bar).
• From System Settings: System Settings › Menu Bar lists the built-in items (Siri, Spotlight, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Battery, Focus, Sound and others) to select, and under Allow in the Menu Bar, the apps that add their own menu bar items.
• To rearrange or remove: hold Command and drag an icon along the menu bar, or off it to remove it (Apple, What's in the menu bar). Items added from Control Center can also be dragged off while you're in Edit Controls.

On macOS 27, when the menu bar runs out of room, Apple says "menu bar items are hidden and replaced with a compact overflow indicator that surfaces the hidden items when pressed" (Apple, What's new for enterprise in macOS 27). If an icon seems to have vanished, look for the indicator before you go hunting in settings.

Reset Control Center

If you've rearranged things into a muddle, open System Settings › Menu Bar, scroll down and click Reset Control Center, which Apple describes as "Click to return the Control Center to its original settings" (Apple, Change Menu Bar settings). It applies to macOS 26 and 27.

On macOS 15 Sequoia

macOS 15 has no Edit Controls and no gallery. Control Center is set up in System Settings › Control Center, in three groups (Apple, Change Control Center settings):

On macOS 15 you can also drag an item from Control Center to the menu bar, and hold Command while you drag it out of the menu bar to remove it. App controls arrived with macOS 26, so on macOS 15 the choices are Apple's own.

A few set-ups worth trying

• For a MacBook on the move: Battery in Control Center (with its percentage), and Bluetooth in the menu bar, which also shows the battery of AirPods and Apple keyboards and mice (how to check accessory batteries).
• For energy modes: Apple says that on macOS 15.1 or later "you can also select Energy Modes from Control Center", which puts Low Power Mode a click away.
• For a tidy menu bar: keep only what you check several times a day in the menu bar, and leave the rest in Control Center. On macOS 26 Apple notes you can "tuck away any menu bar item into Control Center".

How Tend helps

On macOS 26 and later, Tend adds two controls to the gallery: Battery, which shows your battery level ("Battery 80%") and opens Tend's Battery page, and Top Energy App, which names the app using the most energy right now with its estimated watts and opens Energy & Apps. Each can sit in Control Center or in the menu bar, and both are free. There's no Low Power Mode switch from Tend: macOS doesn't let apps change it without an administrator password, so use Apple's own Energy Mode control for that.

Questions

Related guides

Sources

• Apple, Use Control Center on Mac (macOS 15, 26 and 27)
• Apple, Quickly change settings with Control Center on Mac (macOS 27)
• Apple, Change Control Center settings (macOS 15) and Change Menu Bar settings (macOS 26 and 27)
• Apple, Customize the menu bar on Mac (macOS 26 and 27) and What's in the menu bar on Mac?
• Apple, What's new in macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS Tahoe: all new features
• Apple, What's new for enterprise in macOS 27
• Apple, About Power Modes on your Mac

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