Disable the Screen Sharing menu icon

Whether your boss has requested you keep an eye on a coworker or you just want to spy on your little brother, the menu icon that alerts users of your watchful presence can be an annoyance and a dead giveaway.

There are two ways to disable it. If you are using Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) to control Screen Sharing, you may simply hide it:
sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -clientopts -setmenuextra -menuextra no

If you are not using ARD, this will not work and you will have to remove the icon manually. The configuration is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/RemoteDesktop.menu. You can either rename it, remove it completely or change its permissions to 000.

This will also work with any of the items in the Menu Extras directory, such as the volume, clock, or Fast User Switching menu.

4 comments:

LambdaEnt said...

From the Terminal:

sudo chmod 000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/RemoteDesktop.menu

enter password

It works!

Anonymous said...

This does not work in latest Mac versions. ie could not find the fine RemoteDesktop.menu. Appreciate your help.

Anonymous said...

Remove remote access

Anonymous said...

Remove anonymous alien software

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