How to Customize the MacBook Pro Touch Bar (2026 Guide)

Q: Where are the Touch Bar settings on macOS Ventura and later?

Open System Settings › Keyboard and click Touch Bar Settings… In macOS Monterey and earlier the same options are in System Preferences › Keyboard, on the Keyboard tab.

Q: Can I remove Siri from the Touch Bar?

Yes. Click Customize Control Strip… in Touch Bar Settings and drag the Siri button from the Touch Bar back up toward the screen. You can put any other button in its place.

Q: How do I always show F1–F12 on the Touch Bar?

Set Touch Bar shows to F1, F2, etc. Keys. To do it only in some apps, open Keyboard Shortcuts… › Function Keys in Keyboard settings and add those apps.

Q: How do I reset a frozen Touch Bar without restarting?

Run sudo pkill TouchBarServer and then killall ControlStrip in Terminal. The bar reloads in a second or two.

You customize the MacBook Pro Touch Bar in three places: System Settings › Keyboard › Touch Bar Settings decides what the bar shows, Customize Control Strip decides which system buttons sit on the right, and View › Customize Touch Bar inside each app decides that app's buttons. Past that, third-party apps can replace the bar with your own buttons, widgets, or full-width animations.

Most guides on this stop at the first two and were written years ago, before System Preferences became System Settings. This one walks through every built-in option as it looks on current macOS, then covers the fixes people actually need and the apps that go further.

Applies to MacBook Pro models with a Touch Bar, sold from 2016 to 2022, running macOS Ventura (13) or later. On older macOS the same options live in System Preferences › Keyboard.

1. Choose what the Touch Bar shows

Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
Click Keyboard in the sidebar.
Click Touch Bar Settings…

You get four controls:

Setting	What it does
Touch Bar shows	The main mode. App Controls (buttons from the app you're using), Expanded Control Strip (only system controls), F1, F2, etc. Keys, Quick Actions (your Shortcuts and Automator actions), or Spaces (one button per desktop).
Show Control Strip	Keeps the short strip of system buttons (brightness, volume, mute, Siri) on the right while App Controls is on.
Press and hold fn key to	A second mode you reach by holding fn, for example the function keys or the expanded strip.
Show typing suggestions	Turns the word predictions above the keyboard on or off while you type.

If you only change one thing, pick the mode you'd reach for most and put the second one on fn. A common setup: App Controls with the Control Strip on, and F1, F2, etc. Keys on fn for apps and games that use function keys.

2. Rearrange the Control Strip

The Control Strip is the set of system buttons on the right of the bar (or the whole bar, in Expanded mode).

In Touch Bar Settings…, click Customize Control Strip…
A palette of buttons appears on screen. Drag a button down off the screen and it lands on the Touch Bar.
To remove one, drag it from the Touch Bar back up toward the screen. To reorder, drag buttons left or right on the bar.
Click Done.

Useful buttons people forget are there: Screenshot, Do Not Disturb, Screen Lock, Show Desktop, Mission Control, and Sleep. You can only customize the strip you can see, so expand it first (tap the arrow on the left of the strip) to edit the expanded version.

3. Customize buttons inside apps

Many apps have their own Touch Bar layout. With the app in front, open the View menu and choose Customize Touch Bar… Finder, Safari, Mail, Pages, Keynote, and many third-party apps support it. Drag the buttons you want down onto the bar the same way.

If an app has no Customize Touch Bar… item, it doesn't support custom buttons. Its layout is fixed by the developer.

4. Keep the function keys for specific apps

Coding tools, spreadsheets, and older games lean on F1–F12. Instead of holding fn every time, tell macOS which apps should always show function keys:

Open System Settings › Keyboard and click Keyboard Shortcuts…
Choose Function Keys in the sidebar.
Click + and add the apps that should always show F1–F12 on the Touch Bar.

5. Fixes when the Touch Bar misbehaves

The Touch Bar is frozen or blank. Restart the processes that draw it. Open Terminal and run:

sudo pkill TouchBarServer
killall ControlStrip

Enter your password when asked. The bar goes dark for a second and comes back. If it doesn't, restart the Mac.

The buttons you added disappeared. Check that Touch Bar shows is still set to the mode you customized. Each mode has its own layout.

You want a picture of your Touch Bar. Press Shift-Command-6. macOS saves a screenshot of the bar to your usual screenshot folder.

The bar stays dark until you touch it. That's by design: the Touch Bar dims and then turns off after a period of no use, and wakes when you touch it or type. macOS has no separate brightness slider for it.

6. Go further with apps

The built-in options only rearrange Apple's buttons. Third-party apps change what the bar is:

App	What it's for
BetterTouchTool	Building your own buttons, widgets, and gestures, plus automation across the whole Mac. Powerful, with a learning curve.
Pock	An open-source app that puts your Dock on the Touch Bar. Check that the version you download supports your macOS.
MTMR ("My TouchBar My Rules")	An open-source, JSON-configured replacement bar. Check it's still updated for your macOS before relying on it.
Revive the Touchbar	Turns the whole bar into a full-width animated display: a library of animations, live tools like a clock and system monitor, your own scrolling text or GIF, and new animations every week.

The first three are about controls. Revive the Touchbar is about what you see: it lives in the menu bar, takes over the bar with an animation when you want it, and gives the normal controls back with one tap.

7. Turn the Touch Bar into something you look at

This is the part no settings panel covers. With Revive the Touchbar you pick an animation from one of six shelves (Ambient, Retro, Gaming, Productivity, Memes, and Custom) and tune it by hand:

Corner shape from square to a full pill, with a synth-style knob.
Speed, brightness, color, and width with sliders.
Presets you switch between from the menu bar.
Your own text scrolling like an LED sign, or your own GIF.

Some animations are pure light, like Rainbow Wave. Others are useful: a clock, a focus timer, or a CPU and memory monitor right above the keyboard. See the whole library on the Touch Bar animations page.

Frequently asked questions

Where are the Touch Bar settings on macOS Ventura and later?

Open System Settings › Keyboard and click Touch Bar Settings… In macOS Monterey and earlier the same options are in System Preferences › Keyboard, on the Keyboard tab.

Can I remove Siri from the Touch Bar?

Yes. Click Customize Control Strip… in Touch Bar Settings and drag the Siri button from the Touch Bar back up toward the screen. You can put any other button in its place.

How do I always show F1–F12 on the Touch Bar?

Set Touch Bar shows to F1, F2, etc. Keys. To do it only in some apps, open Keyboard Shortcuts… › Function Keys in Keyboard settings and add those apps.

Can I add my own buttons or images to the Touch Bar?

Not with macOS alone: it only rearranges Apple's buttons. BetterTouchTool lets you build custom buttons, and Revive the Touchbar lets you show your own scrolling text or a GIF across the whole bar.

How do I reset a frozen Touch Bar without restarting?

Run sudo pkill TouchBarServer and then killall ControlStrip in Terminal. The bar reloads in a second or two.

Which MacBook Pro models have a Touch Bar?

MacBook Pro models sold from 2016 to 2022 with a Touch Bar, including 13-inch, 15-inch, and the 2019 16-inch models. Newer MacBook Pro models replaced it with a row of physical function keys.