If you find that System Preferences in OS X contains too many options that you don’t regularly use, then you should considering hiding rarely used sections of the app. By using the Customize option in System Preferences, it’s easy to both show and hide specific sections with ease.
There are two ways to hide System Preferences sections in OS X.
Step 1: Launch System Preferences.
Step 2: Click View → Customize.
Step 3: Uncheck the sections that you wish to hide and click Done.
You can also long-click the Show All button and select the Customize option at the bottom of the menu that appears. From there, it’s just a matter of unchecking the sections that you wish to hide, followed by a click of the Done button. This alternate method is demonstrated in the video walkthrough below.
Video walkthrough
System Preferences’ View menu also allows you to switch between the way the System Preferences sections are organized. You can choose to organize by categories, which is the default display method, or you can choose to organize sections alphabetically as displayed in the screenshot below.
The nice thing about eliminating rarely used System Preferences sections, is that it’s not a permanent change. You can still use the Search box to navigate directly to specific section, and you can also use the View menu to do so as well.
Do you hide unused sections in System Preferences on your Mac?
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I love you intensely, Jeff
I hope his wife won’t be reading this one :p.
This is one of the greatest hidden secrets I found. I cleaned up so many plus you can put back if you feel the need. Apple has so many “secrets” that its nice to see ones that are shared. Simple Thank you for the share
I totally forgot about this one! :o
Thanks for the reminder! :D
Jeff, do you maybe know if iOS takes over your Mac’s wi-fi preferences? I mean not only the passwords but also your preferred network? Because I have set my AC network on top to make sure my Macs always try and establish a connection with the AC connection and if it were to fail (bad signal strength, etc.) that it should connect tot the n-network instead. But I have noticed my iPhone 6S and iPad Air 2 often connect to the n-network…
This happens to me as well – it’s likely due to iCloud remembering your network settings. Not sure how to disable that one. One of the reasons I don’t have a 2.4 and 5Ghz networks – the old iPad would screw everything up for my mac and iPhone and everything would connect to the 2.4Ghz band.