Mac OS X Lion Tips: Hide The Spotlight Icon

Hello readers, this time thecybergal will share tips to hide the Spotlight icon in Mac OS X Lion. These tips just hide, do not disable Spotlight so you can still use your regular search capabilities found in the Finder or other applications that depend on the Spotlight metadata.

To hide the Spotlight menu in Mac OS X Lion, follow the steps below:

1. Open the Terminal (Application -> Utilities) and run the command below:
   

   sudo chmod 600 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search

2. You have to refresh the menubar. Do it by kill SystemUIServer process:
   

   killall SystemUIServer

As we have discussed above, Spotlight will be hidden but still you can use the search capabilities via the Finder. To access the ability to search, use Command + F.

To show the Spotlight icon in your menubar, run the command below from your Terminal

1. sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search

2. Again, you need to refresh the menubar, type the command below:
   

   killall SystemUIServer

That's all the Mac OS X Lion tips about how to hide the Spotlight icon. Hope it useful :)
Via OSXdaily.