This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to remove the “Login Window” (which is know as Fast User Switching) entry from your OS X Lion Menu Bar. As illustrated in the image below, access to Fast User Switching is set to “your name” by default. This can take up quite a bit of space in your Menu Bar.
Background: One of the features of OS X is fast user switching. This allows you to sign in to your Mac using a different account (while you’re already signed in as another user) and quickly switch between both accounts.
Even if you’ve disabled this feature previously (in OS X Snow Leopard or earlier) – OS X Lion (10.7) re-enables it.
If you don’t use this feature very often, removing it (or editing it) can free up quite a bit of “space” in your Menu Bar. Here are the steps to do just that –
- As illustrated in the image below – having Fast User Switching in your Menu Bar, especially when it’s set to ‘your name’ – can take up a lot of space.
- To remove it from your Menu Bar (or at least make it smaller) – click it, and then select Users & Groups Preferences… from the drop-down menu.
- Select your account from the left menu, and then click the “Lock” icon in the bottom left corner so that you can make changes.
- Enter your password when prompted.
- Click the Login Options tab from the left menu.
- To completely remove the Fast User Switching entry from your OS X Menu Bar, remove the check mark in the box next to the Show fast user switching menu as option.
- Now the “Login Window” / Fast User Switching / “Your Name” entry will be completely gone from your Menu Bar.
- If you would like to keep the Fast User Switching feature in your Menu Bar, but not have it take up quite so much space, place a check in the box next to the option labelled Show fast user switching menu as to make sure it’s enabled, and then select Icon from the pull-down menu.
- Now you can use the much smaller icon to access Fast User Switching from the Menu Bar.
