Download WidgetToggler (Mac) – Download & Review Free

Desktop widgets were a great addition in macOS Sonoma, but there is no way to quickly toggle them on or off when you want your desktop to be clutter-free.

WidgetToggler aims to address this oversight in Apple’s latest macOS iteration. It allows you to enable or disable all your widgets from the menu bar or via a customizable hotkey. It’s a lightweight app, written entirely in Swift, open-source, and completely free.

Toggle desktop widgets

Once you’ve added one or more widgets to your desktop, the only way to clear your desktop is to remove them. However, if you only need to briefly hide them for a specific reason, you’ll need to add them back one by one.

With this app, you can just click the new menu bar icon and select the option from the menu. All your widgets with be temporarily hidden, and the same action will reveal them again. A customizable global hotkey (by default ⌘⌃W) does the same thing.

Makes desktop widgets easier to live with

While they provide helpful functionality, you might not always want to have these widgets covering up your wallpaper, especially since Apple has also introduced new screensavers that become beautiful still images when your Mac is in use.

WidgetToggler is a very simple solution to a problem users identified immediately upon Sonoma’s release, and it works perfectly. If you need to toggle widgets frequently, the hotkey is your best bet, but even a couple of clicks are a lot faster than removing and re-adding all your widgets.

No reason not to use it

I would expect Apple to add this functionality to macOS at some point, as it’s too useful not to exist. Until then, this app will serve you just fine, and if you configure it to launch at login, you’ll forget you even have it installed.