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Liquid Glass
For the first time, the design aesthetics of mobile and desktop systems are unified. With Liquid Glass, your Mac can undergo a complete visual transformation. You have options like Transparent,
where all icons (including those from third-party apps) are transparent with no color, or Tinted,
which is similar to Transparent but allows you to choose a single hue for the entire interface. Although these options may reduce readability due to lack of contrast, they are available for those interested in experimenting.
Similar to iOS 26, you can decrease transparency throughout the system to enhance readability. This is manageable under Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce Transparency.
The first setting I altered was the menu bar. In Tahoe, it’s transparent by default and hard to read. To give it a solid background, go to Settings > Menu Bar > and check Display Menu Background.
Now that we’re exploring this new submenu for managing the menu bar, you can select which apps appear in the menu bar. You don’t have to configure each app individually; everything can be accessed from one place.
Generally speaking, the shift to Liquid Glass is less drastic on Tahoe than on iOS 26. However, I’ve encountered several bugs, particularly with app display management. Developers have voiced their complaints. I recommend waiting for version 26.1, a strategy I always suggest. My MacBook Pro, which is my work computer, will stick with Sequoia for a few more months. However, many of my colleagues at Mac4Ever have criticized iOS 26, yet find macOS 26 to be fairly stable.
Control Center
The control center in Tahoe increasingly resembles what you find on iPhone/iPad. It’s customizable by clicking on Modify Controls at the bottom.
You can then drag and drop buttons like alarms, timers, or a music recognition feature that uses Shazam. The options are plentiful, including a button to enable Low Power Mode or switch to Dark Mode.
Pro tip: you can add any button from the control center to your menu bar by right-clicking on it and selecting Add to Menu Bar
.
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You can also adjust the size of the buttons in the control center with a right-click.
Apps Application
The LaunchPad application has been replaced by Apps. However, Apps is not really an application but merely a shortcut to access the list of applications from Spotlight.
For LaunchPad enthusiasts, this change might feel a bit bitter. For instance, it’s impossible to create folders or change the order in which apps appear. Fortunately, open-source projects like LaunchNext or LaunchNow have been developed to address these limitations.
Spotlight
Let’s discuss perhaps the biggest change in Tahoe: a major update to Spotlight. Introduced in 2005 with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Spotlight has seen little evolution over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, various competitors, known as launchers, have not waited around. You can read, for example, the article about my use of Raycast.
To launch Spotlight, the shortcut remains the same: ⌘ Space. Once in Spotlight, you can access four categories using the keyboard arrows: applications, files, actions, and clipboard. These are also accessible via keyboard shortcuts. For instance, ⌘1 initiates an application search and ⌘4 accesses the clipboard. Thus, chaining ⌘ Space with ⌘4 quickly brings up the clipboard.
The first Spotlight setting I recommend is displaying results in a list rather than a grid. For each search, Spotlight allows you to filter results: you can also display only results from emails or Safari’s browsing history, etc.
To view your search history, simply tap the up arrow key. The first two Spotlight categories are straightforward: applications allow you to search for and launch apps, and files let you search for files on your hard drive.
Actions (Quick Keys)
The third category, Actions
(also called Quick Keys), is brand new. It allows you to create keyboard shortcuts, usable within Spotlight, for specific actions. For example, I can decide that the shortcut em
, typed in Spotlight, allows sending a message directly, without confirmation and without needing the Messages app to be open. Thus, typing ⌘ Space em lets me send a message quickly and efficiently.
I won’t delve deeper as there is much to write on the subject, but be aware that the Actions
category offers a myriad of shortcuts as diverse as starting a timer, sending an email, or converting a time zone.
Clipboard History
The fourth category of Spotlight is clipboard management. Here, you’ll find your entire copy/paste history. It’s truly incredible that it took 25 years of Mac OS X to finally have this functionality natively. Ever since I’ve had a Mac, I’ve always installed an app to manage my clipboard history.
The history is limited to the last eight hours. For comparison, Raycast records up to three months of copy/paste history for the free version, indefinitely for the paid version. To take advantage of it, on first launch, Spotlight asks you to activate clipboard management.
If not already activated, you can manually enable it. Head to the Settings app > Spotlight > scroll all the way down to enable the Search Clipboard option.
Automation in Shortcuts
The Shortcuts app on Mac is catching up to its mobile counterpart by incorporating automation. For instance, you can create a shortcut that activates as soon as a file is added to a folder, or when you connect to a specific Wi-Fi network, etc.
You’ll find features similar to those available in software like Hazel. There’s no doubt these new capabilities will provide plenty of material for tutorial articles given the plethora of possibilities. For example, you could ask it to monitor a folder and if an audio file is present, perform a transcription using Apple Intelligence, etc.
Exploring all the possibilities would require an entire article in itself. I’m excited to see what comes next.
Safari and Picture in Picture Mode
While Safari hasn’t received a major update, the Picture in Picture (PiP) mode has been significantly improved. In Sequoia, you had to right-click twice on a video to launch PiP. With Tahoe, Apple has simplified access: just click on the menu in front of the address bar and select Enable Picture in Picture Mode
. You can then move your video anywhere on your screen.
Pro tip: by default, the video snaps to the corners in PiP mode. But by holding ⌘ while dragging the video, you can place it wherever you like.
Passwords
The Passwords app now includes a password history, allowing you to see previous passwords for a service if you’ve changed them.
Here’s a quick tip: you can display the Passwords app in the menu bar. In the app’s settings, check Display Passwords in Menu Bar.
But if you’ve been paying attention, you know this is also applicable directly in the settings under the Menu Bar
section. Oddly, the checkbox is named PasswordsMenuBarExtra
: when I say Tahoe isn’t quite polished yet…
With the recent arrival of the Passwords app and its regular updates, I’m starting to consider switching my password management from 1Password. This shows how much the app has improved.
Folders
It might seem trivial, but Tahoe allows you to put an icon on a folder (it can even be an emoji). You can also change the color of the folder. This reminds me a lot of the now-discontinued app CandyBar that allowed you to do roughly the same thing 15 years ago.
The Journal App Arrives on Mac
While it was surprising that the Journal app was previously only available on iOS, Apple has corrected this oversight with its release on Tahoe. It syncs, of course, with the iPhone/iPad app. You can keep multiple journals (e.g., Personal/Professional). You can search your entries in the Journal app directly or from Spotlight. Finally, you can now export all your journals, but only in HTML format.
Image Playground Becomes Useful
While Image Playground was of little use in Sequoia, the update for Tahoe brings a significant new feature. You can now ask ChatGPT to generate an image for you directly. It’s now possible to create many more styles of images (etching, watercolor, anime, etc.) with fewer restrictions than before.
Magnifier App
The Magnifier app has arrived on macOS. It uses the webcam and allows you to zoom, change contrast, and adjust brightness. This magnifier can be used with the iPhone connected as a webcam. This is very handy in lecture halls for students who want a better view of the slideshow. There’s even a tool for copying/pasting slides.
Phone
In previous versions of macOS, it was possible to answer a call from an iPhone on a Mac. With Tahoe, you can now make calls, even on the cellular network, using your Mac through your iPhone’s connection. The app also allows you to listen to your voicemails and see your missed calls. It also inherits new features from iOS 26 that allow you to filter calls.
What’s your favorite new feature in macOS 26 Tahoe?