Here are the new features in macOS Tahoe 26

Apple released macOS Tahoe 26 a couple of days ago. We take a closer look at that's new in it.

macOS 26 shares a lot of features with iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, so I'm not going to repeat the common features, I'll just focus on the Mac-specific features. Please refer to my previous article to learn about what's new in iOS 26. Also, here's my coverage of the macOS Tahoe announcement.

Liquid Glass is everywhere, whether you like it or hate it. Just like iOS 26 you can change the color of your icons on macOS 26. Head to the System Settings > Appearance, and select between Default, Dark, Clear or Automatic. Clear has its own light and dark versions, and applies the Liquid Glass effect for app icons.

Change System Settings macOS Tahoe 26

Reducing the transparency may help with the glass effect.

macOS Tahoe 26 reduce transparency

While on the same screen, you may want to set the default folder colors in macOS Tahoe. Click on the drop-down menu next to it (says Automatic), and choose a color of your choice. Notice that the color applies globally, including the Settings app itself. You are not limited to the colors listed in the menu, select "Choose color", and it gives two more options, to use a color picker or the theme colors. Want to change the color of a specific folder? You can do so from Finder, right-click on a folder, and select customize folder. This allows you to customize the folder's color and icon. Changing a folder's color also tags it.

macOS Tahoe 26 change folder colors

You may have noticed that macOS Tahoe changes the mouse pointer, it's smoother. The hand pointer, which appears when you hover over links, no longer has the "Mickey Mouse" glove, it's a modern version that's smooth, and kind of boring.

The menu bar at the top of the screen is transparent, if you don't like that look, you can go to the Settings > Menu bar, and toggle the background to make it a solid color. Let's take a look at Control Center, yes it's transparent too. It now has sliders to adjust the brightness, and the volume level. You can customize the Control Center by clicking on Edit Controls. It allows you to rearrange the controls, and also to add/remove the ones you like or dislike.

macOS Tahoe brings a couple of iPhone apps to Mac, these are the Journal and Phone apps. There's also the Games app, which is also available for iOS and iPadOS. Live Translation, Genmoji, Image Playground and other AI features are available for Mac too. Not much to say here, so let's keep going. macOS 26 brings support for Metal 4 with more advanced graphics and rendering technologies, like MetalFX Frame Interpolation and Denoising.

App windows are rounder in macOS 26. macOS 26 removes the launchpad in favor of a small window-based launcher of sorts. It's called Apps, because it lists all your apps, and has various categories to organize them in. The reason why this change was made is because of the new Spotlight enhancements.

macOS Tahoe 26 Apps launcher

Spotlight is different, it now displays results for files, folders, apps, messages, calendar events, etc. Press the hotkeys displayed next to a result to perform the action. You can also assign quick keys to open apps or run some system actions easily. See that magnifying glass on the menu bar? Click on it to open Spotlight. You can now access your clipboard history from Spotlight, this is optional, and requires your permission to be enabled.

Apple Safari's Advanced Fingerprinting Protection is now available in regular browsing mode. This anti-fingerprinting feature was previously limited to Private Browsing, to obscure browser and device data that can be used to create a unique fingerprint to identify/track users. Picture-in-Picture mode in Safari lets you move the video from the Page Menu, and you can control the playback directly from PiP.

macOS Tahoe 26 is available for the following Macs.