The release pushes the Mac experience forward while staying true to its foundation of performance, privacy, and productivity.
Unveiled today at Apple’s campus, macOS Tahoe builds on the M-series hardware with a more fluid interface, enhanced communication tools, and intelligent personalisation options—making it the most capable version of macOS yet.
A More Expressive and Personal Mac Experience
At the heart of the redesign is Liquid Glass, a dynamic new material that brings translucent, light-reactive effects to the Dock, menu bar, windows, and icons. The result is a more immersive and harmonious desktop that reflects and refracts its surroundings for a layered, tactile feel.
The interface is now more customisable: users can change folder colours, apply symbols or emoji, and personalise Control Center layouts. The menu bar becomes fully transparent for a larger canvas, while app icons adapt across light and dark modes with new tints and styles.
Continuity Expanded: The iPhone Meets Mac in New Ways
macOS Tahoe extends Continuity with the addition of the Phone app on Mac, giving users access to Recents, Contacts, and Voicemails—plus features like Call Screening and Hold Assist, which intelligently handle unknown callers and wait times.
Live Activities from iPhone also appear on Mac, showing live updates like sports scores, rideshare progress, or flight tracking. A simple click opens the full app via iPhone Mirroring, bringing the iOS experience to the desktop without disruption.
Spotlight Gets Its Biggest Update Yet
Spotlight now offers smart, unified results from apps, files, events, messages, and third-party cloud storage, all intelligently ranked for relevance. New browse views and filters streamline discovery, while actions let users send emails, create notes, run Shortcuts, or even play a podcast—right from the search bar.
Developers can plug into Spotlight using the App Intents API, and quick keys make repetitive tasks near-instant. Spotlight now acts like a command centre, learning from the user and surfacing frequent actions proactively.
Smarter Workflows with Apple Intelligence
macOS Tahoe brings enhanced Apple Intelligence features, all designed to run privately on-device or securely via Private Cloud Compute.
Key upgrades include:
- Live Translation in Messages, Phone, and FaceTime, translating as users type or speak.
- Genmoji and Image Playground, now with editable styles, expressions, and ChatGPT integration for creating stylised visuals.
- Reminders that automatically summarise emails or notes into actionable tasks.
- Shortcuts that tap directly into Apple Intelligence to automate complex sequences, including summarising documents or generating creative content.
For developers, the new Foundation Models framework allows any app to utilise Apple’s on-device model, enabling AI-driven features that are fast, private, and work offline.
Gaming Comes into Focus with Apple Games App and Game Overlay
macOS Tahoe introduces the Apple Games app, a central hub for gaming on Mac. Players can resume titles, discover new ones, and stay updated on events. The new Game Overlay lets users access settings, chat with friends, or toggle Low Power Mode—without leaving the game.
With Metal 4, game developers can unlock new rendering techniques including MetalFX Denoising and Frame Interpolation. Upcoming titles such as Crimson Desert, Cyberpunk 2077, and Lies of P: Overture will take advantage of the M3 and M4 chip families for ray-traced visuals and faster frame rates.
Refinements Across Apps and Ecosystem
- Safari 26 now includes rounded floating tabs, smarter sidebars, and advanced fingerprinting protection enabled by default. Apple claims it outperforms Chrome by 50% in page load speeds and extends video streaming battery life by up to 4 hours.
- Messages introduces custom backgrounds, polls, natural language search, and enhanced group chat tools.
- Journal, Apple’s reflective writing app, arrives on Mac, offering long-form journaling, location mapping, and synced entries across devices.
- Photos gets a Liquid Glass refresh with better collection customisation and sorting.
- Notes supports markdown import/export and transcribed audio recordings from the Phone app.
- FaceTime now shows Contact Posters and provides faster access to tools like SharePlay and Live Translation.
- Accessibility features include a Mac-first Magnifier using Continuity Camera, new Accessibility Reader, Braille Access, and Vehicle Motion Cues.
macOS Tahoe 26 exemplifies Apple’s dual focus: deeper intelligence and tighter integration. By blending smart automation with a renewed visual identity, it enables a faster, more fluid experience that meets users where they are—without compromising privacy or control. With Apple Intelligence scaling and new developer tools, the Mac is poised for a more personalised and productive future.
macOS Tahoe is available today to developers, with a public beta expected next month. A full release is due this autumn.