macOS 26 Tahoe: The 5 best features coming to your Mac this fall

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During its WWDC25 keynote, Apple previewed macOS Tahoe 26. With this year’s software releases, the company is streamlining the OS version numbers—aligning them with the upcoming year. More importantly, it’s unifying the user interface across its platforms and introducing a ton of functionality for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users. Curious what’s coming to your Mac later this year? These are the five biggest changes included with macOS 26 Tahoe.

Liquid Glass design

Perhaps the most noticeable change bundled with macOS Tahoe 26 is the fresh UI dubbed Liquid Glass. This release borrows the translucent look first introduced with visionOS and applies it across Mac menus, app icons, the Dock, Control Center toggles, etc.

By retiring the excessive use of solid colors in favor of translucency, macOS 26 makes the Mac look more futuristic than ever. The interfaces reveal the hues of objects behind them, making it easier to maintain the context as you scroll.

The update also overhauls the menu bar, making it fully transparent. It also refreshes the Control Center with a new, customizable layout, similar to the existing one on iOS 18. Speaking of, dark and tinted app icons have also been brought to the Mac with this release, following a year of iPhone and iPad exclusivity.

To make the Mac more personalizable, macOS 26 will also let you change the folder colors in Finder and add your preferred emojis or icons. The change will simplify categorization and make it possible to identify content at a glance.

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Next-gen Spotlight

macOS Tahoe 26 also applies the Liquid Glass look to Spotlight Search. That, however, isn’t the most notable upgrade to the universal, system-wide search. With this update, macOS will let users perform tasks at a faster pace by suggesting apps and actions based on the context. This will include files stored on third-party clouds, too.

Spotlight Search on macOS Tahoe 26 will also support executing actions directly. This spares you from manually launching apps to locate the relevant menu or button. The upgraded search bar can even compose emails and iMessages directly by providing convenient recipient, subject, and content text fields.

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Beyond that, Spotlight Search has introduced Quick Keys. With this feature, you can quickly trigger specific actions by typing just a couple of letters. So, for example, you could hit SM to initiate the Send Message action. Fortunately, these new perks tie into the App Intents API, letting third-party developers add handy Spotlight shortcuts for their applications.

With Spotlight Search on macOS 26, you can finally, finally access your clipboard history. So, instead of being limited to pasting the last copied item, you can view previous text and photos you’ve copied and re-insert them as needed.

Dedicated Apple Games app

It’s no secret that Apple is trying too hard to become relevant in the gaming space. macOS Tahoe 26 takes the company’s vision a step further by introducing a dedicated Games app. With Apple Games, you’ve got the main Home tab, which highlights recently played games and recommended titles. Other tabs include Arcade—which houses games from Apple’s subscription service—and Play Together for connecting with Game Center friends. There’s also a Library tab for viewing all of your titles.

When playing a game, macOS 26 offers a Steam-like overlay. When triggered, you can quickly invite or chat with friends you’re gaming with—without leaving the game itself. It also lets you control the game controller, Energy and Game Modes, volume, etc.

macOS Tahoe 26 also introduces support for Metal 4, unlocking next-level graphics and rendering in Mac games.