I was really happy when they added the pictures! Dyslexia, the icons are 100% faster for me, I don't use those menus often enough to know what is in there word wise, but I can read the icons super fast.
A lot of the examples in here, I can't find? Like, I looked around for the new smart folder with the cog icon, where is it on my mac? Same with save as check, where is that? Also I'm pretty sure (although I can't find it) the save as with the up arrow is save as out to something? The ones I do find, all make perfect sense and work pretty well for me, they're not totally perfect but I'd never thought about them much before this post and I use them almost exclusively. Look at all his new for example, see new finder window? Look at the box around it, then open your window menu at the top of your screen, see how minimize has the same box around it? If you go though those icons set, most of them have: primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary visual clues. I dunno, I read that blog post and it doesn't really jive with me. I'm sure they could stand to clean it up a bit, I don't know I'm not a designer, but I'm certainly glad they are there!!! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
New Smart Folder with a cogwheel icon is in the File menu of Notes.app, while New Smart Folder with a folder+cogwheel icon is in the File menu of Finder.app.
Usually I like Apple’s OS updates but Tahoe is absolutely awful from the glass to the noddy sizing of everything. MacOS does not have to harmonise with VisionOS at all and it’s been a disaster for macOS to try.
Just swap to Linux if you don’t have a true reason to stay on Mac. I flipped last April and man, it is wonderful. Bazzite boot, no windows partition or anything. It just works.
Plus I have a 2016 MBpro I keep around in case I absolutely need a Mac (rare). Usually it’s an old drive formatted for Mac and I don’t feel like futzing around with software that allows it to read on my main computer.
They'll do what they always do, it'll be the greatest thing ever just getting minor tweaks for 3-4 releases and then will be superseded by the greatest thing ever.
Yeah, I was wondering (I haven't updated, patiently waiting for the next major). But here's a great piece about them: https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/
I still miss launchpad.
Which is made worse by the fact the spotlight has become terrible.
Safari is unusable due to some weird sync that happens whenever I open a new window ( i dont use tabs) and adding bookmarks takes about 10-15 seconds.
Please Apple, help? Apple seem to have lost their cultish drive to satisfy UI obsessive like me who often didn't even know what we wanted until they gave it to us. Now, we know what we want, but Apple can't give it to us.
I blame apple for making me run an old macOS version because I don't want to look at this ugly mess they've created.
I've been running macOS since 2008, and unless they manage to turn things around, my next laptop won't be an apple.
Now that Dye is gone, I still hold out hope that Apple will change direction and start fixing their UI. But that fact that it got this bad in the first place implies things are seriously broken at a senior leadership level.
I was really happy when they added the pictures! Dyslexia, the icons are 100% faster for me, I don't use those menus often enough to know what is in there word wise, but I can read the icons super fast.
How can you read the icons if they mean different things in different apps?
Can you provide some examples of this? In my experience, they're quite consistent.
Here's an in-depth analysis (also linked in the OP): https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/
A lot of the examples in here, I can't find? Like, I looked around for the new smart folder with the cog icon, where is it on my mac? Same with save as check, where is that? Also I'm pretty sure (although I can't find it) the save as with the up arrow is save as out to something? The ones I do find, all make perfect sense and work pretty well for me, they're not totally perfect but I'd never thought about them much before this post and I use them almost exclusively. Look at all his new for example, see new finder window? Look at the box around it, then open your window menu at the top of your screen, see how minimize has the same box around it? If you go though those icons set, most of them have: primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary visual clues. I dunno, I read that blog post and it doesn't really jive with me. I'm sure they could stand to clean it up a bit, I don't know I'm not a designer, but I'm certainly glad they are there!!! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
New Smart Folder with a cogwheel icon is in the File menu of Notes.app, while New Smart Folder with a folder+cogwheel icon is in the File menu of Finder.app.
https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/ (second section on consistency)
Usually I like Apple’s OS updates but Tahoe is absolutely awful from the glass to the noddy sizing of everything. MacOS does not have to harmonise with VisionOS at all and it’s been a disaster for macOS to try.
I don't know, I always see this pattern with iOS or MacOS releases. Everyone piles on at the time.
I've actually quite enjoyed some design changes in Tahoe, and looking at older versions of MacOS just looks old fashioned once you're used to them.
I agree. Tahoe is disgustingly unusable; I'm happy that Alan Dye left Apple.
I hope Apple will backtrack on Liquid Glass after Tahoe. Otherwise, I'll just switch to Linux.
Just swap to Linux if you don’t have a true reason to stay on Mac. I flipped last April and man, it is wonderful. Bazzite boot, no windows partition or anything. It just works.
Plus I have a 2016 MBpro I keep around in case I absolutely need a Mac (rare). Usually it’s an old drive formatted for Mac and I don’t feel like futzing around with software that allows it to read on my main computer.
They will likely tweak it but very unlikely that they’ll remove it altogether, especially with the upcoming touch screen MacBook Pro.
Companies like Apple typically don’t make reversals quickly (the butterfly keyboard took years to remedy).
They'll do what they always do, it'll be the greatest thing ever just getting minor tweaks for 3-4 releases and then will be superseded by the greatest thing ever.
Currently I’m blocking the Tahoe updates with Little Snitch. If that becomes untenable I’ll just run Sequoia in a VM.
I setup a do not disturb to run all day everyday. I have not had a notification to update to Tahoe in over a month.
After a good decade of Mac Tahoe made me go back to Linux + tiling WM for my main machine. I just could not stand the awful mess anymore.
Result? inner peace. It is so calm here, and everything is so familiar and fast.
And the MBP hardware seems to be getting shittier too :/ have trackpad issues on both my latest personal and work M4 MBPs.
I strongly disagree. Tahoe is horrible but Mac hardware is terrific. Have you seen a Neo?
I think Apple is hitting it out of the park (falling behind in many other areas)
Oh, thank you for posting this. Just ran the Terminal command and it’s a vast improvement.
No screenshot? Dunno what’s all about. What menu?
Yeah, I was wondering (I haven't updated, patiently waiting for the next major). But here's a great piece about them: https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/
I still miss launchpad. Which is made worse by the fact the spotlight has become terrible.
Safari is unusable due to some weird sync that happens whenever I open a new window ( i dont use tabs) and adding bookmarks takes about 10-15 seconds.
Please Apple, help? Apple seem to have lost their cultish drive to satisfy UI obsessive like me who often didn't even know what we wanted until they gave it to us. Now, we know what we want, but Apple can't give it to us.
Source: https://mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/116262411548746327 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47468034)
Great now just need the same for the window corners and ridiculous Finder overlays.
Exactly.
I blame apple for making me run an old macOS version because I don't want to look at this ugly mess they've created. I've been running macOS since 2008, and unless they manage to turn things around, my next laptop won't be an apple.
I agree. I also tried Tahoe, and reverted back to Sequoia right away.
Either Apple is going to turn things around, or I'm done with Apple for good.
Related:
It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497712
it's as if the icons get added by a lazy LLM prompt during CI
Which is probably exactly what happened. Reportedly Apple is all-in on Claude across the board.
Nah, blaming AI is too easy. It's more likely that Apple's design culture got rotted out under Alan Dye https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job
Now that Dye is gone, I still hold out hope that Apple will change direction and start fixing their UI. But that fact that it got this bad in the first place implies things are seriously broken at a senior leadership level.
There's actually a built in way to remove them in settings. System Settings -> Menu Bar.
You can uncheck or drag items around in the menu bar and group some inside of the menu bar control (and even create new menu bar controls).
I wish you could add third party apps to them, maybe that'll be next. But it's nice you can hide any apps icon right there.
This is for the icons in the drop-down menus, not the icons in the menu bar.
This is not what the article is about though?
It could have used a screen shot.
Read Tonsky for that. https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/ a disgrace. https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/writing_direction@2x.webp...
This is disgusting. Like, I'm using macOS but just seeing this standalone makes me cringe.