macOS Tahoe 26 makes the Mac more capable, productive, and intelligent than ever

Apple today previewed the next major macOS release — macOS
Tahoe 26 — which introduces a stunning new design and powerful capabilities
that enable users to get even more done. With the new design, iconic elements
of macOS will feel more expressive, delightful, and personal while remaining
instantly familiar, including the desktop, Dock, in-app navigation, and
toolbars. Users can further personalize the experience with an updated Control
Center and new color options for folders, app icons, and widgets. Continuity
gets even better with the Phone app arriving on Mac, so users can access
familiar features from iPhone — including Recents, Contacts, and Voicemails —
and new ones like Call Screening¹ and Hold Assist.² And
with Live Activities from iPhone, users can stay on top of things happening in
real time, like an upcoming flight, right on their Mac. Spotlight gets its
biggest update ever, allowing users to now directly execute hundreds of actions
— like sending an email or creating a note — and take advantage of all-new
browsing experiences to get to content faster.

Apple Intelligence expands with powerful new features that
elevate the Mac experience further, while protecting privacy at every step.
Live Translation helps users easily communicate across languages, translating
text and audio. Genmoji and Image Playground offer new options for creativity.³ Shortcuts
get even more powerful with intelligent actions and the ability to now tap
directly into Apple Intelligence models to automate complex tasks.

“macOS is the heart and soul of the Mac, and with Tahoe,
we’re building on what users love most. Whether you’re a power user or just
getting started on Mac, there’s something for everyone, with even more features
to turbocharge productivity and make working across Mac and iPhone more
seamlessly than ever before,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice
president of Software Engineering. “With its gorgeous new design, amazing
Continuity experiences, powerful enhancements to Spotlight, more intelligent shortcuts,
and updates to Apple Intelligence, the Mac experience is better than ever.”

A Gorgeous New Design

The gorgeous new design enhances the Mac experience in new
ways, while maintaining the familiarity of macOS. It is crafted with Liquid
Glass, a translucent new material that reflects and refracts its surroundings.
The Dock, sidebars, and toolbars have been refined, bringing greater focus to a
user’s content. The menu bar is now completely transparent, making the display
feel even larger. There are more ways to customize what controls appear in the
menu bar and Control Center, along with how they’re laid out. The new design
also unlocks more personalization on the Mac. App icons come to life in light
or dark appearances, colorful new light and dark tints, as well as an elegant
new clear look. Users can also change the colors of folders and add a symbol or
emoji to give them a unique identity. And when combined with personalized
wallpapers and theme colors, it’s easier than ever to make Mac a seamless
extension of a user’s style.

New Continuity Experiences with the Phone App and Live
Activities

The Phone app arrives on Mac thanks to Continuity, which
lets users relay cellular calls from their nearby iPhone. The Phone app on Mac
has the familiar features of the Phone app on iPhone — including Recents,
Favorites, and Voicemails — and the latest updates like Call Screening and Hold
Assist. Call Screening automatically answers calls from unknown numbers and
asks the caller for information so a user can decide whether or not to answer.
And when a user is stuck on hold, Hold Assist allows them to keep their spot in
line while they wait for a live agent, so users can continue working on their
Mac.

Live Activities from a user’s nearby iPhone will now appear
in the menu bar on their Mac so they can stay on top of things happening in
real time, like an upcoming Uber ride, flight, or live sports score. When
clicking on a Live Activity, the app opens in iPhone Mirroring to show more
information so users can take action right from their Mac.

The Biggest Update Ever to Spotlight

Spotlight, the central place to search for things on Mac,
makes finding what users are looking for easier than ever, and provides users
with all-new ways to take action. During a search, all results — including
files, folders, events, apps, messages, and more — are now listed together and
ranked intelligently based on relevance to the user. New filtering options
rapidly narrow searches to exactly what a user is looking for, like PDFs or
Mail messages. Spotlight can also surface results for documents stored on
third-party cloud drives. And when a user doesn’t know exactly what they’re
searching for, Spotlight’s new browse views make it easy to scan through their
apps, files, clipboard history, and more.

Users can now take hundreds of actions directly from
Spotlight — like sending an email, creating a note, or playing a podcast —
without jumping between apps. Users can take actions from both Apple apps and
apps built by developers, because any app can provide actions to Spotlight
using the App Intents API. Users can also run shortcuts and perform actions
from the menu bar in the app they’re currently working in, all without lifting
their hands off the keyboard. Spotlight learns from users’ routines across the
system and surfaces personalized actions, such as sending a message to a
colleague a user regularly talks to. Additionally, Spotlight introduces quick
keys, which are short strings of characters that get users right to the action
they’re looking for.

Brand-New Capabilities Powered by Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that
delivers helpful and relevant intelligence, gets even more capable while
protecting users’ privacy at every step.

• Seamless
  communication across language barriers with Live Translation: In
  Messages, Live Translation can automatically translate messages, so if a
  user is making plans with new friends while traveling abroad, their
  message can be translated as they type and delivered in the recipient’s
  preferred language. And when the user receives a response, each text can
  be instantly translated.⁴ On FaceTime, a user can follow
  along with translated live captions while still hearing the speaker’s
  voice. And when a user is on a call in the Phone app, their words are
  translated for the recipient as they speak.⁵ This is
  enabled by Apple-built models that run entirely on device, so
  conversations stay private.

• Shortcuts
  get more intelligent: A whole new class of intelligent actions lets
  users create shortcuts that are more powerful than ever, including
  summarizing text with Writing Tools and creating images with Image
  Playground. And now users will be able to tap directly into Apple Intelligence
  models, either on-device or with Private Cloud Compute, to generate
  responses that feed into the rest of their shortcut, maintaining the
  privacy of information used. For example, a student can build a shortcut
  that uses Apple Intelligence models to compare an audio transcription of a
  class lecture to the notes they took, and add any key points they may have
  missed. Users can also choose to tap into ChatGPT for its broad world
  knowledge and expertise. Additionally, users can now run shortcuts
  automatically on macOS, such as at a specific time of day, or when taking
  a specific action like saving a file to a folder or connecting a display.

• Updates
  to Genmoji and Image Playground: macOS Tahoe brings new ways to create
  Genmoji, giving users the ability to start with existing emoji and
  descriptions, modify personal attributes like hair length or accessories,
  and select expressions based on the moment. Users will also have more control
  of personal attributes and expressions in Image Playground, and can tap
  into brand-new styles with ChatGPT, like an oil painting style or vector
  art. For moments when users have a specific idea in mind, they can tap Any
  Style and describe exactly what they want.

• Increased
  productivity with Reminders: Apple Intelligence can review an email,
  website, note, or other content on Mac to find the most relevant action
  items. And users can also choose to use Apple Intelligence to
  automatically categorize Reminders into sections to make them more
  manageable.

New Apple Games App, Game Overlay, and More Titles

macOS Tahoe introduces Apple Games, a dedicated app that
gives players a home for all their games, making it easier to jump back into
favorites, discover new games tailored just for them, and play with friends in
whole new ways. With the new Game Overlay, players can conveniently adjust
their system settings, chat with friends, or invite them to play, all without
having to leave their game. Players can also turn on Low Power Mode, which
extends gaming sessions and maximizes playtime on battery. For developers,
macOS Tahoe introduces Metal 4, which brings even more advanced graphics and
next-generation rendering technologies to games, like MetalFX Frame
Interpolation and MetalFX Denoising, for smoother visuals and faster frame
rates.

Alongside these improvements, developers continue to deliver
exciting new games on Mac, including upcoming titles like Crimson Desert and
InZOI. Both games leverage powerful software technologies like MetalFX
Upscaling to accelerate performance and deliver high-quality visuals, as well
as take advantage of the M3 and M4 family of chips with ray tracing for a
breathtaking experience. Additional titles on the way include Cyberpunk 2077,
Cronos: The New Dawn, Architect: Land of Exiles, Lies of P: Overture, HITMAN
World of Assassination, EVE Frontier, Where Winds Meet, and more.

Additional features in macOS Tahoe include:

• Safari,
  the world’s fastest browser,⁶ offers a fresh but familiar
  experience, featuring a rounded tab design that floats in the toolbar,
  along with a refreshed sidebar with new sections to help users more easily
  find saved content like iCloud Tabs and Saved. When compared to Chrome,
  Safari is 50 percent faster at loading frequently visited websites⁷ and
  offers up to four more hours of battery life when streaming video.⁸ And
  for even greater protection from trackers when browsing, Safari now offers
  advanced fingerprinting protection in all browsing by default.

• The Messages
  app brings Backgrounds, Polls, and a redesigned details view that
  helps users easily navigate what has been shared in a conversation. Plus,
  it features typing indicators in groups to let participants know exactly
  who is going to chime in, as well as the ability to add new contacts
  easily right from the group chat and search with more natural language.

• Journal comes
  to Mac, making it easy to capture and write about everyday moments and
  special events when inspiration strikes. On Mac, it’s easy to type long,
  thoughtful entries and view them on a map. Users can keep multiple
  journals for various aspects of life, which are all synced across Apple
  devices.

• Photos has
  an updated design that includes beautiful Liquid Glass elements,
  enhancements for customization, easier workflows, and sidebar consistency
  with iPadOS. Pinned Collections now come to Mac, so users can access the
  collections they use most with a click on the sidebar. Users will also
  find new buttons to quickly access filtering and sorting options in all
  views, and the ability to customize the size of Collections tiles, so they
  can view their library just how they like.

• On FaceTime,
  the reimagined landing page features beautiful Contact Posters of recent
  callers, Liquid Glass controls now float in the bottom right and recede to
  create more space, and a new More button lets users quickly access
  features like SharePlay and Live Translation.

• Notes adds
  the ability to import and export a note into a markdown file, and support
  for capturing conversations in the Phone app as audio recordings with
  transcriptions.

• Accessibility features
  include Magnifier on Mac, which enables users with low
  vision to zoom in on their surroundings using Continuity Camera on iPhone
  or attached USB cameras, apply image filters so items are easier to see or
  read, and even change perspective when viewing presentations or books from
  an angle. Additional features include Accessibility Reader,
  a new systemwide reading mode designed with accessibility in mind; an
  all-new Braille Access experience that offers a
  user-friendly interface for those with a connected braille display;
  and Vehicle Motion Cues, which helps reduce
  motion sickness in a moving vehicle.

• With Passwords,
  users can easily reference changes they make to their accounts, including
  checking previous versions of passwords they save, along with details on
  when they were changed.