MacOS Tahoe vs. Sequoia: Here's How Much Liquid Glass Will Change Your Mac's Icons

Liquid glass Not just for you iPhone – It will almost come with the screen you can imagine, including yours apple. Macos 26 Tahoe Will bring overhaul of the design, which is both dramatic or almost unobtrusive, and overall looks fresh while maintaining a comfortable and familiarity.

The Macos 26 Tahoe is far from a design overhaul and will come with it Several new features When it officially launched, it was easy to get stuck in all the styles Apple did with this release. Some of these changes are brand new, some are new to Mac, but borrowed from iOS, such as changes to icons.

New icon options for Mac include Color coloring And make them Completely clear Just like you are on your iPhone. But even without these visual tweaks, Apple continues to redesign standard MAC icons—some of which have changed for decades.

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To me, it’s even more interesting that Apple manages to tell the same story while talking less about some redesigned icons.

If you’re curious, I highlighted some new icons you can expect to see in the Macos 26 Tahoe, but you should remember that the icon may change again when the official build is released. Below, I will compare the newly designed icon with the current version of MacOS, Sequoia.

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Hidden inside, flat and rounded

Icons on Mac are now more like icons on iOS, with a more rounded wave design. Compared to Sequoia, Tahoe’s icons become flatter in detail, and sometimes textures found in the icons in the previous OS versions are replaced by subtle translucent effects. Sequoia sometimes have a concave or dent pattern pushed outwards, allowing the liquid glass to add a little gloss to the angle of elements in the icon design. Apple also pulled out all the icon elements that had previously hung the edges – now everything is hidden inside the icon shape.

books

Apple Books icon update is simple, but it does a lot for the overall design. These pages show gradients to inform depth, and edges add an iconic liquid glass sheen. Additionally, a cover is added at the back of the page showing the layered glass appearance.

Contact

The Contacts App icon looks very same in terms of the elements in it, but otherwise – wow, what’s the difference. The “Contact Book” cardboard box brown is replaced by gradient and translucent southerly off-surface surfaces and features contrasting imagery in standard configuration. One of the colors on the right side of the icon is smaller, while the remaining three are now flat in design and span the entire height of the icon.

Digital colorimeter

Another great example of Apple rejecting details without sacrificing impact is the digital color meter application. The dropper no longer hangs on the edges, the background is simple white rather than bright red, the shape has been reduced to a circle, and the color presents more soft shadows.

Disk Utility

Macos Tahoe shows the details of Apple pulling back and fading its icons while communicating the same thing. Disk Utility is one of the better examples – comparing new versions to Sequoia and previous versions.

Folders

The default folder on your Mac has been turquoise blue for years without much customization. Maybe the folder color on your Mac isn’t something you’re going to take the time to think about, but if anyone wants them to be able to change the folder color, then you can use Tahoe.

Push the Appearance menu in System Settings into the Appearance menu is a new default folder color option that allows you to switch between red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, purple, pink, and graphite. Additionally, the icon in Tahoe shows a document in it, not the empty folder of Sequoia.

iPhone image

Now, the updated iPhone image icon is more representative of the app. There may not be much to say about the app’s features, but this is compared to the icon of the Sequoia for a single iPhone.

photo

Another subtle liquid glass icon adjustment was found in the photo app. Essentially, it’s the same design, but the overlapping rectangular color panels look slightly lower in overall width, while Apple adds shiny glass edges to them.

settings

The update to the Tahoe settings icon is small, but this is a great example of the subtlety of liquid glass. The internal depth maintained by the icon has changed for more than a decade, the color has changed, and the teeth of the gears are both wide and soft. Liquid glass is most noticeable in smaller gears, which are slightly transparent as if there is a piece of layered glass on top.

viscosity

The Stickies App redesign is a reward for the emergence of its icons from 2000 to 2020. Basic Apple guy MacOS icon history chart. The latest icons are back in the stack of three notes next to each other, instead of the post office notepad.

Text Editing

Tahoe’s update to the text editing app may be as low as Sequoia’s update, completely removing the pen, leaving only a portion of the notebook paper. It’s certainly simplified, but Mac users who may not be too familiar with each individual icon may easily mistake text editing for something else.

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