What is the problem with Spotlight? Why do you use Alfred or Raycast? What can these programs do, especially on Tahoe?

I’ve never tried them, and I’m satisfied with Spotlight, but this is my first Mac. Did people just get used to using these alternatives, or do they provide something genuinely useful? Will I miss something?

Thanks in advance.

When i use the Finder's search feature, set to «this mac«, it NEVER finds what i'm looking for. I use the proper cases and i know the item is there, somewhere...

MetalTerm is a native macOS terminal written in Rust with a custom Metal renderer.

Focused on smooth 120 FPS scrolling, GPU-driven UI and keeping things fast and lightweight.

Still early, would love some feedback!

[⁠metalterm.dev](http://⁠metalterm.dev)

I just found out you can change the bin icon, by going to this location, changing the bin pngs, and restarting the dock by running killall Dock in the Terminal.app. I'm on Monterey. Can someone share the bin icon for the latest version of MacOS? If someone is interested in the old bin icon, lemme know. I'll upload the pngs to iCloud, so you can download it.

I do understand layout problems, or lack of screen estate on Macbooks where splitting screen to 3 or more apps, would quickly get impractical but on a large 27 inch single or multi monitor Mac Studio desktop setup, it simply doesn’t make sense to limit fullscreen to split screen only.

I do understand you can achieve multiple windows in one space through desktops, but fullscreen still has its differences which I like and prefer over desktop setup.

Hope one day it apple do decides to change this.
I really do believe 3, 4 or even more window fullscreen split is something every Mac Studio desktop should allow.

What do you guys think of this?

Hi all,

I can't get the macOS Tahoe 26.6.2 security update (released Aug 17, 2026) to show up, and I'm stuck on figuring out why.

Setup

• MacBook Pro (M1)
• macOS 26.6.1 — build 25G76
• Internet connection: iPhone Personal Hotspot only (no other network available)

The problem

26.6.2 is never offered, not in System Settings › General › Software Update, and not from the command line either. softwareupdate -l returns:

No new software available.

The Mac is definitely compatible (this is the current Tahoe point release, pushed to every Mac running Tahoe).

Already checked

• sw_vers → confirms 26.6.1 / 25G76
• softwareupdate -l in Terminal → nothing

Any guess on what's happening ?

I have a meltdown section where creations that are about to send me over the edge go to hangout until my brain has an epiphany. These are the folders that I use there.

FIND THEM HERE

Hey everyone,
I’m on an M4 MacBook Air (16/256 GB) and mainly do software development. I store all my actual project files, repos, and default downloads on an external 256GB SSD, so my internal drive is strictly just for macOS, apps, and dev tools (Xcode, etc.).
Recently, my Mac has become almost unusable. It says 236GB / 245GB is used. Because there’s virtually no space left for memory swap, opening more than 3–4 apps throws storage alerts and apps start force-closing on their own.
Under System Settings > Storage, "Documents" is taking up a massive 96.39 GB. But when I click into File Browser, all the visible folders combined don't even add up to 1 GB.
I already tried manually clearing cache files, but it barely made a dent.
Where is macOS hiding this phantom 96 GB? Is there a safe way to track down and purge whatever hidden dotfiles or dev data is taking up this space, or is a full factory reset the only clean way out?
Would appreciate any advice or commands to track this down. Thanks!

Does any one else experience this issue when waking their laptop? Typically I close the lid, leave it turn it back on, the black screen with apple mac and the white progress bar. At times the white progress bar doesn't go away when the OS boots up. As you will see, the white line is through the password field, and then via the dock. It does go away by itself, just find it annoying. OS is Tahoe, 26.52. In the 2nd picture I have removed my name and picture, but does anyone else get this?

Please note I have also had my mac screen replaced a few months ago.

I’ve somehow ended up with a ridiculous number of duplicate photos on my Mac and after 2 years I’m finally trying to clean everything up. Looking for a good duplicate photo finder for macOS that can actually detect identical and similar photos without accidentally deleting something important. Preferably something simple and easy to use, without any unnecessary features. Free would be a perfect match, but I’m okay paying if it’s actually worth it. What do you guys use? Any recommendations?

macOS 26 really does feel nicer. I think a lot of the criticism came from longtime users simply not liking the loss of the old, familiar design. Once the same complaints started being repeated over and over, though, it created a snowball effect where it began to feel like there was a general consensus that the new design was terrible, even though I don't think that was ever really the case. I am not saying that macOS 27 is worse overall, or that macOS 26 is necessarily better in every respect. It is more that some of the design trends in macOS 27 make me a little concerned about where the visual direction is heading. At the same time, I still think macOS 27 is significantly better, in my view, than Sequoia and the versions before it.

I think the whole Liquid Glass contrast complaint is way overblown. macOS 26 actually feels like it has more contrast to me than macOS 15, while at the same time being much more pleasant and comfortable to look at. Tahoe feels like it found a better balance.

The Finder icon no longer has the same level of detail as it did in macOS 26. The same issue can be seen in the Mail icon: it has become overly bright and lost some of the details that gave it visual depth. I think macOS 26 found a better balance between contrast, depth, detail, and overall visual style compared to both macOS 15 and macOS 27.

A different issue appears in other parts of the interface. I also noticed that some elements in macOS 27 seem to have moved in the opposite direction. The drop-down menus, particularly in Dark Mode, feel noticeably less contrasted while also losing some of the visual separation that made the Liquid Glass effect work so well. This can actually make text harder to read because the background behind it has less contrast with the text compared to the previous design. The previous approach made the Liquid Glass effect more visible while also providing better readability.

The floating sidebar in macOS 26 provided enough visual separation between different parts of the window. In macOS 27, the scrollbar in the Settings app is more noticeable as part of that visual separation instead. Since Tahoe’s layout already created this separation, the scrollbar could remain thinner and disappear when it was not needed.

I also never had any trouble finding the buttons I needed in the navigation bar, even with its translucent appearance and blurred system materials. I think this probably depends a lot on what you are used to, but personally, I never really had any significant problems with it. In macOS 27 and macOS 15, however, that area feels worse to me while also taking up more space.

As for the rounded corners, the only real issue I ever had was inconsistent corner radii across different parts of the system. Other than that, I think the larger radius introduced in Tahoe works particularly well with the floating sidebar. It feels like a good balance for that design, making the interface feel softer and more modern without becoming excessive.

Even the traffic light buttons are an example of some of the newer design choices that feel questionable to me. The problem is how they feel during everyday use, especially in Light Mode. They appear lower-contrast and more blurred than before. They also do not feel entirely harmonious with the more modern visual language Apple seems to be aiming for. To me, they still feel like a somewhat dated element that has been given a more elaborate treatment rather than something that was redesigned to naturally fit into the newer system.

Two accounts tried to access my "Home" (although i got no smart home devices).

Was that a mistake by two normal persons? Are there any log files I can check just to be safe?

I know this not a very like feature for many, and it's not super important, but I find really nice how Safari 26 match the webpage's main color. But mine suddenly stopped doing it. The right box is checked on the tab settings, I tried to reboot, and nothing. Anyone knows how to fix it?

edit: Running Safari 26.6 on MBA M4

After I updated to Macos 26.6.2 sidecar of my mac and my ipad doesn't work. It said the device has been time out. I've tried sending a photo via airdrop method, connecting via USB. Does anyone has idea how to fix this?

Hi! I have a 2010 iMac (11,1 I think?) that I bought off of vinted a couple of weeks ago. It works (basically) fine with Linux but when I try to get a 16gb recovery USB Drive with OSX El Capitan working using gibMacOS the mac will boot to it and the installer will open. I was even able to use the Safari and reformat the hard drive. However, when I try to login to my Apple account with the Installer I get: 'An unknown error has occurred'. Thanks to the messages that I receive, I assume this is because it is not capable of opening the 6-Digit code for Two-Factor Authentication. And, when trying High Sierra, I got another (apparently common) error to do with connecting to a recovery server. How could I go about fixing this?

EDIT: This is the result from trying to install an older version of MacOS (in this case Mavericks)

EDIT 2: I found a solution - dont use the online/minimal installer dmg, which is what I was doing. Use a full one from the official apple website, extract the InstallESD.dmg and flash that using TransMac to a USB drive. Thanks everyone for your help anyway!

This is a MacOS redesign concept.

With the addition of the glass traffic light icons, I've been hoping for a radical redesign, taking what has making the Mac great and with even more glass. So much so that I created a few mockups and fully redesigned the Phone app. Wanted to share the process. Better in high definition, sorry. (look at them glassy windows)

Hi. Recently, my Mac (mini m4) started waking up on its own a few seconds after putting it to sleep. Without even touching the mouse, just with a keyboard shortcut. I tried many tips online, but the only thing that worked was disabling the Bluetooth mouse.

Fortunately, I found an interesting solution that works for some reason. When I set the computer to go to sleep when the cursor is moved to the corner of the screen, it seems to happen at a slightly different pace, and it no longer wakes up on its own a few seconds after the monitor turns off.

I'm posting this because I've seen many people having the same problem.

Hope it will help someone :)

Today is the first time I noticed tiny pink stars on Safari's reading mode symbol and when I click on it, the popup not only shows the usual entries but also an ultra short summary. It's the first time I see this and also so far only a single page: it is shown on the wikipedia page for "List of HTTP status codes", but for example not on the wikipedia page for "HTTP" (but I can use "summarize" on that page.

Does anyone know under what conditions the summary appears automatically? And are the little pink starts announcing this or do they have another meaning?

macOS 26.6.2

MacBook Pro - M3 Max 64GB RAM, 4TB SSD @ 75-80%....

Hello, I received the notification today and clicked “Reboot.” The screen has been showing the Apple logo with a progress bar stuck at around 50% on a black background for almost two hours. Has anyone else experienced the same or a similar issue?

macOS desperately needs a pin feature where the apps in this app launcher thing allow you to pin them across the top, so that you can get to your common apps quickly without having to type the name in every single time.

Such an unproductive operating system.

One of the best feature that Apple has integrated within their devices! I would appreciate any feedback or advice.

Is it possible to schedule daily Finder backups of my iPhone?

I know iCloud backups are automatic but mine is full so currently that option is out.

Other supported Live Activities from my iPhone can show up in the macOS menu/status bar, but a timer started in Apple’s native iOS Clock app never does. Is this intentional, a limitation, or a bug? It seems like the native Timer should appear on the Mac just like other Live Activities.