How to downgrade from macOS 26 Tahoe on a new Mac
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I started using Macs back in 1987 and while I don’t love the new Tahoe design, I’ve gotten used to it as we do.
Downgrading sure seems like an awful lot of effort for a rather low payoff.
Downgrading sure seems like an awful lot of effort for a rather low payoff.
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Yeah, it's not my favorite but I've tweaked it enough that I'm fine with it and it is doing what it needs to do.
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Not sure if this is the cause, but I do have an updated phone and an outdated Mac, and I get an annoying sync message every few days. I haven't been able to resolve it with entry of Mac password as suggested by the software. I've decided to live with the annoying sync message.
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When I saw the DFU restore option, I assumed it stood for Don't Fuck Up.
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I have kept my M4 Studio Max on Sequioa and our iPhones are on 26 and everything I need to work together does. I may make the policy edit so it doesn't keep reminding me to upgrade to Tahoe.
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I have kept my M4 Studio Max on Sequioa and our iPhones are on 26 and everything I need to work together does. I may make the policy edit so it doesn't keep reminding me to upgrade to Tahoe.
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I find MacOS (and iOS) 26s interface awfull, it feels like a cheap Vista skin..
This might be the first time ever i downgrade as I’m generally an upgrade enthusiast.
I read in diagonal and will re-read, but I didn’t see if Tahoe library changes could break mail or photos?
(Edit: thank you for the answers, I will check it out and confirm whatever can be confirmed here)
This might be the first time ever i downgrade as I’m generally an upgrade enthusiast.
I read in diagonal and will re-read, but I didn’t see if Tahoe library changes could break mail or photos?
(Edit: thank you for the answers, I will check it out and confirm whatever can be confirmed here)
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Liquid Glass on the Mac isn’t that big of a deal, IMO. I barely notice it.
It’s on iOS 26 where it’s particularly offensive. Even then, setting like high contrast can minimize its impact. My greatest ire with iOS 26 is that many of the modals and UI elements have become enlarged for no good reason…and are hard to read thanks to Liquid Glass.
It’s on iOS 26 where it’s particularly offensive. Even then, setting like high contrast can minimize its impact. My greatest ire with iOS 26 is that many of the modals and UI elements have become enlarged for no good reason…and are hard to read thanks to Liquid Glass.
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don't forget to polish it off by turning off the Tahoe Upgrade dark patterns — for six months.
https://robservatory.com/block-the-upgrade-to-tahoe-alerts-and-system-settings-indicator/
https://robservatory.com/block-the-upgrade-to-tahoe-alerts-and-system-settings-indicator/
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Having recently upgraded my iPhone to iOS 26.3 (from 18.7.x), there's no way I'm upgrading my Mac to Tahoe until Liquid Glass has been improved significantly - text on semi-transparent backgrounds with text below is mostly unreadable. And turning on "Reduce transparency" has so many negative side-effects that I'm not really sure which is worse.
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If Apple doesn't fix/extirpate Liquid Glass in/from macOS 27, I predict the Hackintosh community will be revived, this time focusing on getting macOS 15 to work on newer and newer Macs over time. I for one would be hard-pressed to buy a new Mac until macOS is fixed.
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ConnertheCat
Ars Centurion
I'm ready to drop $5k on a M5 Mac Studio Max or Ultra this summer; the only thing giving me pause is the shit show that is the new OS. I hope it's in a better spot by then; because clearly that won't be able to downgrade.
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Well...it depends. Tahoe finally properly supported my HDR OLED display. Sequoia never did. Granted I retired my Mac Mini late last year because, well, RAM.
Which...I'm a terrible human being for buying a 3rd party display to use.
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I literally just booted into Tahoe 5 minutes and the first thing I did/had to do was tint Liquid Glass. Tbd if it's so hideous it requires a downgrade, though I was unaware of the bugs mentioned early in the article until I (of course) had booted in Tahoe and opened Ars.
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I know for sure it will break Photos. If you roll back to Sequoia then you will have to either find an old backup of your Photos library or start a new one.
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Gave up and updated my iPhone SE 2nd gen (old stuff I know) directly to iOS 26.3 a couple of weeks ago. I'm regretting it every single day. It's not even Liquid Glass, it just became unusable.
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As some others have said, the liquid glass outrage in Mac OS is greatly overblown. It's very easy to almost completely remove any resemblance of it by going through all of the options in system settings. IMO not worth the time and hassle of downgrading if you're already on it. iOS on the other hand is far more intrusive.
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iOS liquid glass is truly awful. I wonder if releasing it first tainted the whole idea by association.
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ubercurmudgeon
Ars Tribunus Militum
They have been slowly fixing the worst UI shitshows. For example, this is what the Dictionary looked like if you scrolled down in a long entry in Tahoe 26.2...
...and this is what it looks like since Tahoe 26.3...
Much better. Although an annoying functional change since Sequoia is that search boxes like the one in the top-right corner of the Dictionary don't automatically select all the text previously entered when you switch back from another app anymore, so I'm continually typing a new word and having it appended to what I searched for the last time I used it.
...and this is what it looks like since Tahoe 26.3...
Much better. Although an annoying functional change since Sequoia is that search boxes like the one in the top-right corner of the Dictionary don't automatically select all the text previously entered when you switch back from another app anymore, so I'm continually typing a new word and having it appended to what I searched for the last time I used it.
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I'm still miffed they moved the play controls to the bottom of the Music app and left a bunch of white space where they used to be at the top. Like, I'm on a desktop. I have plenty of screen real estate. I'm not using my thumbs to try to reach for something. Why on earth did they move the play controls to the bottom, over and hiding, library entries?? Drives me bonkers.
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Liquid Glass doesn't bother me but if I'd known that they'd gotten rid of launch pad I would never have upgraded.
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I run all my apps in full screen mode on my 14" MacBook Pro. That is one way to avoid seeing the Tahoe UI.
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I don’t understand the uproar over Liquid Glass and Tahoe.
It takes getting used to for sure, but it’s not as tragic as a lot of people make it out to be IMO.
It takes getting used to for sure, but it’s not as tragic as a lot of people make it out to be IMO.
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iPads too - even with the bigger screens, its still broken with some interactions and the initial glass implementation was a mess with transparency overlaps, even if it has been somewhat toned down.
What really irks me is those have fundamentally been promoted as 'easier' to use computing devices with already simplified controls and workflows - ie 'all the computer your kid/elderly relative needs' is one of the main selling points. While I do have to give them a lot of credit for how much easier they made using the internet, etc for those groups; It still feels like nobody even bothered to test the accessibility or consider the target user bases, which just feels a bit complacent and lazy from such a large company.
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My only real complaint of Tahoe is moving widgets to the desktop. I never, ever see my desktop. I'm working on shit, not staring at my background. Now I didn't really use widgets all that much, except clicking on the clock to show a calendar is burned into my muscle memory. I can't not do it. I probably do it once a day. I don't even care about the widgets, just please let me have quick access to a calendar!
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Downloading the OS and creating a bootable USB Installer can also be done with two clicks by Mist.
https://github.com/ninxsoft/Mist
Highly recommended. I have been using it for years while administrating around 80 DAW workstations.
https://github.com/ninxsoft/Mist
Highly recommended. I have been using it for years while administrating around 80 DAW workstations.
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Do you mean the one from 2020? Because that's what I'm using fully updated, and it's pretty much fine (not a fan of liquid glass though)
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Agreed. I only have it for a work phone and use it so sparingly but it's still jarring to me that such a design could come out of Apple (who I don't like but ultimately thought they did design well.)
That's my opinion too after even doing the workarounds to make it clearer (less blur or whatever in the settings.)
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I'm sure it's a big deal in the enthusiast community, but the number of non-power-users who think about it for more than a few minutes is vanishingly small. And those are the people that Apple sells to.
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Well... Connected an iPhone running 26 to my M1 running 15 in order to diagnose and audio capture process that was now erroring out with in Safari on iOS26 (worked fine prior to iOS 26 upgrade). Opened Safari on the Mac after connecting to the iPhone, opened the console for the iPhone web page, and nothing. Could not get the console no matter what I tried. Upgraded the Mac to Tahoe, and sure enough there was the iPhone console just like before with 15.
If anyone knows why I could not get the iOS26 console with 15 , please advise as I would like the option to go back from 26.
HTH, TIA:
NSC
If anyone knows why I could not get the iOS26 console with 15 , please advise as I would like the option to go back from 26.
HTH, TIA:
NSC
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The easy way is just to switch to the Sequoia Beta update path; or manually set the software catalog URL to a blank file:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL <url>
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sigmasirrus
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Idk who at Apple really thought Liquid Glass on either Mac or iOS was actually a good design. I feel like the best people can muster for it is “meh, not terrible”, and plenty of people hate it or mock it (that’s your new big thing Apple, really?).
I miss iOS 18 and Snow Leopard.
I miss iOS 18 and Snow Leopard.
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I wouldn’t call it that, and there are useful features in Tahoe. To me it’s more of a constant low level annoyance, like having a stone in your shoe you can’t get rid of.
But here we are several months into it. Let’s hope the new Apple design team leadership gets the required fixes into Tahoe’s successor.
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I went through and turned off what I can turn off.
It's fine. It's just an OS. It still does the job.
I almost admire the optimism that Apple's going to "fix" or remove anything since the bulk of the market isn't complaining.
The one thing the the article doesn't mention - application vendors live on the OS lifecycle too and code for the new releases. You can miss out on security and other updates on applications if they aren't available on the old OS. It's pretty rare, but can still happen.
It's fine. It's just an OS. It still does the job.
I almost admire the optimism that Apple's going to "fix" or remove anything since the bulk of the market isn't complaining.
The one thing the the article doesn't mention - application vendors live on the OS lifecycle too and code for the new releases. You can miss out on security and other updates on applications if they aren't available on the old OS. It's pretty rare, but can still happen.
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Wish Apple hardware had better support for Linux! Apple hardware with Linux would be a match made in heaven!
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I work in my own audio recording studio, currently running my M1 Ultra Mac Studio under Sequoia. But, despite the fact an M5 is on the horizon, I just ordered a new M4 Max Mac Studio to replace the M1 (which I will sell)as the M4 runs each core a lot faster than the M1 (helpful for tasks running on a single core) and will provide plenty of CPU horsepower for my needs.
If the M4 Max shows up with Tahoe installed and testing reveals any issues (I run a lot of different audio plugins in my DAW), I'll be following Andrew's instructions to downgrade so as to maintain a solid environment for my clients and me.
If the M4 Max shows up with Tahoe installed and testing reveals any issues (I run a lot of different audio plugins in my DAW), I'll be following Andrew's instructions to downgrade so as to maintain a solid environment for my clients and me.
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