macOS 26.3
Juli Clover (release notes, security, enterprise, developer, full installer, IPSW):
According to Apple’s release notes, macOS Tahoe 26.3 focuses on bug fixes and security updates rather than new features, so it is a smaller update than some of the other releases we’ve had.
In the next couple of weeks, Apple will begin testing macOS Tahoe 26.4, an update that is expected to be much more feature packed.
Apple’s macOS engineers: I know you’re working incredibly hard to make Tahoe better. The long hours spent troubleshooting bugs and fixing interface issues… all that effort, only for it to be trivialized by this nonsense.
[…]
Just take a look at the Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro patch notes. HUNDREDS OF MINOR FIXES LISTED!
How is it possible that an entire OPERATING SYSTEM does not have a single listed bug fix?
Apple just keep getting better and better.
What Apple doesn’t reveal is that it has improved, if not fixed, the shortcomings in Accessibility’s Reduced Transparency setting. When that’s enabled, at least some of the visual mess resulting from Liquid Glass, for example in the Search box in System Settings, is now cleaned up, as the sidebar header is now opaque.
Previously, some awkward aspects of Liquid Glass transparency persisted even after the user enabled Reduce Transparency, as shown in the Finder sidebar header and the System Settings Search field.
[…]
Two other Liquid Glass-related pecadillos fared less well. First, although Apple fixed a macOS 26.2 problem that caused the column divider handles to be overwritten by scroll bars (first screenshot below), if you hide both the path bar and status bar, an unseemly gap appears between the scroll bar and the handles (fourth screenshot below). Additionally, while toggling the path and status bars, I managed to get the filenames to overwrite the status bar (third screenshot below). Worse, all of these were taken with Reduce Transparency on, so why are filenames ever visible under the scroll bar?
Saddens me that even in 26.3 RC for #macOSTahoe, toolbars are still very much visually broken in full screen. :(
I couldn’t in good conscience sell ChangeTheHeaders to new customers when it was likely that the Safari extension wouldn’t work as advertised. The good news is that in my testing, Safari version 26.3, released yesterday by Apple, appears to have fixed the bugs. Thus, I’ve now returned ChangeTheHeaders to the App Store!
There has been effectively zero progress on any of my critical showstopping UI-level blocker framework bugs since i/macOS 26.1. It really feels like we’re not going to see any progress again until WWDC and the next OS release. I have several apps I just haven’t been able to ship with Liquid Glass updates as a result.
Previously:
- Tahoe Broke Resizing Finder Columns View
- The Struggle of Resizing Windows on Tahoe
- Liquid Glass Disbelief
- macOS 26.2
- macOS 26.1
Update (2026-02-19): Nick Heer:
In apps like Messages and Preview, the toolbar finally has a solid background when Reduce Transparency is turned on instead of the translucent gradient previously. The toolbar itself and the buttons within it remain ill-defined, however, unless you also turn on Increase Contrast, which Apple clearly does not want you to do because it makes the system look ridiculous. Also, when Reduce Transparency is turned on, Siri looks like this[…]
My desktop (a Mac Mini M2 Pro) has been crashing repeatedly since the update, and the symptom is always the same: it suddenly becomes sluggish (the mouse cursor slows down, then freezes completely), and then after a minute both my displays flash purple and then go black as the machine reboots.
For a machine that used to be on 24/7 with zero issues, this is a definite regression.
I finished my work noted down the temps and started update finished update and closed the lid and let the os get stable. Next day I started working again with same softwares and to my surprise temps were way low compared to previous most of the time close to 55c and with really heavy load 70c to 80c sometimes it was going above 90c but never saw it cross 100c under full load. So for me it was big improvement after updating to Mac OS 26.3.
I recommend upgrading, 26.3 RC performance is pretty good on my base M2 air.
Update (2026-02-20): Marco Arment:
Another comically basic bug in Tahoe’s TV.app: if you remove a download from this menu, you cannot remove any other downloads from this screen (because the menu item won’t appear in their context menus!) until you navigate to a different section, then back to Downloaded.
I really have to wonder if anyone at Apple uses this app…
Update (2026-03-02): Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen:
A number of users have taken to online support forums and social media to try and get help with an external drive issue in macOS Tahoe 26.3. Affected users are finding that external drives are not mounting properly, despite previously working fine.
The AppleInsider editorial team has also encountered the issue, with some seeing problems predominantly with SSDs. In our videographer’s case, the drives he uses daily fail to work properly at mount at times, with read and write speeds sometimes going down to a few megabytes per second, and forcing reboots.
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Other accounts we’ve seen are more severe failures. The drives just fail to mount entirely.
Previously:
