macOS 26.4
Juli Clover (release notes, security, enterprise, developer, full installer, IPSW):
macOS Tahoe 26.4 returns the compact tab bar option to Safari for those who prefer the slimmed down look, along with a new Charge Limit feature for the Mac so you can set a maximum charge level from 80 to 100 percent. It also adds new eight emoji characters, and it displays warnings for apps that will stop working in the future. Apple is ending support for Rosetta 2 after macOS 27, so app that are still using Rosetta will display a popup letting users know that the app won't work starting with macOS 28.
macOS 26.4 also includes Apple Creator Studio for the Freeform app and it has the same Family Sharing change as iOS 26.4.
They fixed so many things, my appreciation for the developers has been restored. I am so happy that compact tabs, many bugs that I was experiencing have been fixed, the battery limit is nice and I uninstalled aldente but i am wondering if i will need something for temperature limits because I use it in the Summer mostly. Did you notice any other fix or added feature that has not been posted yet? Also the shadow in the mission control thing has been removed thank god.
See also Mr. Macintosh and Howard Oakley.
Previously:
Update (2026-03-26): Tim Hardwick:
As described in an updated Apple support document, a “Slow Charger” label now appears in orange text in the battery status menu and above the Battery Level graph in Battery settings. The indicator is accompanied by an info button for more details.
After I posted this item back in October about the new MacBook Pros not shipping with chargers anywhere in Europe (not just the EU, even though it’s an EU law that requires products to be available without included chargers), a bunch of readers regaled me with tales of a family member complaining about their MacBook losing battery life even while plugged in, only to discover that they were using wimpy 5- or 10-watt USB-C adapters.
macOS Tahoe 26.4 introduces a new security feature that warns Mac users if they paste certain commands in the Terminal app that may be harmful.
It would be helpful if the dialog actually showed what is being pasted, so that the user could decide whether they want to “Paste Anyway”…
What kind of a Mac alert title is “Possible malware, Paste blocked”? A comma splice with incorrect capitalization?
Apple has to resort to malware tactics to try to trick you into upgrading to Tahoe. This is user hostile. Shameful behavior.
Did @Apple forget to update the public Endpoint Security header files in macOS 26.4?
New ES events still marked:
ES_EVENT_TYPE_RESERVED_*😢😤
This new message may not be desirable to display in all Mac environments, so Apple has provided management options to prevent this message from being shown. For more details, please see below the jump.
The relevant preference domain and key values are below:
- Preference domain: com.apple.applicationaccess
- Key: allowRosettaUsageAwareness
- Value: Boolean
In macOS 26.4 Apple has added user confirmation prompts to all file type/UTI default app changes.
Update (2026-03-30): George Black:
Tahoe 26.4 fixes the Liquid Mud issue in the Settings search bar!
macOS 26.4 seems to remount unmounted drives when unlocking the screen. Apple keeps finding new ways to make me dread every update and its bizarre bugs.
The macOS 26.4 update for Apple silicon Macs was large, and the work required to verify its contents and complete its preparation was incorrectly reported in both percent completion and time remaining. Even in smaller updates, some form of progress needs to be shown in the progress bar during these later stages of preparation, or users may be mislead into thinking the update has frozen or failed, and could for example restart their Mac to try updating again.
Previously:
Update (2026-03-31): Rajesh Pandey:
macOS Tahoe 26.4 brings several new features to Macs. But it also breaks one critical functionality: Time Machine backups.
The bug appears to affect backups over network drives and NAS (network-attached storage), causing them to fail with a credential error.
I wonder why I’m able to force quit apps that aren’t even running 🤔 🤣
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Sadly, the return of the compact tab view on iPadOS 26.4 has been a bit of a trainwreck. Safari will crash if you try to access your extensions (tap jigsaw icon and then tap extension) in this mode. Worse still, the jigsaw icon is misaligned (too much padding below), as if to tell us Alan Dye’s ghost still haunts Cupertino’s corridors. I had to begrudgingly revert back to the space wasting traditional view on my iPad mini.
We've reached the time of year where I tell myself that this year for sure, I'm not updating to the next version until it's at .4 as well. I'm glad I'm not the only one that has noticed that this year's OS release finally seems done.
I know it's a truism that most software isn't properly polished until a couple point releases, but this is such clear evidence Apple can't keep up with this annual update treadmill they've put themselves on.
Finally, when they're already well underway on 27, 26 is finally mostly what they said it would be last Summer. And WWDC is already scheduled and set for this year.
And to add insult to injury, they won't even let me do this. When 27.2 comes out, they'll stop updating 26 as soon as it has built up enough CVEs.
The joke used to be that Microsoft needed three attempts to get things into a semi-working state. Apple apparently now needs four.
Okay, I think it's time to count...
MSFT: Version 1.0, 2.0, 3.0... three. Got it.
AAPL: Version 26.0, 26.1, 26.2, 26.3, 26.4... that's, um, five, not four.
Adressed to @Plume with respect, as we're in agreement!
It's not every day that I get schooled in kindergarten math on the Internet, but I'll be damned if you aren't correct 😆
It's nice that this version is finally decent, but that means this is how long it *really* took to develop MacOS Tahoe. It means they needed a lot more than 1 year to do it and should've simply worked on it that long instead of forcing people to use unfinished software
> It's nice that this version is finally decent
macOS 26.4 still looks the same as previous 26.x versions. A visual nightmare and a terrible user experience.
Tahoe broke VMware Fusion for VoiceOver users; some restricted API that's no longer available in setuid helper programs. Causes any VM to crash the moment VoiceOver starts (or is running when the VM starts). The bug is a rehash of a similar bug in Sonoma. Unlike last time, it *still* isn't fixed in the .4 release of Tahoe. Remember this when Apple tells you how much accessibility means to them. See also: https://www.applevis.com/blog/apple-vision-accessibility-2025-applevis-report-card
My Tahoe experience has been mostly fine. Liquid Glass _does_ feel half-baked on it (why are toolbar icons and sidebars floating?), but I wasn't that in love with several Big Sur design decisions either. _Quality_-wise, I can't say it's noticeably worse than Sequoia, and I like the new Spotlight and Control Center stuff.
26.4 introduces the Charging Limit thing iOS has had for a while, and… it seems to work, but I feel like they made a design mistake. I set it to 80%, and whether my Mac is charging while at 6%, 54%, or 80%, the MagSafe light will now be orange. Best as I can tell, this means it'll _never_ be green again, unless I turn off the limit. That seems like an odd oversight. Maybe something they need to update firmware for?
But also, thinking about that made me realize a bigger "issue", which is that the visual language of orange for charging seems wrong. It communicates "you shouldn't disconnect right now unless you have to; I'm not fully charged", which is in conflict with actual guidance for LiPo batteries. Has Apple had this wrong for decades and nobody noticed?
