macOS 27 Golden Gate Announced
Much like Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 2009, Apple said it focused on improving macOS’s performance and dozens of underlying technologies this year.
Apple says macOS Golden Gate offers quicker AirDrop transfers, faster network file browsing, improved syncing in the Messages app, better Spotlight search suggestions, and other changes that make your Mac feel “more responsive than ever.”
I had lots of problems installing beta 1 via Software Update, so I recommend downloading the full installer or IPSW. I eventually got it to work by updating to macOS 26.5.1 first (instead of installing on top of 26.4) and by booting into recovery multiple times to use Startup Security Utility to toggle the LocalPolicy from Full Security to Reduced Security and back.
macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta Release Notes:
The Recents list in the open and save panels can be accessed with the keyboard shortcut cmd-shift-f.
[…]
Unified Logging System archives generated on 27.0 releases cannot be read on macOS 26.1 or earlier due to an updated archive format.
[…]
Encrypted HFS+ (CoreStorage) is deprecated and will not be supported in a future version of macOS.
[…]
Starting in 27.0 operating systems, select system processes now enforce stricter network security (TLS) requirements. These new requirements might cause connections to fail if the server does not meet them.
[…]
Devices configured with Reduced Security mode might fail to install macOS 27 beta 1.
[…]
Accessing files in other developer teams’ app data containers and app group containers no longer prompts the user for authorization; such accesses are denied by default and can be managed by the user in Privacy & Security settings.
[…]
Apps can no longer access the local TCC database directly.
Visual Intelligence on macOS Golden Gate 27 is getting a dedicated keyboard shortcut. Similar to the screen capture shortcut, it lets users select portions of the screen and get contextual answers around that. From there, users can also continue the interaction from the Siri app.
When using a wired network adapter with a live connection, macOS now displays a network menu bar item!
I love this “More in Accessibility Settings…”
Apple adds native ultrawide display support in macOS 27 Golden Gate, bringing higher resolutions and persistent display arrangements to users of widescreen monitors.
macOS 27 Golden Gate brings a major improvement to iPhone Mirroring, allowing users to resize the window beyond the iPhone’s fixed aspect ratio for the first time.
Currently, there seem to be several fixed aspect ratios available for resizing the iPhone Mirroring window, meaning the system adjusts the window to the nearest supported shape rather than allowing users to choose any arbitrary aspect ratio.
iPhone Mirroring app has many, many more zoom level options now, which I very much appreciate. Thank you, whoever did that.
See also:
Previously:
- Golden Gate Window Corners
- Golden Gate Sidebars and Toolbars
- Golden Gate Menu Icons
- Liquid Glass 27 Icons
- Liquid Glass 27 Slider
- Glow Leopard
- WWDC 2026 Keynote
- macOS Tahoe 26 Announced
Update (2026-06-11): I’ve retitled this post because it looks like Apple has mostly switched back to the old pattern of putting the OS name after the version number: “macOS Tahoe 26” but “macOS 27 Golden Gate.”
Apple is making several changes to Liquid Glass and the overall macOS Golden Gate design, and while subtle, some of the changes could make Liquid Glass on Mac easier to digest.
Another on my list of small niceties in macOS 27 beta: we have decoupled Show Borders from Increase Contrast for apps using the new design. This is great for people who just want a little more edge definition on UI elements, but don’t want to jump all the way to the weighty color changes of Increase Contrast.
If you’re getting an error trying to install the macOS 27 beta ipsw […] in UTM… I have a solution for you.
Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen:
What appears to be a bug in macOS 27 is preventing a number of users from selecting alternate partitions or drives to boot from. This is having a big impact on Asahi Linux users.
csrutil disable on MacOS 27 beta gives me a manifest signing error. Is disabling SIP broken in beta 1. Or is this a problem with my Mac?
Can we no longer disable SIP in MacOS 27, or what is going on here?
If you are experiencing this, it is probably related to this known issue:
“Devices configured with Reduced Security … might also be prevented from allowing kernel extensions or disabling System Integrity Protection.”
See workaround there.
See also: Hacker News.
Update (2026-06-12): Dan Moren:
From what I can see, Golden Gate still doesn’t offer the ability to access Clipboard History via a single keyboard shortcut (as opposed to hitting command-space and then command-4). And it has no menu bar item, so you can’t even add a custom
New Finder feature in macOS 27: you can paste things from your clipboard into the filesystem. Who else has been asking for this one? 😄
Juli Clover has a roundup of what’s new.
Update (2026-06-16): Mike Wuerthele:
We’ve had macOS 27 for all of four days at this point, and there may already be a show-stopping problem for folks that hang on to RAID enclosures. We’ve found several that just don’t work under macOS 27.
Based on the listed improvements shown at WWDC, the performance benchmarks thus far, and my own personal experiences using the MacBook Air, I could definitely say it’s chalking up to be a real Snow Leopard kinda OS release, and I’m curious to see what else was improved but unlisted.
He has lots of screenshots.
Siri Menu Bar icon history
Update (2026-06-17): Ryan Christoffel:
Over the past day, Apple has updated a variety of its Mac-focused support pages to replace macOS version names with version numbers instead.
Every year, people seem to forget how the WWDC betas work:
1) Apple often waits until later builds to release breaking changes, because they want us to start testing our app compatibility ASAP, or perhaps just because Apple wasn’t yet finished writing stuff.
2) The bad bugs in the new OS are often discovered later, sometimes not until after September.
Update (2026-06-25): Howard Oakley:
Now the second developer beta-release of Golden Gate is available, Apple’s release notes are giving further details of features that are being deprecated or removed. This article gives a summary of those that I know about.
3 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
They removed menubar icons, mostly, but mostly doesn't get full credit not even close, there are still a few remaining ones and they suck. They de-rounded the window corners a bit, because they can't admit they fd up and make them the same as Sequoia. The handle for slider controls still turns into an ugly glass blob when you move it and it stretches in an ugly way when in motion. Toolbars are still hideous with the hideous popout buttons for the touchscreen Macs coming soon that almost no one asked for. Safari tabs are really really bad still and the Safari titlebar and tab area is still translucent which makes the content of certain tabs bleed through in a horrible ugly way. On the positive they added a transparency slider that does almost nothing as a primary fu to us haters. Overall: barely anything changes, 27 is almost as horrible and hideous as 26. If you hated 26, you're definitely going to hate 27. Staying on Sequoia indefinitely, Apple has communicated clearly for 2 years now that they will keep going on this stupid path.
"we have decoupled Show Borders from Increase Contrast"
The screenshot with borders looks so much better, it's not even funny. How is that not the default?
"What appears to be a bug in macOS 27..."
https://social.treehouse.systems/@chaos_princess/116725464410069062
+1 to Plume, what a difference those borders make, so much better. Link further up the page, or: https://tech.lgbt/@jnadeau/116722266648560507
