Six lesser-known features to like in the macOS 26 Tahoe public beta

Apple released the macOS 26 Tahoe public beta today, alongside the public betas for iOS, iPadOS, and other operating systems.

The headliner this year is the new Liquid Glass aesthetic that Apple is introducing across its entire product lineup this year, and aside from that, there's nothing coming to the Mac that feels quite as significant as the iPad's new multi-window multitasking interface.

But macOS remains Apple's most powerful, most flexible, and most power-user-friendly operating system, and per usual, there are a few new things coming in other than the big headliners. Here are a handful of under-the-hood and lesser-publicized things coming in Tahoe, both for those who install the public beta this summer and who install the final version of the update in the fall.

Full color customization

Since introducing Dark Mode in macOS 10.14 Mojave in 2018, macOS has included a handful of toggles for customizing the overall look of your Mac. Tahoe supercharges that, adding not just the relatively well-publicized dark and translucent icon options and colorful Finder folders, but splitting up some existing options so that they can be customized independently. The result is a version of macOS that's more visually flexible than anything we've seen since the old Mac OS Appearance Manager was still a thing.

These are the appearance settings that Tahoe will let you customize independently:

• Whether windows and apps are in Light or Dark mode.
• Whether icons and widgets are in Light mode, Dark mode, transparent mode, or tinted mode.
• The color of your folders, which also controls the tint of icons and widgets in tinted mode.
• Your text highlight color.
• Your "theme" color. This dictates the color used for things like menu selections and buttons in various apps. By default, your text highlight color and folder color also track this selection, but you can change them if you want.
• This isn't new to Tahoe, but if you want to add even more color, go into the Display settings in Accessibility and mess with your pointer outline and fill color.