All Liquid Glass changes in macOS Golden Gate

When Liquid Glass launched on macOS Tahoe, Apple faced criticism over how the design looked on the Mac. Some people felt that Liquid Glass in ‌macOS Tahoe‌ was an afterthought with little impact on the design update, while others had issues with contrast, readability, rounded corners, and design consistency. There were long discussions about the complaints on the Woozad forums and on Reddit, and some people refused to update.

Apple is making several changes to Liquid Glass and the overall design of macOS Golden Gate, and while subtle, some of these changes could make Liquid Glass on Mac easier to digest.

Transparency and dissemination

Apple added a full Liquid Glass slider under System Settings > Appearance. It changes the translucency of Liquid Glass elements, and users can choose a clear version of Liquid Glass that lets part of the background show through, select a more opaque, tinted version that improves text readability, or choose something in between.

Unfortunately, no ultra-clear version of Liquid Glass is available with the slider. Even the clearest setting possible doesn’t match the original version of Liquid Glass that Apple showed off at WWDC 2025.

Apple has changed the overall opacity of Liquid Glass and now streams complex content more effectively. Apple says a dark edge and brighter specular highlights establish more depth and separation for the user interface.

Toolbars and Window Shapes

Applications have uniform toolbars to make text headers and groups of commands more readable. Windows also all have the same corner radius for consistency across applications.

‌macOS Tahoe‌

App corners aren’t as radically rounded in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌, and the difference is noticeable.

‌macOS Golden Gate‌

It’s easier to tell when a window is active with the sidebar design, updated opacity, and changes to window shadows.

Sidebars

The sidebars no longer float and are instead edge to edge. It’s a less distracting and more uniform design because there’s no unnecessary sidebar shadow just taking up space.

The sidebar icons have color again, something Apple removed in ‌macOS Tahoe‌.

Icons

Apple hasn’t been shy about requiring circular Mac icons, but it has changed the icon design. Icons feature more layers of liquid glass to improve detail and sharpness in light, dark, tinted, and clear icon modes.

Apple also uses icons for some menu bar items to make commonly used actions easier to find.

HDR

Apple uses HDR for depth and dimension in the ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ interface.

Launch date

‌macOS Golden Gate‌ also includes all the new Siri AI features coming in iOS 27, as well as performance improvements that make the Mac faster.

The update is limited to developers at the moment, but Apple plans to release a public beta in July. ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ will launch this fall.