MacOS Tahoe Public Beta is here and that means you can get your hands on the latest macOS update and all its exciting new features without needing a developer account. And if you choose to walk down that path, there are a lot of good things waiting for you.
I’ve been using MacOS Tahoe Beta for a few weeks now and there’s a lot I’ve come to love by it. From the floating glass native design to the totally renewed spotlight, I have found that it was a meaningful upgrade over MacOS Sequoia. Here are five of my favorite MacOS Tahoe features that you want to try as soon as you download the public beta.
If you want more information about the next big upgrade of MacOS, you can check out our MacOS Tahoe Superguide.
Liquid glass
The floating glass native design has been on everyone’s lips since Apple lifted the lid on it at the company’s worldwide developer conference in June. It is a complete reimagination of the appearance and feeling of macOS – Gone is the flat design, replaced by a number of transparent elements that carry more than a hint of skeuomorphism.
Liquid Glass has been pretty divisive so far, and it’s easy to find people who consider to be either the best or the worst thing Apple has ever done. But most of the controversy seems to come from its implementation in iOS 26, where overlapping elements can often make it difficult to read text and buttons. In macOS, however, this is far less a problem.
I’ve used Betas from iOS 26, Watchos 26 and Macos Tahoe, and I’ve found that macos is by far the most natural home for liquid glass. With a more expansive display, there are fewer overlapping elements that destroy the experience. Instead, you get all the attractive glassiness – with lights shining through apps and wrestling elements wherever you see – in a much more comfortable setting.
With MacOS Tahoe, you can customize the transparency of the icons to your liking.
Foundry
One of my favorite aspects of liquid glass is the dock. I have chosen to keep my dock icons in their regular solid colors because the transparent option feels like it is pushing the glass a little too far. It gives me a number of colorful icons that rest on top of a sheet of frosted glass and the effect is beautiful. It is a subtle difference compared to MacOS Sequoia, but my Mac feels the better.
The subtlety is perhaps what makes liquid glass feel much better on macos than on iOS. On my iPhone it is difficult to ignore the glass elements. They are everywhere. At Mac, however, they are much more reluctant. You see them when you move a slider or when you open the control center, but that is not the case in your face as it is with iOS. It makes it much easier to appreciate.
By default, the MacOS Tahoe menu bar is transparent. Frankly, I love this little change to Mac -Interface. Looking at older versions of macos, a solid menu bar now feels a little clumsy compared to a clear. But if you like a menu bar with background, you can bring it back in the System Settings app. The choice is yours.
There are additional menu barbarian settings in MacOS Tahoe that you want to try. You can now decide which third -party apps can be displayed in the menu bar on an individual basis, giving you more control over how stacked this area will be.
In MacOS Tahoe, the Control Center can now appear as icons in the menu bar.
Foundry
But maybe the best change is associated with the control center. Instead of leaving the widgets and buttons exclusively in the control center, you can also drag them into your menu bar. Everything from a button to start your screen saving to a quick control to tile windows can now live at the top of your screen, which just puts them a click away.
More intelligent shortcuts
The app on shortcuts has long been one of the most underrated aspects of macOS. With MacOS Tahoe, it has gained a much needed love for the addition of Apple Intelligence features.
Shortcuts now support Apple Intelligence features.
Foundry
This opens the door to a pile of powerful and interesting workflows driven by artificial intelligence (AI). For example, you can ask Apple Intelligence to compare an audio recording with notes you took from a meeting, and then get it to fill any missing items.
One of the best implementations of this is with Apple Intelligence’s rewrite features. If you are stuck on how to put something – or just want some more ideas that you may not have thought of yourself – you can build a shortcut that takes your text and reformulates it into something very snappers.
The shortcut app has also been given automation functionality, which finally brings it up to speed with its iOS equivalent. I have waited an absolute age for this and it gives you all kinds of powerful options such as creating a folder that automatically converts file formats to everything you let go of it or postpone a number of actions when you open a designated app. It’s taken a long time to get hit, but it’s better late than never.
Brand new spotlight
One of the biggest renewals in MacOS Tahoe has come to spotlight. The Search-Bar-Cum app lancer has got a new set of super powers and has become even more useful. As a result, you often do not need to start another app at all.
You can perform tasks within Spotlight instead of opening an app. For example, you can create a calendar event without opening calendar.
Foundry
For example, to write an E email, open your E -Mail client and click around a lot of menus to send your message. With the new spotlight you can simply turn into an E -mail title, receiver and content, then shoot your missive out without ever having to load the mail app.
One of my favorite uses for this functionality is quick to create new calendar events. It helps me to manage my day and add new tasks to my weekly plans, all within Spotlight.
With the addition of the Quick Keys feature, do everything that requires even less effort. With quick keys, you can assign a shortcut to any action you can perform in Spotlight. For example, with my calendar, I have set “NE” as my shortcut to create a new event. Then I just have to start spotlight, enter my new shortcut, then enter my new event information and tap Return.
When we talk about shortcuts, these are now also integrated into spotlight. When you return to my reformular example above, MacOS Tahoe allows you to highlight some text, bring Spotlight up to find the shortcut, and then run it inside your app. There is no need to launch the shortcut app or even remove the hands from the keyboard.
The living activities you are used to looking at iPhone are now available on Mac.
Foundry
Live activities
The Live Activity feature has been a great addition to iOS that lets you keep up at speed with sports results, deliveries and more from your iPhone’s lock screen. In MacOS Tahoe, live activities are mirrored from your iPhone now on your Mac. Just click on the menu jaw to see a widget of your selected activity.
This may sound like a small feature, but I have actually found that it is extremely useful while working on my Mac. My iPhone is often in my pocket or on another desk away from where I work. If I have something important that I keep track of with a live activity swallow, it is a pain to continue switching between my devices, especially when my iPhone is out of reach.
In MacOS Tahoe, this information is just a click away on my Mac’s desktop. This means fewer interruptions in my work without my losing control of the activity. It’s a great way to cut out of distractions and disturbances and with appropriate demonstrate Apple’s ability to tie its hardware, software and different devices together for a trouble -free experience.