- macOS 27 Golden Gate has fixed menu icons on your Mac
- Menus are no longer cluttered with unnecessary icons
- It makes it much easier to find things in an instant
Apple’s macOS Tahoe operating system came in for its fair share of criticism, especially when it came to design decisions. One of the most controversial concerned the way it used icons in menus, but it now appears that the macOS 27 Golden Gate introduced at Apple’s WWDC 2026 event has gone all the way back – much to the relief of long-suffering Apple fans. And this has major consequences for everyone who wants a better experience of using their computer.
The problem in macOS Tahoe was that the app menus were cluttered with icons, making it very difficult to tell the difference between menu items at a glance. In macOS 27, it has been completely scrubbed, as noted by programmer Nikita “Tonsky” Prokopov, with most menus now containing only a smattering of icons.
Now, only certain menu items have icons next to them, while others are simple text entries. It restores the menu design to what it used to be and greatly reduces the visual clutter of macOS menus, reducing the work required to separate menu settings.
In addition to the design change, Prokopov noted that Apple has also updated its guidelines for third-party designers, reminding them to “use menu items sparingly and with purpose.” Icons should be used to “highlight the most common actions and key features of your app,” Apple says. If a menu item doesn’t fit an existing icon, it probably shouldn’t be used.
Better late than never
Menu design may seem like a fairly niche attack, but it can have a big impact on how you use your computer.
Having to parse fistfuls of icons every time you open a menu slows you down and can cause frustration. The whole purpose of an icon is to quickly convey meaning – if a menu overflows with icons, the icon’s meaning is quickly lost among the sea of competing visuals. It’s a small thing, but it taps into a wider picture: good design makes a product easy to use; poor design makes it annoying.
The situation was so bad in macOS Tahoe that it left prominent Apple commentators livid. The influential blogger John Gruber, for example, called macOS Tahoe’s menu icons for “glaringly inconsistent and often completely inscrutable.” Respected macOS developer Rogue Amoeba called them “furious.”
This is not the first time Apple has had icon problems. Both macOS Tahoe and iOS 26 came with transparent icons that wiped out your ability to tell icons apart in an instant. It felt like Apple didn’t understand the fundamentals of good design – and this is the company that’s meant to be a global design leader.
For me, the worst part of all this is Apple’s menu design in macOS Tahoe broke his own rules. As pointed out by Prokopov, Apple’s Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines from way back in 1992 said that menus full of icons could “overwhelm the user.” And yet it still went ahead and ignored its own advice in macOS Tahoe anyway, often reusing the same icons for different menu items, sometimes right next to each other.
It all contributed to my dismayed feeling that macOS Tahoe’s visual language was far worse than I first realised. Under now-departed design chief Alan Dye, Apple seemed to naively believe that design meant taking something average and painting it in pretty colors, functionality be damned. In other words, exactly the kind of shallow thinking that Apple founder Steve Jobs railed against in the past.
But with macOS 27 fixing its menu icons and Alan Dye out of the way, things are looking up. Getting things right in your Mac’s menus may be a small step, but it suggests that Apple is starting to remember why good design makes everything better for its users. As Gruber put it, “it’s proof that the rot has been rooted out of Apple’s software design team.”
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