I’ve been testing macOS Tahoe for weeks, and these are the five features I can’t live without

The 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 do choose to go down that path, there’s a lot of good stuff waiting for you.

I’ve been using the macOS Tahoe beta for a few weeks now, and there’s a lot I’ve come to love about it. From the Liquid Glass redesign to the totally revamped Spotlight, I’ve found it to be a meaningful upgrade over macOS Sequoia. Here are five of my favorite macOS Tahoe features that you’ll want to try as soon as you download the public beta.

If you want more information about the next major upgrade of macOS, check out our macOS Tahoe superguide.

Liquid Glass

The Liquid Glass redesign has been on everyone’s lips since Apple lifted the lid on it at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. It’s a complete reimagining of the look and feel of macOS–gone is the flat design, replaced by a slew of transparent elements that carry more than a hint of skeuomorphism.

Liquid Glass has been fairly divisive so far, and it’s easy to find people who deem it to be either the best or the worst thing that Apple has ever done. But most of the controversy seems to stem from its implementation in iOS 26, where overlapping elements can often make it hard to read text and buttons. In macOS, though, that’s far less of a problem.

I’ve been using the betas of 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 ruin the experience. Instead, you get all the attractive glassiness–with light shining through apps and refractive elements everywhere you look–in a much more comfortable setting.

One of my favorite aspects of Liquid Glass is the Dock. I’ve opted to keep my Dock icons in their regular solid colors because the transparent option feels like it’s pushing the glass a little too far. That gives me a range of colorful icons resting on top of a sheet of frosted glass, and the effect is gorgeous. It’s a subtle difference compared to macOS Sequoia, but my Mac feels all the better for it.

The subtlety is perhaps what makes Liquid Glass feel much better on macOS than on iOS. On my iPhone, it’s hard to ignore the glass elements. They’re everywhere. On the Mac, though, they are much more restrained. You see them when moving a slider, or when opening the Control Center, but it’s not so in your face as it is with iOS. That makes it much easier to appreciate.

By default, the macOS Tahoe menu bar is transparent. Honestly, I love this small change to the Mac interface. Looking at older versions of macOS, a solid menu bar now feels a little clunky compared to a clear one. But if you like a menu bar with a background, you can bring it back in the System Settings app. The choice is yours.

There are further menu bar options in macOS Tahoe that you’re going to want to try. You can now decide which third-party apps can appear in the menu bar on an individual basis, giving you more control over how stacked up this area gets.

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But perhaps the best change is linked to the Control Center. Instead of leaving widgets and buttons solely in the Control Center, you can also drag them into your menu bar. Everything from a button to start your screen saver to a quick control to tile windows can now live at the top of your screen, putting them just a click away.

More intelligent shortcuts

The Shortcuts app has long been one of the most underrated aspects of macOS. With macOS Tahoe, it’s gotten some much-needed love with the addition of Apple Intelligence features.

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This opens the door to a heap of powerful and interesting workflows powered by artificial intelligence (AI). For example, you can ask Apple Intelligence to compare an audio recording with notes you took from a meeting, then get it to fill in any missing blanks.

One of the best implementations of this is with Apple Intelligence’s rewriting capabilities. If you’re stuck on how to phrase something–or just want some more ideas that you might not have thought of yourself–you can build a shortcut that takes your text and rephrases it into something much snappier.

The Shortcuts app has also gained automation functionality, finally bringing it up to speed with its iOS equivalent. I’ve waited an absolute age for this, and it gives you all kinds of powerful options, like creating a folder that automatically converts file formats for anything you drop into it, or setting off a series of actions when you open a designated app. It’s taken a long time to get here, but it’s better late than never.

All-new Spotlight

One of the biggest revamps in macOS Tahoe has come to Spotlight. The search-bar-cum-app-launcher has been granted a new set of superpowers and has become even more useful. As a result, you often don’t need to launch another app at all.

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For instance, to write an email, you normally need to open your email client and click around a bunch of menus to send your message. With the new Spotlight, you can simply punch in an email title, recipient and contents, then fire off your missive without ever having to load the Mail app.

One of my favorite uses for this functionality is to quickly create new calendar events. That helps me manage my day and add new work assignments to my weekly plans, all from within Spotlight.

With the addition of the Quick Keys feature, doing all 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’ve set “ne” as my shortcut to creating a new event. Then I just have to launch Spotlight, enter my new shortcut, then type in my new event details and press Return.

Speaking of shortcuts, these are now integrated into Spotlight as well. Going back to my rephrasing example above, macOS Tahoe lets you highlight some text, bring up Spotlight to find the shortcut, then run it from inside your app. There’s no need to launch the Shortcuts app or even take your hands off the keyboard.

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Live Activities

The Live Activities feature has been a great addition to iOS, letting you stay up to speed with sports scores, deliveries, and more from your iPhone’s Lock screen. In macOS Tahoe, Live Activities from your iPhone are now mirrored on your Mac. Just click the menu bar icon to see a widget of your chosen activity.

This might sound like a small feature, but I’ve actually found it to be extremely useful while working on my Mac. My iPhone is often in my pocket or on another desk away from where I’m working. If I’ve got something important that I’m keeping track of with a Live Activity widget, it’s a pain to keep switching between my devices, especially when my iPhone is out of reach.

In macOS Tahoe, that information is just a click away on my Mac’s desktop. It means fewer interruptions to my work, without my losing track of the activity. It’s a great way to cut out distractions and disruptions and aptly demonstrates Apple’s ability to tie its hardware, software, and disparate devices together into one seamless experience.