soheilproMar 21

Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

https://512pixels.net/2026/03/hide-macos-tahoes-menu-icons-with-this-one-simple-trick/

Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons With This One Simple Trick - 512 Pixels

I really dislike Apple’s choice to clutter macOS Tahoe’s menus with icons. It makes menus hard to scan, and a bunch of the icons Apple has chosen make no sense and are inconsistent between system applications. Steve Troughton-Smith is my hero for finding a Terminal command to disable them: Here’s one for the icons-in-menus haters […]

512 Pixels
Show threadneom
I was really happy when they added the pictures! Dyslexia, the icons are 100% faster for me, I don't use those menus often enough to know what is in there word wise, but I can read the icons super fast.
Mar 21 at 10:26pmWeb
Show threadcosmoticMar 21
How can you read the icons if they mean different things in different apps?
Show threadLeoPantheraMar 22
Can you provide some examples of this? In my experience, they're quite consistent.
Show threadOJFordMar 22
https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/ (second section on consistency)
It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons

Looking at the first principles of icon design—and how Apple failed to apply all of them in macOS Tahoe

tonsky.me
Show threadthenthenthenMar 22
The later examples are pretty wild, 3 different ‘minimize’ icons? Why? Different teams?
Show threadinatreecrown2Mar 22
This guy is doing free design work/critique for Apple
Show threadhirvi74Mar 22
A lot of those icon examples are being rather disingenuous. Some of the icon symbol changes amongst the various apps are justified because the actions being represented are different despite using the same English word. Take the "New" icon example. Adding a new reminder is not the same thing conceptually as creating a new note.
Show threadCrestwaveMar 22
Here's an in-depth analysis (also linked in the OP): https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/
It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons

Looking at the first principles of icon design—and how Apple failed to apply all of them in macOS Tahoe

tonsky.me
Show threadneomMar 22
A lot of the examples in here, I can't find? Like, I looked around for the new smart folder with the cog icon, where is it on my mac? Same with save as check, where is that? Also I'm pretty sure (although I can't find it) the save as with the up arrow is save as out to something? The ones I do find, all make perfect sense and work pretty well for me, they're not totally perfect but I'd never thought about them much before this post and I use them almost exclusively. Look at all his new for example, see new finder window? Look at the box around it, then open your window menu at the top of your screen, see how minimize has the same box around it? If you go though those icons set, most of them have: primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary visual clues. I dunno, I read that blog post and it doesn't really jive with me. I'm sure they could stand to clean it up a bit, I don't know I'm not a designer, but I'm certainly glad they are there!!! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Show threadarmMar 22
New Smart Folder with a cogwheel icon is in the File menu of Notes.app, while New Smart Folder with a folder+cogwheel icon is in the File menu of Finder.app.
Show threadneomMar 22
Thanks! I don't use the notes app, cog is not the best icon for that but I suppose it's differentiated from the file system version, if I read them both the same I might be confused, but not sure why they selected cog!!!
Show threadgarbagewomanMar 22
Yeah should be an accessibility setting for the few users who need it
Show threadsmohareMar 22
[dead]
Show threadGagarin1917Mar 22

It shouldn’t even be just you and others with dyslexia either.

Processing images is always faster than processing text for everyone.

Show threadsteve_adams_86Mar 22

I would argue this is only true when the image is apt. In Tahoe I don't think this is always true. The lack of consistency in layout and presence of icons is also visually difficult to process. The signal to noise ratio of the icon gutter is very poor.

I like it in theory but the execution seems more harmful than helpful so far. If I'm wrong and it's helping some people, that's great.

Show threadlayer8Mar 22
It depends on the images. Processing a dozen of very similar-looking small gray blobs isn’t fast. Recognizing the text labels is faster for many people. The text labels also have visual structure within a menu by their different lengths that the icons don’t.
Show threadnopakosMar 22
So it should be an accessibility setting. I don't mind if the default is on or off.
Show threadneomMar 22
Yeah I agree, this would be ideal, I actually thought this post was pretty funny because I couldn't imagine anyone wanting them off, and I suppose some people think it's funny I like them. :)
Show threadtroupoMar 22

In article we discuss has a link to this article: https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2025/icons-in-menus/ Which has a good paragraph with an example:

--- start quote ---

Get a bunch of people in a room, show them menus where the textual labels are gone, and see who can get the most right.

--- end quote ---

Icons won't help you when they are inconsistent, or don't mean anything.

It's impossible to find a suitable visual metaphor for every possible action of every possible app and cram it into a tiny monochrome icon.

Icons in Menus Everywhere — Send Help

Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.

Show threadwolvoleoMar 22

The problem isn't just the icons but the inconsistency. This link mentioned in the source article illustrates it well: https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/

For a company that used to pride itself on its clean and consistent UI, this is really shoddy work. It feels like Microsoft now, every app designed by a different team and nobody coordinating together.

And this would have been a really minor job to coordinate properly. It probably would have saved time in fact having predefined icons for common functions. Now theres been 8 designers working on a different icon for the same function. It seems just complete disinterest in consistency. "Just do whatever" is not the apple way.

It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons

Looking at the first principles of icon design—and how Apple failed to apply all of them in macOS Tahoe

tonsky.me