I accidentally hit the wrong button a few weeks ago and upgraded to Tahoe. I didn't think it was that big a deal at the time, I'd just been putting it off.
But having used it for a few weeks now I can confirm it is a strict downgrade over Sequoia for me. I use none of the new features it has introduced, and the changes to existing features are just worse.
Some UI animations are slow and jittery - and this is on an M4 Pro. The Finder has gone from fine to janky once again, especially with horizontal scroll. The window corners and mouse interactions are indeed annoying (I'd assumed the many complaints were at least slight hyperbole). Left-aligned window titles are unbalanced and ugly. I've had weird (visual) app duplication issues with the Application smart-folder in the Dock. Cross-device copy-paste SEEMS to be more flaky than usual. And most petty of all I really don't like the new icons - especially the Trash icon for some reason.
I don't know, I started using a Mac only 3 years ago when joining my current job. The UX always felt so wrong on every matter to me. I don't get where the reputation came from, maybe from an era that was already only mere memory when I started to use it.
I would pick a default bare gnome 3 agaisnt any Mac os version UX without any hesitation.
With a lot of tools from third parties, it puts back the level to supportable, but that's the highest satisfaction level it ever procured to me. Rectangle and some alternative window switcher plus brew are the minimum to survive without going crazy after 2 minutes of exposition. Having finder always present in window switcher and no way to close/hide it? What a monstrosity!
I'm still looking for a working solution to select and paste with middle click.
I did the same mistake a few weeks ago ; my company enforces security updates and I picked the Tahoe update instead of the security one. I told myself, what the hell, might as well give it a try!
I wiped my computer and reinstalled Sequoia last week.
Some UI animations are slow and jittery - and this is on an M4 Pro.
It's clear that no one at Apple (or any other big tech company these days) has ever watched old demoscene productions, then contemplated their performance against the available computing power of their current products and the experience thereof, and thought "something is very wrong".
I also accidentally upgraded due dark pattern of auto-selecting Sequoia instead of update for Sonoma. Now my external monitor won't wake up when waking my macbook from sleep (in clamshell mode, lid always closed). Nothing fixes it, beyond infuriating.
Good to know. My dad recently asked and I didn't know the pros/cons. I haven't upgraded but that's because I don't have a need to. He has a new Mac mini, and I thought it might make sense for him. But it sounds like it's not an upgrade, and is possibly a downgrade, especially if it will make things harder to find.
I have Tahoe on my work laptop and Sequoia on my personal desktop, and the thing that keeps me the most rooted on Sequoia is the padding. Everything on Tahoe is padded to hell and back. And the new tab design sucks so much. iTerm2 tabs look fucking terrible in it.
Just wanted to comment to see if I can help answer any questions as well as mentioning that we improved the instructions in the README based on some of the points Rob made a few weeks back.
There really are a large number of us out there that know Tahoe would be a downgrade to their current setup
If you have any ideas on how to improve the resilience of the workarounds, please connect on the GitHub, or just starring the repo would help, as the project would get more attention and hopefully more solutions offered as a result.
It's frustrating to feel like your computer isn't.. yours anymore when you're pushed so insistently like with this "upgrade". Hopefully we can figure out some sustainable ways to get some autonomy back.
I just wanted to thank you for this work. I wouldn’t have known where to start. Reading about all the hoops to jump through I can’t help but think that macOS is getting ever closer to being malware, just like Windows. An OS you have to fight to stay productive. I’ve been a Mac user since 1995, but the way this has been going over so many years now, I can’t imagine my next computer to be yet another Mac any more. I have been forced to view Linux as the last refuge. It was nice while it lasted, but eventually Stallman was right the whole time.
You’ll be disappointed to learn that the deferral is 90 days from the release of the major OS version, not 90 days from when the configuration is set. There appears to be a bug in the delay logic in 15.7.3, but you really shouldn’t be running that — there are some important security fixes in 15.7.4.
Dear Apple, no latency from brain to action is the greatest design you can possibly have. We want to feel one with the machine. That's the greatest joy and difference between a Mac and a Windows machine. Adding latency to the fastest machine possible is criminal. Please STOP DOING IT with unnecessary animations.
I think you're in the wrong ecosystem if you don't like animations. Over the top animations have been at the core of Apple, I still remember the "drop in the water" animation of OS X Tiger's Dashboard. 20 years ago.
A few weeks ago Apple had a tiny (<10MB) update for media codecs ready to install on my MBP. I expanded the details for that software update and saw that if I had run it, it would also have downloaded and installed Tahoe. Apple is burning so much trust right now with these dark patterns.
Upgrading to Sequoia was a mistake, and so was upgrading to Tahoe.
I like new and shiny software, but these two releases aren't great. Outside of a good amount of bugs. It is wild to me that Apple can't even get their own UI consistent.
Apples own apps are pretty much the only things you can't close. Finder: can't quit. System settings, somehow doesn't expand horizontally (are we still in the 2000s apple?) I haven't felt the liquid glass or whatever too much on the laptop, but I just used one of my family members Iphone today, and man it was distracting, it seems crazy that contrast has gone out the window.
But especially the bugs. Apple should really take a release that is just bug fixing. I had to switch out Spotlight because it kept trying to want to index my entire system, which is hard when you work in both Rust and typescript projects (lots of small files).
Apple is and always has been a hardware company. I would like to use the Linux ecosystem, however there’s simply no laptop other than Mac that is light and powerful and runs 15 hours in battery.
I just don't get the resistance to Tahoe, and I speak as a macOS power user through a couple decades.
Been on Tahoe now for a few weeks. The new rounded corners bug me a bit, but aside from that it's been rock stable. The trick with macOS is of course not to immediately upgrade. Give it a few weeks before you go to a new release.
I've been through all the releases since Jaguar in 2003. There's been some ups and downs, and a lot of complaints, but I'd say it still remains the most rock solid UNIX™ desktop OS out there.
> but I'd say it still remains the most rock solid UNIX™ desktop OS out there
That doesn't mean that they aren't still constantly making it worse.
Apple themselves note that most of the new features in the OS are "design" and "apple intelligence". I really don't care for these features, so I don't really care to upgrade. Even on the Tahoe page, they note many of the features as updates to individual apps themselves, so why can't they just release those as individual app updates?
I'd rather have a solid OS with a UI that isn't re-imagined every other year with more focus on usability improvements and bug fixes. And as you note, it is one of the most solid UNIX™ desktop OS'.
So when Apple puts out a major update that I think is going in the wrong direction, how else should I signal my distaste? I sent feedback. I posted on their customer forums (which are a terrible place for discussion btw). Now I just want to not update, but they use dark patterns to try to force it on me. So I'm going to be more annoying and vocal about it because I think they can and should do better.
I'm not a huge fan of Tahoe's aesthetics, but the response has been near hysterical. It's fine. Apple has done much worse (iOS 7 - present).
I wish some of the anger being directed at rounded corners would be redirected at the rapidly accumulating list of long-standing bugs in macOS instead.
I’ve used Little Snitch to block the installation of Tahoe. I get a notification every few days, it when I click on it there’s a message that it can’t download the update. Massive stress reducer knowing I can’t accidentally upgrade to Tahoe.
so we're all going to hold onto sequoia like we did snow leopard. only reason i'm not buying a new mac at the moment is because it would force me to upgrade.
the situation is absurd ..
fwiw switching to the sequoia beta channel in system settings killed the nag notifications for me (I believe the profile as defined in OP will stop all updates - which you probably don't want)
There were times when we couldn't await to upgrade to the next Mac OS version. Tahoe is not one of those versions.
Already iOS 26 made me consider switching to Android, and now I've pondered returning to Linux after 26 years on Mac OS. Bizarrely, right now it's the quality of the hardware alone holding me at Mac OS. Wouldn't have expected that 6 or 7 years ago.
Sick of the forced UI refreshes and "modern" designs. Will Apple understand again this is where I work and basically live in and not some kind of entertainment system where I need design refreshes so it feels all shiny and new?
I'm curious about what updates will get pushed through that channel. Is it just RTM updates, or will it also include beta updates? It's currently offering 15.7.5 through that channel.
It's possible if you do a wipe and do a fresh install. You essentially boot into the Sequoia installer. I'm also looking at possibly picking up a M5 MBP and was the first things I looked into.
I got a work computer that was on Sonoma and had to update. Was prepared to be angry, especially after the time spent updating, and then it's eh, fine. The picture of Lake Tahoe makes me happy.
The biggest annoyance for me is the removal of Firewire support with Tahoe. That’s why I keep Sequoia for the time being. I’ll probably create a new APFS volume and dual boot with Sequoia for the foreseeable future for Firewire support.
What mac hardware still has Firewire ports? My exposure to their hardware is mostly limited to the Macbooks of coworkers and family members, but I didn't realize there was any overlap between Tahoe support (seems to only go back to hardware released around 2020) and Firewire ports (seems to only go forward to hardware released around 2012).
Comments here paints Tahoe very poorly, and I trust comments here on this topic. This is very bad for Apple as OS from new Macs can not be downgraded and customers like myself will either delay purchases til hopefully next OS fix these issues (not having high hopes) or buy in the 2nd hand market for older OS.
> Run the script as described in the project's Read Me
I don’t think this warrants a whole installer script – if you replace UUIDs by hand, you can as well read through the .mobileconfig file and make sure you understand what the profile does, then double click it to install :)
Note that you might also want to remove some other entries from the profile, as, from a glance, those might still delay minor updates by 30 days. (Or does `forceDelayedSoftwareUpdates=false` make these harmless?)
I’ve been a pretty die hard Mac user for 25-odd years now (I own a HomePod, for fuck sake), but this is the first time I’ve taken pains to _not_ update to the latest OS. The Tahoe UI/UX is really just inexcusable, and nothing else I’ve heard or seen makes me willing to put up with it. I’m very much hoping they course correct soon, but as sits, my Linux box is suddenly starting to look like the future.
I'm the guy who installs OS betas on their main/only devices (going back to Windows Vista beta) and I don’t think I'll be installing this OS anytime soon. I'm more hoping that they get their act together by September 2026's release.
Might as well just rip off the band aid and learn to suck it up. Fixing Windows and MacOS with these fucking shitty hacks and doesn't work forever. You will be upgraded, like it or not, or be harassed the rest of your life to do so.
Adding my opinion: Sequoia was fine and so is Tahoe on a base M2. Can't say I've noticed a usability difference. I also prefer using a trackpad over a mouse and I don't know very many keyboard shortcuts, and I only use one monitor.
Thank you. I own several Macs. One is on Tahoe. It feels the worst. More than myself, though, I need to give my less technical family members a respite from the tricky traps that lead to inadvertently installing it.
As bad as it is, I don't think it is bad in ways that non technical users are likely to notice unfortunately. Mostly because I think years of horrible software have trained people to not have expectations.
Tahoe is still a breath of fresh air compared to Windows, and iOS 26 is still great compared to Android (as I've unfortunately learned from a failed switch attempt).
Still on Sonoma, don't plan to upgrade, I'm sick of upgrades that break everything or change the UI for the worse. Does anyone know how to block the "there is a new version" popup for Pages etc?
I’ve got two linux desktops and a mac. Combined, the linux desktops hit issues far less often than the mac.
The Linux desktop environment I use (LXDE) is not perfect, but it hits fewer issues than Mac OS. For instance, my Linux box doesn’t try to melt due to finder reindexing, and alt-tab works. Also, I don’t have to position the mouse cursor outside the window to resize (that bug predates tahoe, fwiw). I haven’t had any system services or local IPC crap wedge on Linux like they do on MacOS (I have seen systemd wedge those sorts of things, so I don’t use it).
The integration with iMessage, Notes, Photos and phone calls are clear wins for the mac, but that’s about it.
Some people would say you need nvidia+linux for local inference, but, in practice, AMD iGPU and Apple Silicon both work well (and you can get 32GB of unified ram for much less than a 32GB video card), and the ecosystems are fine. So, I’d call that a tie for anything that can reasonably be called a personal computer or workstation. Some people would argue Linux wins.
If you grab a copy of devuan and slap steam on top of it, then it’ll be able to run far more commercial and open source games than MacOS.
As a daily driver, Linux on a modern vanilla SoC box comes with far less day-to-day hassle. (It’s getting the same level of “we actually tried this exact config” as MacOS does.)
Anyway, I wouldn’t really claim Linux has “issues” vs macos at this point.
The constant, exhausting, and frankly pointless changes to macos is really driving me back to rolling my own desktop on freebsd or linux. At least under that environment nothing changes unless I change it.
DavidPiper|1 day ago
But having used it for a few weeks now I can confirm it is a strict downgrade over Sequoia for me. I use none of the new features it has introduced, and the changes to existing features are just worse.
Some UI animations are slow and jittery - and this is on an M4 Pro. The Finder has gone from fine to janky once again, especially with horizontal scroll. The window corners and mouse interactions are indeed annoying (I'd assumed the many complaints were at least slight hyperbole). Left-aligned window titles are unbalanced and ugly. I've had weird (visual) app duplication issues with the Application smart-folder in the Dock. Cross-device copy-paste SEEMS to be more flaky than usual. And most petty of all I really don't like the new icons - especially the Trash icon for some reason.
psychoslave|11 hours ago
I would pick a default bare gnome 3 agaisnt any Mac os version UX without any hesitation.
With a lot of tools from third parties, it puts back the level to supportable, but that's the highest satisfaction level it ever procured to me. Rectangle and some alternative window switcher plus brew are the minimum to survive without going crazy after 2 minutes of exposition. Having finder always present in window switcher and no way to close/hide it? What a monstrosity!
I'm still looking for a working solution to select and paste with middle click.
Glad I don't have to use it out of work.
charles_f|21 hours ago
I wiped my computer and reinstalled Sequoia last week.
userbinator|13 hours ago
It's clear that no one at Apple (or any other big tech company these days) has ever watched old demoscene productions, then contemplated their performance against the available computing power of their current products and the experience thereof, and thought "something is very wrong".
TuxSH|23 hours ago
Itoldmyselfso|5 hours ago
apparent|23 hours ago
Hamuko|1 day ago
gib444|1 day ago
On an M4 Pro! Pure planned obsecelence. Noticed it regularly with major MacOS releases. Nothing will convince me otherwise.
travisvn|20 hours ago
Just wanted to comment to see if I can help answer any questions as well as mentioning that we improved the instructions in the README based on some of the points Rob made a few weeks back.
There really are a large number of us out there that know Tahoe would be a downgrade to their current setup
If you have any ideas on how to improve the resilience of the workarounds, please connect on the GitHub, or just starring the repo would help, as the project would get more attention and hopefully more solutions offered as a result.
It's frustrating to feel like your computer isn't.. yours anymore when you're pushed so insistently like with this "upgrade". Hopefully we can figure out some sustainable ways to get some autonomy back.
p_ing|12 hours ago
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/software-update-p...
tempodox|18 hours ago
MagerValp|13 hours ago
the-mitr|18 hours ago
dzink|22 hours ago
halapro|22 hours ago
seabass|20 hours ago
treesknees|9 hours ago
Paddyz|19 hours ago
[deleted]
kjuulh|23 hours ago
I like new and shiny software, but these two releases aren't great. Outside of a good amount of bugs. It is wild to me that Apple can't even get their own UI consistent.
Apples own apps are pretty much the only things you can't close. Finder: can't quit. System settings, somehow doesn't expand horizontally (are we still in the 2000s apple?) I haven't felt the liquid glass or whatever too much on the laptop, but I just used one of my family members Iphone today, and man it was distracting, it seems crazy that contrast has gone out the window.
But especially the bugs. Apple should really take a release that is just bug fixing. I had to switch out Spotlight because it kept trying to want to index my entire system, which is hard when you work in both Rust and typescript projects (lots of small files).
fidotron|1 day ago
Linux + KDE surpassed Windows many years ago, now I find I also prefer it to the Mac laptops, which are otherwise better only for portability.
Apple need to get their software act together. Such a shame because the hardware is awesome. A near perfect inversion of the era of Tiger on the G4.
blahgeek|20 hours ago
OsrsNeedsf2P|22 hours ago
sgt|10 hours ago
Been on Tahoe now for a few weeks. The new rounded corners bug me a bit, but aside from that it's been rock stable. The trick with macOS is of course not to immediately upgrade. Give it a few weeks before you go to a new release.
I've been through all the releases since Jaguar in 2003. There's been some ups and downs, and a lot of complaints, but I'd say it still remains the most rock solid UNIX™ desktop OS out there.
skort|2 hours ago
That doesn't mean that they aren't still constantly making it worse.
Apple themselves note that most of the new features in the OS are "design" and "apple intelligence". I really don't care for these features, so I don't really care to upgrade. Even on the Tahoe page, they note many of the features as updates to individual apps themselves, so why can't they just release those as individual app updates?
I'd rather have a solid OS with a UI that isn't re-imagined every other year with more focus on usability improvements and bug fixes. And as you note, it is one of the most solid UNIX™ desktop OS'.
So when Apple puts out a major update that I think is going in the wrong direction, how else should I signal my distaste? I sent feedback. I posted on their customer forums (which are a terrible place for discussion btw). Now I just want to not update, but they use dark patterns to try to force it on me. So I'm going to be more annoying and vocal about it because I think they can and should do better.
troad|7 hours ago
I wish some of the anger being directed at rounded corners would be redirected at the rapidly accumulating list of long-standing bugs in macOS instead.
pier25|1 day ago
egb|23 hours ago
JSR_FDED|21 hours ago
schmeichel|17 hours ago
lapcat|21 hours ago
Blocking mobileassetd should stop that:
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2026/1/6.html
nikcub|17 hours ago
the situation is absurd ..
fwiw switching to the sequoia beta channel in system settings killed the nag notifications for me (I believe the profile as defined in OP will stop all updates - which you probably don't want)
ProllyInfamous|11 hours ago
I'm getting old enough that it's rational thinking: pre-AI/pre-Tahoe operating systems will be accompany me into death.
lapcat|9 hours ago
jedberg|18 hours ago
However, I'm running Sequoa developer beta. In my system settings under Beta updates, I have "Sequoia developer beta" selected.
At this point it's basically just getting the Sequoa security patches a few days early. But I guess it also suppresses this message?
warpspin|10 hours ago
Already iOS 26 made me consider switching to Android, and now I've pondered returning to Linux after 26 years on Mac OS. Bizarrely, right now it's the quality of the hardware alone holding me at Mac OS. Wouldn't have expected that 6 or 7 years ago.
Sick of the forced UI refreshes and "modern" designs. Will Apple understand again this is where I work and basically live in and not some kind of entertainment system where I need design refreshes so it feels all shiny and new?
dont__panic|20 hours ago
kgwgk|9 hours ago
burnt-resistor|19 hours ago
bouke|13 hours ago
thecopy|1 day ago
mhurron|1 day ago
layer8|23 hours ago
bla3|21 hours ago
sgloutnikov|23 hours ago
grliga|22 hours ago
teaearlgraycold|1 day ago
mpalmer|1 day ago
brandonmenc|18 hours ago
Then I upgraded my work laptop to test it out. Then my phone. Now my personal laptop.
I actually like it.
Everything is snappier. The glass effects are not nearly as annoying as I expected.
ymmv
techacolyte42|16 hours ago
Fethbita|7 hours ago
delecti|6 hours ago
beacon294|23 hours ago
[BIG Warning: this didn't work for child commenter]
- simply decline/reject the TOS on install. It will auto uninstall the installer and go away.
Life has been good since.
1f60c|23 hours ago
Anyway, I hope you're happy.
(I thought it would show me a TOS prompt again, but it did not. My bad.)
fuzzythinker|19 hours ago
ProllyInfamous|11 hours ago
notpushkin|15 hours ago
I don’t think this warrants a whole installer script – if you replace UUIDs by hand, you can as well read through the .mobileconfig file and make sure you understand what the profile does, then double click it to install :)
Note that you might also want to remove some other entries from the profile, as, from a glance, those might still delay minor updates by 30 days. (Or does `forceDelayedSoftwareUpdates=false` make these harmless?)
roughly|22 hours ago
halapro|21 hours ago
unknown|19 hours ago
[deleted]
silvestrov|13 hours ago
olyjohn|16 hours ago
ProllyInfamous|11 hours ago
(\.|^)apple\.com$
LittleSnitch is not enough for such a systemwide block.
unknown|1 day ago
[deleted]
post-it|21 hours ago
CharlesW|21 hours ago
dirasieb|11 hours ago
the only thing i miss from sequoia so far is the launchpad, but i've already adapted to just using spotlight
unknown|1 day ago
[deleted]
gib444|8 hours ago
So annoying. I don't want the Numbers-with-AI/premium-upsell-crap edition
Anyone in London want to buy a 32GB M4 MBA at a big discount (got some cosmetic damage)...?
xbar|23 hours ago
n8cpdx|23 hours ago
Tahoe is still a breath of fresh air compared to Windows, and iOS 26 is still great compared to Android (as I've unfortunately learned from a failed switch attempt).
sunaookami|11 hours ago
lupinglade|12 hours ago
Swift is turning into a mess and SwiftUI is complete, utter garbage. Tahoe’s UI is unbearable.
The problem is there is no real alternative - Linux is the closest thing (but has its issues).
hedora|48 minutes ago
The Linux desktop environment I use (LXDE) is not perfect, but it hits fewer issues than Mac OS. For instance, my Linux box doesn’t try to melt due to finder reindexing, and alt-tab works. Also, I don’t have to position the mouse cursor outside the window to resize (that bug predates tahoe, fwiw). I haven’t had any system services or local IPC crap wedge on Linux like they do on MacOS (I have seen systemd wedge those sorts of things, so I don’t use it).
The integration with iMessage, Notes, Photos and phone calls are clear wins for the mac, but that’s about it.
Some people would say you need nvidia+linux for local inference, but, in practice, AMD iGPU and Apple Silicon both work well (and you can get 32GB of unified ram for much less than a 32GB video card), and the ecosystems are fine. So, I’d call that a tie for anything that can reasonably be called a personal computer or workstation. Some people would argue Linux wins.
If you grab a copy of devuan and slap steam on top of it, then it’ll be able to run far more commercial and open source games than MacOS.
As a daily driver, Linux on a modern vanilla SoC box comes with far less day-to-day hassle. (It’s getting the same level of “we actually tried this exact config” as MacOS does.)
Anyway, I wouldn’t really claim Linux has “issues” vs macos at this point.
mberning|7 hours ago
unknown|1 day ago
[deleted]
tl2do|1 day ago
[deleted]
poly2it|23 hours ago
billylo|23 hours ago
Paddyz|19 hours ago
[deleted]
pnexk|18 hours ago
I wonder if there’s known ideas on how to protect the quality of discourse on here from this type of intrusion :<
hhh|1 day ago
[deleted]
slashink|1 day ago
doawoo|23 hours ago
azan_|1 day ago