Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
macOS 27 Golden Gate removes menu item icons that macOS 26 Tahoe added, reversing a widely criticized design decision.
macOS 26 Tahoe added icons to every menu bar item, a change criticized by designers Jim Nielsen and Nikita Prokopov for being inconsistent, inscrutable, and reminiscent of poor design choices in Windows and Google Docs. Third-party developers rejected the design, adopting open source code to disable it. macOS 27 Golden Gate removes these icons entirely. Apple updated its Human Interface Guidelines to advise using menu item icons sparingly and with clear purpose: only for common actions, key features, file system locations, devices, and user-generated content. Daring Fireball's author considers this reversal evidence that problematic design leadership, specifically Alan Dye, has departed Apple's team.
What commenters are saying
Commenters are relieved the icons are gone; some users disabled them with a terminal command (defaults write -g NSMenuEnableActionImages -bool false). A minority preferred the icons for visual appeal, but the dominant sentiment views them as a failed experiment. Performance regressions in Tahoe prompted some users to revert to Sequoia or switch platforms entirely. Some note the wasted development effort, while others point out the icons remain available via SF Symbols for Apple branding. A separate complaint emerged about Liquid Glass transparency effects reducing GPU performance and legibility, suggesting broader design philosophy conflicts persist beyond the icons removal.
Commenters also debated whether removing the icons alone proves systemic design improvement, with skepticism that other problematic design choices (Liquid Glass, toolbar removal) remain unresolved.