Submission Date

2025-07-08

Status

Open

Area

Menu Bar

Operating System Version

macOS 26

Type

Incorrect/Unexpected Behavior

Description

macOS 26 introduces icons for all menu items. This change adds visual noise, disrupts alignment, reduces parsing speed, breaks long-standing macOS design principles, and offers no accessibility or usability benefit for most users. It should either be reverted or made optional via a system setting.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Open any standard macOS app on macOS 26 (e.g., Finder, Safari).
2. Open a menu (e.g., View or File).
3. Observe icons next to every item, even those with no meaningful or helpful symbol.

Expected Result:

• Menus remain visually clean and fast to scan.
• Icons are used sparingly where they add value.
• Text alignment remains consistent and visually stable.
• Users can focus on content, not decoration.
• Users have a setting to toggle icon visibility.

Actual Result:

• Every item has an icon, even when unnecessary.
• The icons are too small to be legible or recognizable at a glance.
• Text alignment becomes uneven; menus feel visually unstable.
• Menus now resemble mobile UIs, conflicting with macOS’s established desktop ergonomics.
• Parsing menu options becomes slower due to excess visual elements.

Arguments Against Forced Menu Icons:

• Redundant information: The text already describes the action. Icons add little to no value in many cases.
• Reduced legibility: Small glyphs add clutter without being clearly identifiable. They slow down scanning.
• Visual noise: Icons create extra cognitive load. macOS menus were previously minimal by design.
• Disrupted alignment: When some items don’t have icons (e.g. submenus, separators), the layout becomes inconsistent and jumpy.
• Touch-first design on a pointer-first platform: This UI change feels inherited from iOS, which is optimized for touch and spatial recognition—macOS is pointer-based, where text scanning is faster.
• Not user-customizable: No System Setting or defaults write key exists to turn icons off. macOS is traditionally strong on user customization.
• Breaks design consistency: Icons are visually inconsistent—some are filled, some are not; some use SF Symbols, others don’t. The “Enter Full Screen” icon is especially jarring.
• Increased maintenance burden for developers: Third-party developers may feel pressured to design icons for every menu item to fit in.
• Not discoverable: Users don’t expect or need icons in menus. This is not a discoverability improvement.
• Disrespects platform identity: macOS is not iOS. A shared ecosystem doesn’t require identical UI everywhere.

Suggested Solutions:

• Add a toggle in System Settings > Appearance (or Accessibility) to disable menu icons system-wide.
• Or expose a defaults write option to disable them.
• Or revert the change entirely.

Keywords

No response

Prerequisites

• The title follows the format FB<number>: <title>
• I will keep this issue updated with Apple's responses