macOS "Tahoe" 26.2 released: Is it time to upgrade from Sequoia?

[PotentPeas]

I'd like to try this poll after each minor macOS upgrade is released (X.1, X.2). I'm curious how community sentiment changes over time, and it could also help other users gauge the community consensus on whether upgrading at this time is a "good idea" or not.

The poll will remain open for 30 days. I'll post another one when macOS 26.3 drops. If Apple follows their typical release pattern, the release window for macOS 26.3 is late January. (I will not post a poll for 26.2.1. If there is such a release, it will most likely include just a small number of targeted fixes and won't change the overall picture by much.)

Past polls:
macOS "Tahoe": 26.1 (37.5% yes)
(I'll put some kind of chart here when I have some more data.)

———

As someone who values stability and "things working right" more than access to the latest new features, I'm holding off on upgrading to Tahoe until I believe that it will be a reasonably smooth experience.

With the initial Tahoe release, reading comments and posts from the community, I saw a lot of repeatedly noted issues. For example: Dock randomly going to autohide. Network printers not working. UI elements not cleanly meshing. Not having certain icons prepared in the new style (i.e. external hard drive icon). Contacts app much less usable than before. Rounded corners on PDFs. Impossible to get "back" in the TV app in some cases. UI animations or video playback in various apps being stuttery, when that was not the case before the upgrade. Electron app performance issues. Large "hit box" for the green maximize button at the top of windows. Finder exhibiting unexpected behavior. And so on...

To me, it really seems like Apple pushed Tahoe out to hit a self-imposed deadline, and it was still somewhat "beta" quality at launch; they did not wait for it to be adequately polished.

I am interested in your take, after using macOS Tahoe 26.2 for a bit. Did they make any improvements that meaningfully fix or improve any issues you were experiencing with 26.0 and 26.1? Should a "regular" user upgrade yet? Is it "safe"? Or is it still not worth it, because of the bugs and UI jank?

Vote in the poll, and comment if you like!

Thanks.

———

For myself, in addition to "feeling out the community", I'm also waiting for updates to or compatibility confirmation for certain key apps that may be more sensitive breaking with an OS upgrade:

• ✅ Parallels
• ✅ CrossOver
• ✅ BetterDisplay
• ✅ TG Pro
• ❌ Ice
  • (Ice currently has beta support only.)

 

[xraydoc]

Mac Studio M4 Max, 3x Studio Displays, 64GB RAM... just updated to macOS 26.2.

Heavy use of Safari, Mail, Calendar, Photos, Edge, Microsoft Office apps, Discord, Parallels (Win11 ARM), Osirix MD, plus other apps. No issues. Never have had any of the memory leak issues that others have been publicized, even with 26.0.

 

[sassemblyman]

I've been a skeptic of updates ever since Catalina more or less bricked thunderbolt support on my 2020 Intel MBA causing constant kernel panics and data loss. Since then, I typically stay at least a release behind, or just skip an OS entirely until there is an upgrade I want, as was the case from Monterey until Sonoma. I disliked Ventura and to this day despise the new system preferences. The only way to find something is to search. But enough about that...

I'd been running Tahoe beta on an M1 iMac, 4 port, 16gb and was not satisfied, and thus held off on my main work laptop(s) - M3 Pro 14" MBP 36gb and M4 MBA 24gb. The M3 Pro ran Sonoma, which, in my opinion, is way more stable and better than Sequoia, but is currently in pieces awaiting motherboard removal to clean the amaro my grandfather spilled in the keyboard (everything is fine, but amaro gets sticky).

Unfortunately, the M4 Air I bought to buy me time shipped with Sequoia. I've had a lot of issues INCLUDING memory leaks, Finder crashes seemingly tied to Safari predictive loading, TB crashes that remind me of Catalina.

As a collector starting in the G3 era, there are a few releases that are more or less default installs depending on the era of Mac - 10.4, 10.6, 10.13 (honorable mention for 10.11, but if .11, then .13 with patcher), straight to 12 Monterey, then Sonoma, only by default.

While Tahoe is feeling very unlikely to be the next in that personal lineage for my Macs, in 26.2 form, it really does feel stable and fine on my M1 and M4, and at least from the bug perspective, more stable on my M4 Air. Will still keep that M3 Pro on Sonoma for now or until Apple Intelligence is something I incorporate into a useful workflow.

If history is any marker, based on the massive overhaul that was MacOS 26, 27 SHOULD be primarily about refinement. I remain hopeful, but ultimately question the need for annual major releases unless an explicit tick-tok mentality is applied. Sequoia to Tahoe felt like two ticks.

 

[maflynn]

As someone who values stability and "things working right" more than access to the latest new features, I'm holding off on upgrading to Tahoe until I believe that it will be a reasonably smooth experience.

My take is that 26.2 is probably the safest, and it will be a bit longer for us to see 26.3.

I think 26.2 has addressed most of the larger performance/stability issues that were plaguing people. Also this forum tends to be an echo chamber (one of which I've contributed too) in the overall negativity towards tahoe. Other social media sites where people are using Tahoe are largely more positive. I get that the someone who's having a problem is more likely to publicly state this, instead of someone who has no problems. My point is that I don't think its as bad as we make it out to be.

I was waiting for 26.2 to be released to try tahoe myself, I've not taken the plunge but I do like to be current and so I may give it a shot sooner then later.

 

[xraydoc]

My take is that 26.2 is probably the safest, and it will be a bit longer for us to see 26.3.

I think 26.2 has addressed most of the larger performance/stability issues that were plaguing people. Also this forum tends to be an echo chamber (one of which I've contributed too) in the overall negativity towards tahoe. Other social media sites where people are using Tahoe are largely more positive. I get that the someone who's having a problem is more likely to publicly state this, instead of someone who has no problems. My point is that I don't think its as bad as we make it out to be.

I was waiting for 26.2 to be released to try tahoe myself, I've not taken the plunge but I do like to be current and so I may give it a shot sooner then later.

I honestly think Tahoe is fine. While I'm not a huge fan of Liquid Glass, the UI is far less egregious on the Mac as compared to the iPhone/iPad. But performance and stability have been just fine.

 

[iBookmaster]

I'm retired and don't do any work on my Macs any more. I have installed Mac OS 26.2 on my main computer M1 MacBook Pro 14" and secondary desktop M2 Mac mini with a 32" display with no problems at all. I mainly use Safari, Mail, Notes, Photos, Maps, Messages, Pages and Google Earth. They all work great for me with no noticeable hiccups. To be honest, I did have a few hiccups but, they were with the betas and I did an erase and install to make things as fresh as possible.

 

[Eduardot]

We run a multimonitor system, that includes one Mac mini and one Mac Studio. A lot of ElGato Hardware and Apps. A DAC for 5.1 surround sound. Both Macs connected to a NAS. And through Unifi a strong 10G network. I was hesitant to upgrade, because of the known and reported problems in Tahoe on multimonitor systems. We decided to upgrade both Systems of 26.2 to equilibrate all the buses and the connections between them since we use them daliy. Aside still having a few quirks I would definitely recommend the upgrade if your system supports it.

 

[SDAVE]

It's better than .0 and .1.

 

[Alan Killenbeck]

Well, I tried 26.2 - it performed ok on my 2019 i7 16 inch, but I definitely didn't care for it, or many of the changes.
Went back to Sequoia.

 

[Bazza1]

It's better than .0 and .1.

Damning with faint praise. 🤨

 

[Bazza1]

...Went back to Sequoia.

At the risk of sounding like an old fart (while yet running 26.2 on a M2 Air), I happened to pull out my 2017 Air the other day (still use for work and travel - all those lovely ports) - running Monterey - and while slow in comparison to the M2, I thought, 'Oh right, this works".
Goodness knows, we probably complained about elements of Monterey when it first came out, but in comparison to Tahoe, signficantly fewer gimmicks and 'Squirrel!" features - and yet, it still works.

 

[SDAVE]

Damning with faint praise. 🤨

To be fair, .0/.1 on the MP 7,1 ran horribly. So I'll take anything.

Too lazy to downgrade to Sequoia, too much data to move around.

 

[lexvo]

I was hesitant to upgrade my M4 Mini Pro, but my Work M1 Macbook Air was running fine on 26.1 so this week I upgraded my Mini from Sequoia to 26.2 and everything is running fine.
I am using my Mini for Safari, Word, Excel, Pages, Numbers, Lightroom, Photoshop, Upnote, Omnifocus and a bunch of other apps. I also have a NAS connected via SMB.

 

[nebojsak]

Can't really tell the difference between 26.1 and 26.2 for my use case (base M5 - Adobe stuff - heavy AI, PS, InD, some light After Effects and Blender).

 

[SDAVE]

Can't really tell the difference between 26.1 and 26.2 for my use case (base M5 - Adobe stuff - heavy AI, PS, InD, some light After Effects and Blender).

M5 is latest and greatest, of course Apple is going to make it run like butter on it.

Even on my M1 Max it runs fine, but im sure on M5 it runs much better.

It's the older Intel machines which I think are getting screwed over, including the $25,000 Mac Pro 7,1s (lol)

 

[nebojsak]

M5 is latest and greatest, of course Apple is going to make it run like butter on it.

Even on my M1 Max it runs fine, but im sure on M5 it runs much better.

It's the older Intel machines which I think are getting screwed over, including the $25,000 Mac Pro 7,1s (lol)

OK, I had no choice of course, it was shipped with Tahoe.

It's not too snappy yet I guess, but nothing gets in my way so far regarding my usual workflow (normally I wouldn't upgrade til some .5 or so). And I prefer dark mode since it was introduced on MacOS, it seems that most of the users have problems with the light one.

 

[The_Auryn]

Have they fixed the horrible radius window corners?

 

[Arctic Moose]

I waited until now, so far so good.

 

[MBAir2010]

Vote in the poll, and comment if you like!

Monterey seems to work excellent on my MacBook Air and Mac mini M1.
there is sone weirdness with safari viewing some sites that can't collapse java script code
but everything works great and I am happy with using my Macs now in December.

AND NO AI!

I even blocked, ignored and cleaned that word TAHOE'd from my brain, the worst OS that "me" every installed!

 

[PotentPeas]

Have they fixed the horrible radius window corners?

Man, do I wish they had made that an option. But no, I think this was done on purpose to make macOS line up more with the direction of iPadOS (in preparation for touchscreen Macs launching in the next 18 months ish).

 

[mmkerc]

First regrading the polling choices, there should be one more option - Yes, but there are many nuances differences that take getting use to.

I just upgraded to 26.2 and the most visible change was with my displays, noticeably more vibrant. Three issues in operation I noticed pretty quick were a clear lag in response times in doing normal operations like:
1. clicking on news article, and waiting for them to open, (not an internet speed issue). This turned out to be excessive window server issue due to numerous items on my desktop. While historical this has been known as a drain on system resources, it was not an issue with the previous OS.
2. Screen sharing is not working as it did. I am have difficulty initiating connections with people I routinely help. My workaround have been for them to initiate the connection which then works fine. Given this I assume there is a setting I need to tweak but still working on it.
3. Personal preference issue - the customization of the toolbar in Apple Mail in not working properly, in particular the flexible space adjustment but also some of the buttons.

All minor issues, but requires more time than previous upgrades to adjust too.

 

[Thirio2]

I have an m4 mbp on sequoia and an m4 mba still on Tahoe. I dislike Liquid Glass so much I have not upgraded the mba. That said, I have not experienced any other issues with sequoia.

 

[Ray2]

M2 Max Studio here. Running Sonoma, don’t see any reason to upgrade, features useful to me are from 3rd party apps, not an OS. So don’t tend to update until the apps require a newer MacOS to upgrade the apps.

 

[Isamilis]

M2 Max Studio here. Running Sonoma, don’t see any reason to upgrade, features useful to me are from 3rd party apps, not an OS. So don’t tend to update until the apps require a newer MacOS to upgrade the apps.

Second this!

 

[Ray2]

Second this!

After posting this I realized I've started using a Windows machine every now and then when I need to get something done outside of an app. MacOS has developed too many annoyances and weird (but intentional) behaviors that make life a pita. I get the feeling the designers spend their life on social media and don't much use a computer anymore.