macOS "Tahoe" 26.4 released: Is it time to upgrade from Sequoia? (poll)

[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 26.5 drops. If Apple follows their typical release pattern, the release window for macOS 26.5 is mid-May. (I will not post a poll for 26.4.1. 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); 26.2 (36.1% yes); 26.3 (37.4% 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. Rounded corners on PDFs. Large "hit box" for the green maximize button at the top of windows. 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. ...However, these kinds of things seem to have been largely cleaned up and are largely addressed in 26.1, 26.2, and 26.3.

The consistent bug reports like screen flickering have really thinned out, so I am thinking that this OS may finally be solidifying. 26.4 did have a rocky beta cycle, with earlier beta releases having issues with mounting HFS+ drives and third-party network filtering modules breaking network connectivity altogether, but those issues seem to have been resolved in time for the final release as well. I also saw reports that there is some notable UI cleanup in this release.

It seems like this release may have issues with custom folder icons (edit: on Intel Macs only?), for users who use that feature, and also Time Machine over SMB.

I am interested in your take, after using macOS Tahoe 26.4 for a bit. Did they make any improvements that meaningfully fix or improve any issues you were experiencing with prior 26.X releases? 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.

 

[Paradoxally]

Absolutely not.

Sequoia represents the last version before Alan Dye turned it all to trash with excessively rounded corners, terrible UI sidebars stacked on top of the main window, and Liquid Glass that makes the device slower than it was before.

 

[Onlyuseapple]

Although only having Tahoe for a day basically, I have seen no real problems with it on my m1 MacBook Air, seems to be lightning fast, stable and I for one seem to like the new design. Used it all day basically for work and still have 56% battery remaining, and now using it in the local Starbucks and activity monitor shows memory in the green and 0 swap used so far. Will be doing the 26.4 update later on tonight and see how it behaves tomorrow. Overall I am very happy with this apple MacBook Air m1 I got late afternoon yesterday and Tahoe which I installed last night.

 

[ADGrant]

Your poll is missing at least one option, still on Sequoia but will now have to upgrade to be able to install the latest Xcode.

 

[PotentPeas]

Your poll is missing at least one option, still on Sequoia but will now have to upgrade to be able to install the latest Xcode.

There aren't a whole lot of apps that require Tahoe right now, but there are some, and that will only be going up. In addition to Xcode, the latest Pixelmator Pro (in the Apple Creator Studio subscription) also requires Tahoe.

I think you can live for a while yet with Xcode 26.3. It's less than a month old. That is what I am doing. But Tahoe is getting to a point where I am more comfortable with the idea of using it for a daily driver. I might be upgrading at 26.5.

(Obviously, even if it is not a problem "now", being out of date on Xcode will eventually be an issue, if you are in the business of making apps for Apple platforms.)

I have issues with the design, but that's not a blocker for me. I care mostly about stability and minimal bugs. Tahoe seemed to have a rough launch in that area, too. Part of the reason I have been making these polls is to get a picture of how people are feeling about it being usable without "issues"... and if that feeling is actually getting "better" over time. But this isn't the only metric driving my decision on when to upgrade.

 

[mscrutchin]

Every issue hasn't been solved (Tahoe's UI will always be a big WTF in many areas, for one), but it's running well on both my 2020 Intel iMac and my MacBook Neo. With the 26.4 update, things seem much snappier all around. Yes, I hate myself for saying that. But I know the Music app is performing better -- no more minute-long beach-balling before Shuffle begins on ridiculously large smart playlists, etc. Music app is super smooth now. That was the one big annoyance preventing me from truly enjoying working on my computer, so today is a good day for me.

Anyway, I'm happy with it now, no major problems, but as always, your mileage may vary. I mainly use everyday basic Apple apps plus Word and Excel, Final Draft, some music-nerd apps like Jaikoz, XLD, Metadatics, etc. For my usage, as far as stability and usability goes, it's pretty much on par with Sequoia as of this release, or close to it.

 

[ADGrant]

There aren't a whole lot of apps that require Tahoe right now, but there are some, and that will only be going up. In addition to Xcode, the latest Pixelmator Pro (in the Apple Creator Studio subscription) also requires Tahoe.

I think you can live for a while yet with Xcode 26.3. It's less than a month old. That is what I am doing. But Tahoe is getting to a point where I am more comfortable with the idea of using it for a daily driver. I might be upgrading at 26.5.

(Obviously, even if it is not a problem "now", being out of date on Xcode will eventually be an issue, if you are in the business of making apps for Apple platforms.)

I have issues with the design, but that's not a blocker for me. I care mostly about stability and minimal bugs. Tahoe seemed to have a rough launch in that area, too. Part of the reason I have been making these polls is to get a picture of how people are feeling about it being usable without "issues"... and if that feeling is actually getting "better" over time. But this isn't the only metric driving my decision on when to upgrade.

I always upgrade once the latest version of Xcode no longer works on the version of MacOS I am running. Not next year though because I am upgrading an Intel Mac.

 

[PotentPeas]

I always upgrade once the latest version of Xcode no longer works on the version of MacOS I am running. Not next year though because I am upgrading an Intel Mac.

Apple has been pretty consistent with making this happen with the X.4 release in March.

 

[mcrinsane]

User of this forum don't reflect the majority of Mac users, IMO. If I only read this forum I'd walk away thinking what a mess. The typical user likely has automatic upgrades enabled, doesn't think twice about 'rounded corners' or transparency, don't own Studio Displays or have 200 tabs browser tabs open, or fret about "only" having 8 GBs of memory. Those users are for the most part doing just fine. In any case, suggest testing upgrades and betas on a virtual machine before applying to production systems. I use Parallels, rock solid running Tahoe VM with beta updates enabled. Also runs Windows 11 ARM beautifully, if that is a need. Frequently on sale for $79 for one year license, worth it. For the record, on 26.4 now, no issues with custom folder icons and I have a TON of them. Any issues almost always cleared up by clearing icon cache and restart.
sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;
Haven't had issue w hidden dock since 26.2

 

[PotentPeas]

User of this forum don't reflect the majority of Mac users, IMO.

Totally in agreement. However, I care more about what the "power users" are running into!

For the work I do on my MacBook, I have my hands in a lot of areas and, based on past experience, always seem to hit whatever "mainstream" bug there is. I went to Sequoia too early and was annoyed by three different things that weren't fully patched until 15.3. Being extra careful this time. I could roll back to a backup if there are issues... but I'd rather just avoid that hassle entirely. There isn't a lot of "draw" to Tahoe to me in the way of new features or functionality.

I use Parallels, rock solid running Tahoe VM with beta updates enabled. Also runs Windows 11 ARM beautifully, if that is a need. Frequently on sale for $79 for one year license, worth it.

I am also a Parallels user — though I have been using it less than I used to, as I have managed to move most of my workloads that used to depend on Windows software to something else. I'll throw out there that if you can qualify for the education price, you can get it for $60/year perpetually. (I do qualify for the education discount through some contracting that I do. But I can say that they do not appear to re-check this every year.)

 

[n-evo]

Really happy that Safari got compact tabs bar back with 26.4 addressing the biggest issue I had with macOS Tahoe. All in all it has been smooth sailing. Liquid Glass still feels like a half-assed job on macOS though… But it doesn’t really affect my work in any serious meaning on a day-to-day basis.

 

[nmt1900]

Usually I have set 60 days delay policy for major release updates to customers I have to manage as my field of work.
With "VisionOS inspired" revolutionary macOS 26 it seems like even 90 days (which is maimum value what is possible to set) is not enough. 26.0 came out in September and 26.3 which is first actually usable release came out in February. This is even more than 4 months.

 

[PotentPeas]

Usually I have set 60 days delay policy for major release updates to customers I have to manage as my field of work.
With "VisionOS inspired" revolutionary macOS 26 it seems like even 90 days (which is maimum value what is possible to set) is not enough. 26.0 came out in September and 26.3 which is first actually usable release came out in February. This is even more than 4 months.

I wonder if Apple realized this too? If you set the 90 days deferral policy, you didn't get the Tahoe update offered to you until ... yesterday. (190 days.) It appears that they were holding it back for users who had the deferral policy in place and made a server-side change yesterday to finally start pushing it out.

 

[nmt1900]

If this really the case then while not publicly acknowledging this Apple actually did the right thing behind the scenes...

 

[robertosh]

I've upgraded today my work's laptop (MBP M1). The design is simply awful and distracting. Looks unfinished (check Xcode screenshot). I don't think that I'm downgrading because is not my main driver and this way I don't have the annoying pop-up asking me to upgrade.

 

[PotentPeas]

I don't think that I'm downgrading because is not my main driver and this way I don't have the annoying pop-up asking me to upgrade.

Mac update notification mitigation
With the "NoBubbleNew" profile and the terminal command to push out the "last nagged" date (first terminal command in this post), I have yet to receive any sort of nag to upgrade to Tahoe.

If you do use Xcode, though, Tahoe is now required to run the latest version.

 

[Bazza1]

Given my druthers, I'd go back to Sonoma - pre-Apple Intelligence (the oxymoron).

That said, I'm running a M2 Mini on Tahoe (meh) and I still use my 2017 Intel Air running Monterey - and weirdly, that seems to work, too.

 

[pigeonguy]

The sidebars are a dealbreaker for me. Stupid, I know.

They’re just sooooo ugly…

 

[robertosh]

Mac update notification mitigation
With the "NoBubbleNew" profile and the terminal command to push out the "last nagged" date (first terminal command in this post), I have yet to receive any sort of nag to upgrade to Tahoe.

If you do use Xcode, though, Tahoe is now required to run the latest version.

Thanks for the pointer. Yes, I use mainly Xcode that's why I'm always "forced" to upgrade at some point in the cycle

 

[ADGrant]

FWIW Tahoe is running fine on my supported Intel Mac. The UI takes a while to get used to but other than that no issues.

 

[Onlyuseapple]

FWIW Tahoe is running fine on my supported Intel Mac. The UI takes a while to get used to but other than that no issues.

Tahoe runs perfect on my m1 MacBook Air with 8gb ram. Had it a week now and no swap at all.

 

[boswald]

I have an M5 MacBook Air with 24GB of RAM and I still notice sluggish animations here and there. It doesn't really bother me to a huge degree or make me want to return the machine, but they're definitely noticeable. Coming from Windows, with it's consistently smooth animations is a little jarring, but I'll take the pros over the cons (and there's a lot for me).

 

[Bustycat]

Mac mini M1 with 8GB RAM as an office machine upgraded from macOS 15.7.5 to 26.4, without any noticeable performance drop for several days.

 

[TheBeverage]

I’m in no rush. Everything works perfectly with Sequoia and security updates come in regularly. I’ll upgrade to macOS 28 next fall when security updates dry up.

 

[CrushRoller]

Don't upgrade! Apple used all their resources on the useless Liquid Glass instead of fixing bugs... v.26.4 and still most options on the right-click menu (Finder) disappear from time to time forcing the users to relaunch the Finder to temporarily fix it... I have mobile accounts that do not accept the username/pass if not connected to the network (while all Macs with Sequoia work as they should)...