macOS Tahoe’s icons are a mess, but not the ones you think

There have been a lot of complaints about Liquid Glass on macOS Tahoe, drawing comparisons to the much-maligned Windows Vista. There’s also the issue of the app icons, which are now dull and characterless. But there’s a new reason to hate macOS Tahoe, one that you probably haven’t even noticed: It has too many damn menu icons.

While most people probably gloss over them, designer Jim Nielsen and software engineer Niki Tonsky point out that Apple decided that Tahoe needed more menu icons. You’ll find them all over Apple’s app menus, tiny pictograms that are seemingly meant to guide you to the option you need. The problem is, the company went overboard, and now Tahoe’s menus are a cluttered mess, and the icons’ effectiveness is diminished.

Here’s an example of the File menu in the Finder. The one on the left is before Tahoe, the right image is the same menu in Tahoe.

Nielson and Tonsky both point out that Apple’s new approach is a change from the company’s own Human Interface Guidelines from 1992, 2005, and 2020. The 2020 guidelines state:

Minimize the use of icons. Use icons in menus only when they add significant value. A menu that includes too many icons may appear cluttered and be difficult to read.

Human Interface Guidelines, Apple (2020)

Before Tahoe, Apple sparingly used icons in its menus, and it was effective, drawing your eyes to key, often-used functions. The new approach eliminates that effect. Often, as Nielsen and Tonsky point out, the icons don’t really make much sense and fail to convey the function they represent. Sometimes Apple even uses the same icons for different functions (see New Tab and Duplicate, above), making the iconography useless.

Why the change? Apple hasn’t offered an explanation. As Nielsen states, other companies, such as Google, also overuse menu icons. Perhaps Apple decided to do the same to make those users more comfortable, enticing them to use more Macs. Or perhaps the guy responsible for all of this wished that macOS menus were more like Google’s.

Whatever the reason, it’s a shame because Apple used to take pride in offering clean, consistent, and thoughtful design. The company has clearly abandoned those ideals. But now that the guy responsible for all of this is leaving, perhaps Apple can get back on track and become a design leader again.