A highly detailed review of Apple’s recent macOS release, known as Tahoe, has sparked widespread debate among designers over the operating system’s new approach to icons in menus.
Menus: macOS Sequoia (left) vs macOS Tahoe (right)
The critique, originating from Tonsky, argues that the changes introduced by Apple have made icons less helpful and in some cases more disruptive to the user experience. The core of the argument centers on the idea that icons should serve a clear and consistent purpose.
Traditionally, icons are meant to help users quickly recognize and find specific commands or tools in an interface, but in Tahoe the sheer number of icons added to every menu item has, according to critics, diluted that benefit. When every action carries a symbol next to it, nothing visually stands out, making menus appear cluttered rather than efficient.
Consistency between apps is another major point of contention. Designers who have examined the new system found that the same command such as “Open” or “Save” might use completely different icon forms depending on the app, even when the function is identical. In some cases, the icon for a basic operation appears as a checkmark in one context and as a directional arrow in another.
Concerns about icons extend within single apps as well. In a consistent user interface, toolbar and menu icons for the same function should match, reinforcing muscle memory and recognition. Evidence from popular Apple applications like Preview and Photos shows mismatches between toolbar symbols and those in the menu.
Another frequent complaint revolves around the reuse of identical symbols for unrelated functions. Some icons in Tahoe appear repeatedly across different actions, causing confusion when the user expects a distinct visual cue tied to a specific operation. Critics point out that this repetition makes icons less meaningful and in some cases actively misleading, rather than informative.
macOS Tahoe Menus : Fifty Shades of ‘New’
Visual detail and recognizability are also cited as issues. Tahoe’s menu icons are generally very small, fitting into tiny 12 by 12 pixel spaces, which makes them harder to distinguish at a glance.
Underlying these technical problems is a philosophical disagreement on whether icons should be used at all for some commands. The blog post argues that if a command has no obvious visual metaphor, an icon might add more noise than value.
Sometimes text alone communicates the action more directly. The review suggests that forcing icons into every menu item could be a misstep, and that careful restraint might yield better usability.
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