Slows Performance Clearly Again in macOS Tahoe 26.3
The recently released macOS Tahoe 26.3 update resolved an accessibility issue where the “Reduce Brightness” feature was not working properly on Mac. Before macOS Tahoe 26.3, turning on the switch would leave visible visual effects, including on sidebars, headers, title bars, search boxes, and more, leading to situations where text would overlap and interface elements would be washed out with unclear colors and interface elements. Now with macOS Tahoe 26.3, this issue, which first appeared in 26.1 and 26.2, has finally been resolved.
The Liquid Glass redesign of macOS Tahoe received a lot of criticism from the Apple user community, mostly due to the perceived decrease in usability, usability, and user experience. With all the bright and transparent interface features, many Tahoe users initially used the Accessibility feature called “Reduce Transparency” to make the interface easier to read and interact with, but in a strange twist or bug, the Reduce Transparency feature was broken in macOS Tahoe 26.2 and 26.1 leaving tons of interface elements transparent and difficult.
If you’re annoyed by the extreme transparency and visual clutter of macOS Tahoe’s interface, you’ll want to upgrade to macOS Tahoe 26.3 again as soon as possible, so you can use the recently-successful Minimize Transparency change.
You can access the settings Apple Menu > System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce Brightness.
When the setting is turned on, transparency is removed from titlebars, toolbars, and sidebars across most operating systems and applications, making them much easier to read and interact with.
As you can see in the screenshot below when the feature is enabled, Minimize Transparency effectively removes the visibility of Finder elements including the sidebar, toolbar, and title bar:
In previous versions of Tahoe, all these areas will remain transparent – even if Reduce Transparency is enabled – resulting in blurred text and interface elements, leading some users to find the interface confusing or difficult to interact with. You can see a screenshot example of this bug (or maybe it was intentional behavior) below:
Without Transparency Reduction enabled on the Mac, Liquid Glass continues to overlap text with text space (!) and user interface features that include colored toggles (!) under titles, headings, sidebars, search bars, and elsewhere, resulting in a significant amount of visual clutter. Oddly enough, I find the Minimize Accessibility feature essential to getting the most out of the MacOS Liquid glass experience. It’s really surprising that many teams and management divisions at Apple saw any of this and posted it as the default macOS Tahoe UI:
Now that this feature is working properly again in Tahoe 26.3, Mac users can stop overlapping text issues and mysterious readability issues in Tahoe by simply enabling the feature.
While this isn’t a new feature or a major change for some users, if you’ve been bothered by the overly flexible and transparent interface in macOS Tahoe, you’ll find that macOS Tahoe 26.3 is a welcome addition to your Tahoe experience.
What do you think about Reduce Clarity, do you use it on macOS Tahoe? Do you like visual effects? Do they annoy you? Either way, if you’re a Tahoe user you’ll want to install macOS Tahoe 26.3. Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.
