Back in 2011, Apple introduced Launchpad with OS X Lion.

It was simple: all your applications in one place, organised into pages and folders, with that familiar iPad-style layout.

For 14 years, Launchpad remained a recognisable part of macOS.

Then came macOS Tahoe 26.

Apple replaced the classic Launchpad with the new Apps interface integrated into Spotlight.

Now, don't get me wrong, Spotlight is useful. But I personally miss being able to browse through my apps visually without having to remember their names and search for them.

But the classic Launchpad experience isn't completely gone.

I recently tried LaunchOS, which brings back the familiar app grid. It feels faster than the original Launchpad, and I personally prefer its more polished design.

I've attached a screenshot of my setup.

It's interesting how a feature Apple introduced in 2011 can still feel useful today, even after they've moved away from it.

Do you miss the original Launchpad, or do you prefer the new Spotlight Apps interface?

Disclosure: I'm participating in LaunchOS's free licence promotion. These are my own opinions.

My MacBook Pro is writing around 100 GB to its SSD every day. According to Activity Monitor, most of this write activity is attributed to system processes launchd and kernel_task.

Is this normal? How can I reduce these writes?

On an APFS drive, Finder's Duplicate (Cmd-D) makes a clone. The new file points at the same blocks on disk as the original, and only the parts you later change take new space. A 20 GB video duplicated five times still uses about 20 GB.

In Terminal, cp -c makes the same kind of clone. Plain cp writes a full second copy.

This is why storage numbers can look wrong. Get Info and du count every clone at its full size, so a folder of duplicates can add up to more than your disk holds. df -h / or the Storage page in System Settings shows what's really free.

It works the other way too. Deleting one clone frees almost nothing while another copy of the same data still exists, so if you're clearing space, the drop only shows up once the last copy is gone.

I'm a web and mobile dev (or what's left of one), and wrestling with disk space has always been a pain in the neck. The ridiculous size of xcode and it's dependencies, node_modules, Android caches and emulators, CocoaPods cache etc etc the list is endless.

I've been paying for CleanMyMac for years, and it's.... fine. But I'm always still hunting down some obscure dev specific DerivedData cache and then Googling if it was safe to delete. Just a general PIA.

This weekend Claude built me a more custom clean up app, it show's me projects I've not touched for a long time that can be safely offloaded to my NAS and helps me safely do a clean up on my drive.

Just thought I'd give a little inspiration if anyone is in a similar boat. I know disk space is always a hot topic!

Edit: Added the repo as requested. Feel free to contribute:
https://github.com/tjlondon-npauctions/majortom

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

MacOS introduced the empty shutdown window bug. Even today’s patch didn’t fix it :( anyone else run across this?

Our family still uses 2011 iMac just for youtube and simple emails.

But does iMessage still work on High Sierra?

I'd like to contact my family in this imac without having to get out my iphone.

I'm visually impaired, and often, I have to invert my screen colors even though I'm strictly a dark-themed viewer; not all apps or UI's support dark mode. After finally figuring out how to turn on the keyboard shortcut, I noticed these not-so-little screen icons that show up when I toggle the feature. Do they not think anyone can recognize when the feature has been toggled? These images only last about two seconds, but they hide whatever's on that portion of the screen, and that causes an unnecessary distraction.

Another issue I've discovered with the color invert has to do with macOS's inability to "reduce white point". These new chips make it possible for images and videos to contain extra glare, which "invert colors" can't really handle. Perhaps that'll have to be a discussion for another post.

This problem is driving me crazy. At first, it only affected DaVinci Resolve. The menus in Resolve were split across two displays, and my cursor would jump around whenever I tried to modify something in the Inspector. Along with other UI issues, this has been happening since the first release of macOS 27.

Now, in macOS 27.2.1, the latest release, this issue seems to be affecting more software.

In this video, I demonstrate how dragging the Downie window between two displays can cause the mouse cursor to go rogue. It just jumps all over the place without any apparent pattern.

I am becoming more and more disappointed with Apple as a company. They claimed to be bringing more stability to this year's operating system, but 2026 is nearly over, and we're still seeing ridiculous bugs like these in macOS.

Since updating to macOS 27, many apps ask again for privacy permissions after every restart on my Mac mini M1 (macOS 27.0.1, 26A434). It covers Device Control and Data Access (formerly Accessibility), Screen Recording, Automation and Local Network.

Affected apps include KeyCue, Default Folder X, Shottr, RescueTime, the Elgato apps (Stream Deck, Camera Hub, Control Center) and DeepL.

What I’ve tried / found:

• sudo tccutil reset All and re-granted everything: no change.

• The system TCC.db (/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db) contains all entries with auth_value=2 before and after a restart. A diff shows nothing is lost. So the permissions are stored, but macOS doesn’t seem to honor them after boot.

• The per-user TCC.db is missing entirely: ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/ doesn’t exist, and find ~/Library -name TCC.db finds nothing. Creating the folder manually didn’t help, because tccd never creates the database.

• Both tccd processes (system + user) are running, there are no crash reports, SIP is enabled and the permissions on ~/Library look correct.

I’ve filed a bug report with Apple.

Questions:

1. Is anyone else seeing this on macOS 27?

2. Could someone on macOS 27 check whether you have a per-user TCC database? (Terminal needs Full Disk Access for this.)

   ls -l ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/

I’d like to know whether macOS 27 moved it or whether it’s just missing on my system.

3. Any ideas short of reinstalling macOS?

Thanks!

Update / correction: I was wrong about the version. I’m actually running macOS 27.2.1 (26B131), the current release. The issue persists on 27.2.1.

Thanks for the replies so far! To answer the suggestions:

• Full Disk Access: Terminal had Full Disk Access when I checked. It could read the system TCC.db, but ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/ still doesn’t exist and find ~/Library -name TCC.db finds nothing.

• Device Management profiles: checking next.

• log stream while launching an affected app: will post the output.

• Test user: will try if the above doesn’t reveal anything.

Software Update keeps telling me that 27.0.1 is the latest update and it doesn't show a newer update for my machine.

I've tried restarting the machine and making sure everything in the App Store is up-to-date, but it still refuses to acknowledge there's a newer macOS version.

Any other tips I might try before I download the full Installer or should I just wait until it shows up?

I usually want to use the program that I just installed, so I click the shortcut and then have to hunt for it since there's no search bar. I remember the same thing happening back when I had an iBook G4, in 2005 so I assume there is a reason it hasn't changed but it's not intuitive to me. What function does removing the UI elements from Finder in an installer shortcut actually serve? Maybe if I understand why I'll stop hating that it happens.

Can someone suggest how to speed up waking up in clamshell mode? i find it strange that my mac needs 20-30 seconds to wake up from sleep mode. Anyone any experience?

saw a desktop rug on x and wanted one, so i made my own. then i added a feature and made it invisible.

disclosure: i'm the developer, it's my app.

my desktop is always a mess and i kept panicking right before screen shares. the finder toggle / `defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop false` works, but it hides everything and restarts finder, and i wanted something i could just drag.

so i made rugberry. it's a rug with physics that you drag over part of the desktop. icons under it are covered, icons outside it stay visible, and when you move the rug they're right where they were, labels and all. nothing gets moved or deleted, it just covers them.

there are textile rugs, tile/marble floors, and an invisible mode that matches your wallpaper (second half of the video).

it's on the mac app store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rugberry-desktop-rug/id6823999873?mt=12

happy to answer questions or take feedback, especially on what rug styles you'd want.

THIS HAS BEEN VIBECODED.

Now that that's said, "i" ported Front Row to Mavericks, this was originally only made for my usage, but i thought people might want to take a look at it.

Videos work with the integrated video player, except for unsupported formats, in case it uses VLC.

Music works with iTunes

App is translated in English and French.

There's full support for the IR remote.

I don't know if it works with any other MacOS versions.

Download here if you want. Or don't, it's not like i care.

SOLVED at https://old.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1xx5hhh/dual_nic_setup/19sovrueb13xh/ THANK YOU!

Mac mini M4 Pro, GG 27.2.1, 24g/512g

Setup
I have a hard wire-only Asustor NAS. Because my wife doesn't want the NAS in the living room where the router must be (where the entry point for the fiber is), I'm unable to hard-wire the NAS to the router and connect to it via WiFi from the Mac.

To solve this, I'd like to connect the Asustor directly to the Mac with a short hard-wire. The noise doesn't bother me; I want the reliability and the speed. I understand the NAS wouldn't be visible on the WiFi; that's not a big deal. I only need to access it from the Mac Mini.

Net Config
Wifi: 192.168.50.20, router at 192.168.50.1, netmask /24
LAN: 172.16.50.20, no router, netmask /24, NAS at 172.16.50.254

Problem
When I bring the LAN online in Settings, the WiFi becomes inoperable. I can reach the NAS via the hardwire, but the WiFi stops working. The WiFi icon indicates it's still connected, but no data will traverse and everything going to destinations other than the NAS fail. If I bring the NIC down, the WiFi starts working again.

Anybody have any suggestion on how I can fix this, so that both interfaces work at the same time?

Thanks.

Hello:

I'm new to Mac.

When I copy files to an external hard drive formatted in exFAT, my MacBook automatically adds files that begin with ._ followed by the name of the copied file, as well as hidden folders (.DS_Store, .Trashes, .fseventsd).

When I use this external hard drive with Android or Windows, these files are useless and even cause my media player on my Xiaomi Mi Box to malfunction.

Is it possible to disable the creation of these metadata files (AppleDouble) in macOS when copying new files to an external hard drive formatted in exFAT?

If it's not possible to disable their creation, is there an application that cleans the drive before ejecting it that you could recommend?

I need to find a way to automate the cleanup if it's not possible to prevent their creation, because it's an action I'll be repeating constantly.

Thank you very much.

Best regards.

They say only 18 it’s supported, but i don’t want to pay for the upgrade.

I’m having a really strange issue with Ccontinuity between my iPhone 14 Pro and my Mac, and I’m hoping someone has experienced something similar.

AirDrop doesn’t work between my iphone and mac.

both devices recognize each other, but when I try sending something from my iPhone, it just gets stuck on “Waiting.” Nothing appears on my Mac. Same when trying to send from my Mac to my iPhone

Universal Clipboard doesn’t work. I can’t copy something on my iPhone and paste it on my Mac.

AirDrop itself works on both devices. My boyfriend can successfully AirDrop photos to both my iPhone and my Mac.

Safari Handoff** works.** My Mac shows the Safari icon with “From iPhone 14 Pro,” and clicking it successfully attempts to open whatever I’m viewing on my phone.

iCloud syncing works. My Notes sync between devices, and both are signed into the same Apple Account.

What I’ve already tried:

•Confirmed Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are enabled on both devices.
•Confirmed Handoff is enabled on both devices.
•Confirmed AirDrop permissions are set correctly.
•Turned Handoff off and back on.
•Restarted both devices.
•Checked iCloud settings and confirmed syncing is enabled.
•
What I can’t figure out is why these specific features fail only between my two devices, when AirDrop works with other devices and Safari Handoff works between them.

Has anyone encountered this? Is there some sort of device-pairing or Continuity authentication issue that could explain it? I’d really appreciate suggestions beyond the usual toggling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Handoff, since I’ve already gone through all of that.

Hello! I am a new Mac user , this is my first MacBook and I didn't want my photos from my Iphone to transfer to my MacBook so I set it up as new and only later logged into my Apple ID. But I went to the gallery and the photos from my ICloud transferred still so i tried to turn off ICloud syncing on the Mac cuz I don't want the pictures to transfer and take up space. So I pressed the turn off sync Icloud and then this popped up shortly (but if you press unsync for the photos itself it doesn't let me) and i pressed Delete from Mac and it started bugging out and like 20 screens popped up and now its stuck like this no matter what i press and I can't even turn off or reset the computer. Has this happened to anyone else? What do I do to get my laptop back to normal and then keep the Icloud photos off the Mac? Thank you so much in advance

I'm getting fucking sick of it. I'm using Adguard in Safari, which is a macos browser, which means it's relevant to this sub.

! New Reddit: hide posts whose title contains "I built" as separate words
reddit.com#?#shreddit-post:matches-attr("post-title"="/\bI built\b/i")

! old.reddit.com
old.reddit.com#?#.thing.link:has(a.title:contains(/\bI built\b/i))

Enjoy.

Hey r/MacOS 👋

A friend and I have been building StableBar. It's a fully customizable bar that replaces your menu bar. It's completely free and open source: https://github.com/Seb-GRAF/StableBar

You can add whatever you like on it:

• your workspaces if you're using window managers like AeroSpace, yabai, OmniWM or Rift, or plain macOS Spaces even

• all the base stuff from your bar, like app menus, calendar, battery, sound, but also network, CPU and memory, with little popups for graphs and controls

• create custom widgets if you're a developer

• create the styles however you want (I made a post on r/unixporn with my setup if you want to check it out

Everything is set up in a Settings window, so no scripting needed if oyu don't want to. If you do like tinkering you can create your own widgets.

You can grab the DMG from GitHub or install it with brew install --cask seb-graf/tap/stablebar. It's signed and notarized, there's no analytics, and the only thing it talks to is GitHub (for updates and the widget store).

I'll be around in the comments, happy to answer anything or hear what you'd want on it!

On my previous Macbook (or maybe even on this current macbook, but with an older OS), I was able to listen to a podcast through bluetooth headphones and play music through bluetooth speakers. I would select the output audio in iTunes/Music by clicking on the (I think) airdrop icon.

Today this seems impossible and, as usual, every apple discussion is a deadend. Does anyone know if there is a workaround for this? I have a Macbook Pro 13 inch M1 from 2020, running Tahoe 26.

In Podcasts I can still see the icon to select the audio output, but the only option is the Macbook itself. There is no such option, as far as I can tell, in Apple Music.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all,

I’m experiencing intermittent issues with external SSDs since upgrading to macOS 27 (Golden Gate). Everything seemed to work normally before the upgrade.

My setup:
Mac mini M1
macOS 27.2.1 (Golden Gate)
UGREEN USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 NVMe enclosure
Realtek RTL9220 controller
APFS-formatted NVMe SSD

Sometimes, after booting macOS, the SSD simply doesn’t mount and doesn’t even appear in Disk Utility.

Interestingly, System Information still shows the RTL9220 controller, but the actual storage device doesn’t seem to initialize.

After restarting the Mac, everything works perfectly. The enclosure is then recognized as “UGREEN Storage Device” at 10 Gbps and the SSD mounts normally.

I’ve already performed a completely clean installation of macOS 27, but unfortunately that didn’t solve the problem.

There is another issue which makes me suspect a broader macOS compatibility problem: My previous Satechi docking station also stopped working properly after upgrading to macOS 27. The SSD installed inside the dock was no longer recognized either.

So far, I’ve encountered these issues only since upgrading to Golden Gate.

Has anyone experienced similar problems with external SSDs, particularly UGREEN enclosures using the RTL9220 controller or Satechi docks?

Could this be related to USB storage initialization or compatibility changes in macOS 27?

I’d be interested to hear about other people’s experiences. Thanks!