New features coming with macOS Big Sur.
macOS Big Sur brings a refined new design, powerful controls and intuitive customisation options to the most advanced desktop operating system in the world.
Key Features and Enhancements
Experience
Updated menu bar
The menu bar is now taller and more translucent, allowing your desktop picture to extend from edge to edge. Words lighten or darken based on the colour of your desktop picture. And pull-down menus are larger, with more space between the lines to make everything easier to read.
Floating Dock
The redesigned Dock is lifted from the bottom of your display and is more translucent, allowing your desktop wallpaper to shine through. And app icons are all-new and even easier to recognise.
New icons for apps
App icons have been redesigned to feel both familiar and fresh. Icons have a uniform shape but retain the stylistic touches and details that give Mac its character.
Lighter window appearance
Windows have a lighter, more spacious appearance that makes them cleaner and easier to work with. Additional translucency and rounded edges designed to match the radii of Mac create a cohesive look and feel throughout macOS.
Redesigned sheets
Sheets in apps have been completely redesigned, removing borders and bezels to put the focus on your content. They automatically dim the background and scale into the centre of the app.
New and updated sounds
System sounds are all-new and even more pleasing to the ear. The new system alerts were created using snippets of the originals, so they sound familiar.
Full-height sidebars
A new look for app sidebars makes it easier to find what you want and gives you more space to get things done. Easily track your Mail inbox, access Finder folders and organise Photos, Notes, Stocks and more.
New symbols throughout macOS
New symbols in toolbars, sidebars and controls bring clarity and consistency across apps, helping you immediately recognise where to click. When apps share common tasks — like viewing the inbox in Mail or Calendar — they share the same symbol. There are also localised versions of symbols with numbers, letters and dates to match your system language.
Control Centre
Control Centre
Designed just for Mac, the new Control Centre consolidates your favourite menu bar items into a single place to give you instant access to the controls you use most. Just click the Control Centre icon in the menu bar and adjust Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, AirDrop and other settings — without opening System Preferences.
Customise Control Centre
Add controls for the apps and features you use most, like Accessibility or Battery.
Click for more options
Click to expand the menu. For example, click Display to see options for Dark Mode, Night Shift, True Tone and AirPlay.
Pin to menu bar
Drag and pin your favourite menu items to the top of your menu bar for easy one-click access.
Notification Centre
Updated Notification Centre
A redesigned Notification Centre puts all your notifications and widgets into a single, dedicated column. Notifications are automatically sorted by most recent, and redesigned Today widgets deliver information at a glance.
Interactive notifications
Do more with your notifications on Mac for Apple Podcasts, Mail, Calendar and more. Simply click and hold the notification to take action or get more information. Reply to an email, listen to the latest podcast and even expand a Calendar invitation to see where the event falls in your day.
Grouped notifications
Notifications are grouped by thread or app. Expand each group to see earlier notifications. You can also disable grouped notifications if you prefer to see them individually.
Redesigned widgets
Experience brand-new widgets and beautifully redesigned widgets for Calendar, Stocks, Weather, Reminders, Notes and Podcasts. Widgets also come in different sizes, so you can pick the one that works best for you.
Customise widgets
Easily add new widgets to Notification Centre by clicking Edit Widgets. Then customise the size to show the amount of information you want to see and drag it into your widget list.
Discover more third‑party widgets
Discover new third‑party widgets for Notification Centre on the App Store.
Safari
Customisable start page
Customise the new start page to make it your own. You can set a background image and select new sections to display on the start page — including Favourites, Siri Suggestions, Reading List, iCloud Tabs and even a Privacy Report.
Improved performance
Safari was already the fastest desktop browser — and now it’s even faster. Safari loads frequently visited sites 50 per cent faster on average than Chrome.1
Improved power efficiency
Safari is optimised specifically for Mac, so it’s more efficient than other browsers on macOS. Stream video for up to one and a half hours longer and browse the web for up to one hour longer on a Mac notebook compared with Chrome or Firefox.2
Favicons in tabs
Default tab favicons help you easily identify open tabs at a glance.
See more tabs at once
The new tab bar design displays more tabs onscreen at once so you can quickly move between them.
Website previews
When you just want a peek at what’s on a tab, hold the pointer over it to get a quick preview of the page.
Beta
Translation
Translate entire web pages in Safari.3 When you encounter a compatible page, just click the translation icon in the address field to translate into English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Russian or Brazilian Portuguese.
Safari extensions on the App Store
An all-new extensions category on the App Store showcases Safari extensions with editorial spotlights and top charts, making it easier to discover great extensions from developers. All extensions are reviewed, signed and hosted by Apple for your security.
WebExtensions API support
New support for the WebExtensions API and migration tools allows developers to bring Chrome extensions to Safari — letting you personalise your browsing experience with new Safari extensions from your favourite developers.
Grant extensions website access
Keep the websites you visit and tabs you use even more private. Safari asks you which websites a Safari extension can work with — and you can grant access for one day, or all the time.
Privacy Report
Safari uses Intelligent Tracking Prevention to identify trackers and help prevent them from profiling or following you around the web. A new Privacy Report shows how Safari protects your browsing across every website you visit. Go to the Privacy Report from your Safari menu and you’ll get an in‑depth overview of every cross-site tracker prevented over the last 30 days.
Privacy Report for each website
See the privacy practices for every website you visit. Just click the Privacy Report button in your Safari toolbar for a summary of all cross-site trackers prevented by Intelligent Tracking Prevention.
Start page Privacy Report
Add a Privacy Report to your start page — so every time you open a new window or tab, you can see how Safari protects your privacy.
Import passwords and settings from Chrome
Easily import history, bookmarks and saved passwords from Chrome into Safari.
Password Monitoring
Safari securely monitors your passwords, automatically keeping an eye out for any saved passwords that may have been involved in a data breach. If a breach is discovered, Safari helps you upgrade existing passwords and even generates secure passwords automatically. Safari keeps your data private and doesn’t reveal your password information to anyone — even Apple.
Maps
Guides
Discover the best places to eat, shop and explore in cities around the world with Guides created by brands you trust.4 Save Guides so you can easily get back to them later. And Guides update automatically when new places are added, so you always have the latest recommendations.
Create your own Guides
Create Guides for all your favourite places, like “best ramen in the CBD”, or soon‑to‑be‑favourites, like “sites to see in Auckland”. Then share them with friends and family.
Look Around
Explore selected cities with an interactive 3D experience that lets you pan 360 degrees and move smoothly through streets.
Cycling routes
Plan your cycling route directly on your Mac.5 See the elevation for your ride, how busy a street is and whether there are steep inclines or stairs along the way. When you’re ready to ride, send your route directly to your iPhone.
Electric vehicle routing
When you’re planning a trip with an electric vehicle, Maps automatically adds charging stops along your route and accounts for charging time when calculating the ETA.6 Add your electric vehicle on iPhone, and Maps will keep track of the current charge and charger type to help you plan the best route.
Indoor maps
Browse detailed indoor maps of major airports and shopping centres around the world. Find out which restaurants are past security at the airport, where the nearest restroom is or where your favourite store is at the mall.
Live updates for shared ETA
When friends send you a shared ETA, you can get live progress updates on the map so you’ll know when they’re expected to arrive.
New maps available in more countries
Detailed new maps are coming to more countries later this year, including Canada, Ireland and the UK. See detailed roads, buildings, parks, marinas, beaches, airports and more.
Privacy
Privacy information on the App Store
A new section on each app’s page on the App Store will help you understand the privacy practices of the app before you download it.7 It’s similar to the way nutrition labels help you understand what’s in food before you buy it.
Self-reported privacy practices
Developers self-report their app privacy practices on the App Store.7 See the types of data their app might collect — like usage data, contact information or location — and whether that data is shared with third parties.
Displayed in a simple format
Just as nutrition labels are convenient and easy to read, an app’s privacy information on the App Store is displayed in a consistent, simple format.7 This lets you quickly and easily see the app’s privacy practices.
Software Updates
Faster updates
Once macOS Big Sur is installed, software updates begin in the background and complete faster than before — so it’s easier than ever to keep your Mac up to date and secure.
Signed system volume
macOS Big Sur introduces a cryptographically signed system volume that protects against malicious tampering. It also means that your Mac knows the exact layout of your system volume, allowing it to begin software updates in the background while you work.
Even More
AirPods
Automatic device switching
AirPods automatically switch between your iPhone, iPad and Mac paired to the same iCloud account — making it even easier to use your AirPods with your Apple devices.8 When you turn to your Mac, a pop-up banner helps you seamlessly switch the audio over. Automatic device switching works for all Apple and Beats headphones featuring the Apple H1 headphone chip.
Apple Arcade
Friends playing recommendations
See Apple Arcade games that are popular with your Game Center friends directly from the Apple Arcade tab and game pages.
Achievements
Visit Apple Arcade game pages to see your achievement progress and explore the goals and milestones you can unlock in games.
Continue playing
Launch the games you’ve recently played across your devices directly from the Apple Arcade tab.
See all games and filter
Browse the entire Apple Arcade catalogue. Sort and filter by release date, updates, category, controller support and more.
Game Center in-game dashboard
The in-game dashboard showcases game progress for you and your friends at a glance. Quickly access your Game Center profile, achievements, leaderboards and more from within your game.
Coming soon
Get a sneak peek at upcoming Apple Arcade games and download them as soon as they’re released.
Battery
Optimised Battery Charging
Optimised Battery Charging is designed to reduce the wear on your battery and improve its lifespan by ensuring that your Mac notebook is fully charged when unplugged. Optimised Battery Charging learns your daily charging routine and activates only when your Mac predicts that it will be connected to a charger for an extended period of time.
Battery usage history
Battery usage history displays graphs of battery level and usage for the past 24 hours and the past 10 days.
FaceTime
Sign language prominence
FaceTime now detects when a participant is using sign language and makes the person prominent in a Group FaceTime call.
Home
Home status
A new visual status at the top of the Home app gives you a summary of accessories that require your attention, have important status changes to share or can be quickly controlled.
Adaptive Lighting for smart light bulbs
Light bulbs that change colour can be automatically adjusted throughout the day to maximise comfort and productivity.9 Ease into morning with warmer colours, stay focused midday with cooler colours and wind down at night by removing blue light.
Face Recognition for video cameras and doorbells
In addition to person, animal and vehicle detection, security cameras can identify people you’ve tagged in the Photos app for richer activity notifications.9 Easily tag people, and choose to be notified based on the person.
Activity Zones for video cameras and doorbells
With HomeKit Secure Video, you can define Activity Zones within a camera’s view to capture video or receive notifications only when motion is detected in those areas.9
Music
Listen Now
The new Listen Now tab is designed for playing and discovering your favourite music, artists, interviews and mixes all in one place. Listen Now starts with a summary of your Top Picks across your music interests. As you play, Apple Music10 learns what you love and provides new suggestions.
Improved search
Search has been redesigned to give you quick access to the genres, moods and activities you love. Suggestions now let you do more, such as view an album or listen to a song. New filters let you refine your results to help you find exactly what you’re looking for.
Notes
Top Hits in search
Top Hits appear at the top of your search results in Notes and surface the most relevant results — making it easier to find what you need.
Quick styles
Access additional text styles and formatting options with a click of the Aa button.
Enhanced scanning
Continuity Camera has never been better. Use your iPhone or iPad to capture sharper scans that are more precisely autocropped, and have them automatically transferred to your Mac.
Photos
Expanded video editing capabilities
Adjustments, filters and cropping are now supported for video editing so you can rotate, increase exposure or even apply filters to your videos.
Expanded photo editing capabilities
Now you can apply the Vibrance effect to photos and adjust the intensity of filters and Portrait Lighting effects.
Improved Retouch tool
The Retouch tool now uses advanced machine learning to remove blemishes, dust specks and other objects from a photo.11
Easy, fluid navigation
Zoom in and out to quickly get to the photos and videos you’re looking for in views across Photos — including Albums, Media Types, Import, Places and more.
Add context to photos and videos with captions
View and edit captions, previously called descriptions, to add context to your photos and videos in the Info pane. With iCloud Photos enabled, captions sync seamlessly across all your devices, including captions you add on your iOS or iPadOS device.
Memories enhancements
Enjoy a more relevant selection of photos and videos in Memories, a larger selection of music tracks that automatically adapt to the length of your Memory movie, and enhanced video stabilisation when playing Memory movies.
Podcasts
Listen Now
Listen Now makes it even easier to find what to play next. Easily resume the next episode in your queue from a more focused Up Next. And enjoy a new section devoted to helping you discover the latest episodes in programmes you follow.
Reminders
Assign reminders
Assign reminders to people you share lists with and they’ll get a notification. It’s great for splitting up tasks and knowing who’s responsible for what so nobody forgets.
Smart suggestions for dates and locations
Reminders automatically suggests dates, times and locations for a reminder based on similar reminders you’ve created in the past.
Personalised lists with emoji
Personalise the appearance of your lists with emoji and newly added symbols.
Reminder suggestions from Mail
When you’re corresponding with someone in Mail, Siri recognises possible reminders and makes suggestions for you to create them.
Organise smart lists
Customise your smart lists in the Reminders app. You can easily rearrange smart lists or hide them.
New keyboard shortcuts
Easily navigate your lists and smart lists, and quickly move dates of reminders to today, tomorrow or next weekend.
Improved search
Find the right reminders by searching for people, locations and even detailed notes you’ve added.
Spotlight
Improved performance
Spotlight is more optimised for speed. Results appear faster than ever, as soon as you start typing.
Streamlined list of results
Spotlight presents all your results in a streamlined list, making results easier to digest so you can get to the app, website or document you need even faster.
Support for Quick Look
With support for Quick Look in Spotlight, you can access a full-sized, scrollable preview of almost any document.
Integrated in Find menus
Spotlight technology now powers the Find menu in apps like Safari, Pages, Keynote and more.
Voice Memos
Folders
Folders let you organise your Voice Memos recordings.
Smart Folders
Smart Folders automatically group Apple Watch recordings, recently deleted recordings and Favourites — making it even easier to stay organised.
Favourites
Easily mark recordings as Favourites so you can quickly access them later.
Enhance Recording
Automatically reduce background noise and room reverb with a single click.
Weather
Significant shifts
The Weather widget indicates when the weather will be much warmer, colder or wetter in the next day.
International Features
New bilingual dictionaries
New bilingual dictionaries include French–German, Indonesian–English, Japanese–Simplified Chinese and Polish–English.
Enhanced predictive input for Chinese and Japanese
Enhanced predictive input for Chinese and Japanese results in more accurate and contextual predictions.
New fonts for India
New fonts for India include 20 new document fonts. In addition, 18 existing fonts have been upgraded with more weights and italics to give you greater choice.
Localised message effects in Messages for India
When you send a greeting in one of 23 Indian languages, Messages will add a corresponding message effect to help you celebrate the moment. For example, send “Happy Holi” in Hindi, and Messages automatically adds confetti to accompany the greeting.