Hey everyone, I'm the owner of the repo that Rob references in his blog post (https://github.com/travisvn/stop-tahoe-update)
Just wanted to comment to see if I can help answer any questions as well as mentioning that we improved the instructions in the README based on some of the points Rob made a few weeks back.
There really are a large number of us out there that know Tahoe would be a downgrade to their current setup
If you have any ideas on how to improve the resilience of the workarounds, please connect on the GitHub, or just starring the repo would help, as the project would get more attention and hopefully more solutions offered as a result.
It's frustrating to feel like your computer isn't.. yours anymore when you're pushed so insistently like with this "upgrade". Hopefully we can figure out some sustainable ways to get some autonomy back.
Dear Apple, no latency from brain to action is the greatest design you can possibly have. We want to feel one with the machine. That's the greatest joy and difference between a Mac and a Windows machine. Adding latency to the fastest machine possible is criminal. Please STOP DOING IT with unnecessary animations.
A few weeks ago Apple had a tiny (<10MB) update for media codecs ready to install on my MBP. I expanded the details for that software update and saw that if I had run it, it would also have downloaded and installed Tahoe. Apple is burning so much trust right now with these dark patterns.
Upgrading to Sequoia was a mistake, and so was upgrading to Tahoe.
I like new and shiny software, but these two releases aren't great. Outside of a good amount of bugs. It is wild to me that Apple can't even get their own UI consistent.
Apples own apps are pretty much the only things you can't close. Finder: can't quit. System settings, somehow doesn't expand horizontally (are we still in the 2000s apple?) I haven't felt the liquid glass or whatever too much on the laptop, but I just used one of my family members Iphone today, and man it was distracting, it seems crazy that contrast has gone out the window.
But especially the bugs. Apple should really take a release that is just bug fixing. I had to switch out Spotlight because it kept trying to want to index my entire system, which is hard when you work in both Rust and typescript projects (lots of small files).
Same problem here.
Linux + KDE surpassed Windows many years ago, now I find I also prefer it to the Mac laptops, which are otherwise better only for portability.
Apple need to get their software act together. Such a shame because the hardware is awesome. A near perfect inversion of the era of Tiger on the G4.
I just don't get the resistance to Tahoe, and I speak as a macOS power user through a couple decades.
Been on Tahoe now for a few weeks. The new rounded corners bug me a bit, but aside from that it's been rock stable. The trick with macOS is of course not to immediately upgrade. Give it a few weeks before you go to a new release.
I've been through all the releases since Jaguar in 2003. There's been some ups and downs, and a lot of complaints, but I'd say it still remains the most rock solid UNIX™ desktop OS out there.
It's much easier to simply use this with whatever date you prefer:
defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate MajorOSUserNotificationDate -date "2030-03-03 12:00:00 +0000"I’ve used Little Snitch to block the installation of Tahoe. I get a notification every few days, it when I click on it there’s a message that it can’t download the update. Massive stress reducer knowing I can’t accidentally upgrade to Tahoe.
so we're all going to hold onto sequoia like we did snow leopard. only reason i'm not buying a new mac at the moment is because it would force me to upgrade.
the situation is absurd ..
fwiw switching to the sequoia beta channel in system settings killed the nag notifications for me (I believe the profile as defined in OP will stop all updates - which you probably don't want)
Interesting, I'm running Sequoia and have never seen that.
However, I'm running Sequoa developer beta. In my system settings under Beta updates, I have "Sequoia developer beta" selected.
At this point it's basically just getting the Sequoa security patches a few days early. But I guess it also suppresses this message?
There were times when we couldn't await to upgrade to the next Mac OS version. Tahoe is not one of those versions.
Already iOS 26 made me consider switching to Android, and now I've pondered returning to Linux after 26 years on Mac OS. Bizarrely, right now it's the quality of the hardware alone holding me at Mac OS. Wouldn't have expected that 6 or 7 years ago.
Sick of the forced UI refreshes and "modern" designs. Will Apple understand again this is where I work and basically live in and not some kind of entertainment system where I need design refreshes so it feels all shiny and new?
Much easier: switch to the Sequoia public beta channel!
Im planning on getting the new M5 MBP i expect to be released next week. Is it possible to downgrade? I assume it comes with Tahoe :(
I held out.
Then I upgraded my work laptop to test it out. Then my phone. Now my personal laptop.
I actually like it.
Everything is snappier. The glass effects are not nearly as annoying as I expected.
ymmv
The biggest annoyance for me is the removal of Firewire support with Tahoe. That’s why I keep Sequoia for the time being. I’ll probably create a new APFS volume and dual boot with Sequoia for the foreseeable future for Firewire support.
I read the old forums carefully:
[BIG Warning: this didn't work for child commenter]
- simply decline/reject the TOS on install. It will auto uninstall the installer and go away.
Life has been good since.
This is my favorite PiHole rule (DNS blacklist):
(\.|^)apple\.com$
One can then manually install OS updates, directly from Apple, via <https://mrmacintosh.com/how-to-download-macos-catalina-mojav...> directlinks (should one choose to).Comments here paints Tahoe very poorly, and I trust comments here on this topic. This is very bad for Apple as OS from new Macs can not be downgraded and customers like myself will either delay purchases til hopefully next OS fix these issues (not having high hopes) or buy in the 2nd hand market for older OS.
> Run the script as described in the project's Read Me
I don’t think this warrants a whole installer script – if you replace UUIDs by hand, you can as well read through the .mobileconfig file and make sure you understand what the profile does, then double click it to install :)
Note that you might also want to remove some other entries from the profile, as, from a glance, those might still delay minor updates by 30 days. (Or does `forceDelayedSoftwareUpdates=false` make these harmless?)
I’ve been a pretty die hard Mac user for 25-odd years now (I own a HomePod, for fuck sake), but this is the first time I’ve taken pains to _not_ update to the latest OS. The Tahoe UI/UX is really just inexcusable, and nothing else I’ve heard or seen makes me willing to put up with it. I’m very much hoping they course correct soon, but as sits, my Linux box is suddenly starting to look like the future.
Note that step 3 is not needed anymore (replacing UUID by hand) as the script automatically was updated 2 months ago to do that automatically.
Might as well just rip off the band aid and learn to suck it up. Fixing Windows and MacOS with these fucking shitty hacks and doesn't work forever. You will be upgraded, like it or not, or be harassed the rest of your life to do so.
Adding my opinion: Sequoia was fine and so is Tahoe on a base M2. Can't say I've noticed a usability difference. I also prefer using a trackpad over a mouse and I don't know very many keyboard shortcuts, and I only use one monitor.
Also need a solution for Numbers nagging me in the app to upgrade (popup blocking my work).
So annoying. I don't want the Numbers-with-AI/premium-upsell-crap edition
Anyone in London want to buy a 32GB M4 MBA at a big discount (got some cosmetic damage)...?
Thank you. I own several Macs. One is on Tahoe. It feels the worst. More than myself, though, I need to give my less technical family members a respite from the tricky traps that lead to inadvertently installing it.
Still on Sonoma, don't plan to upgrade, I'm sick of upgrades that break everything or change the UI for the worse. Does anyone know how to block the "there is a new version" popup for Pages etc?
Apple has been going down hill at an exponential rate since the loss of Steve (and subsequently just about all real engineers at Apple).
Swift is turning into a mess and SwiftUI is complete, utter garbage. Tahoe’s UI is unbearable.
The problem is there is no real alternative - Linux is the closest thing (but has its issues).
The constant, exhausting, and frankly pointless changes to macos is really driving me back to rolling my own desktop on freebsd or linux. At least under that environment nothing changes unless I change it.
I accidentally hit the wrong button a few weeks ago and upgraded to Tahoe. I didn't think it was that big a deal at the time, I'd just been putting it off.
But having used it for a few weeks now I can confirm it is a strict downgrade over Sequoia for me. I use none of the new features it has introduced, and the changes to existing features are just worse.
Some UI animations are slow and jittery - and this is on an M4 Pro. The Finder has gone from fine to janky once again, especially with horizontal scroll. The window corners and mouse interactions are indeed annoying (I'd assumed the many complaints were at least slight hyperbole). Left-aligned window titles are unbalanced and ugly. I've had weird (visual) app duplication issues with the Application smart-folder in the Dock. Cross-device copy-paste SEEMS to be more flaky than usual. And most petty of all I really don't like the new icons - especially the Trash icon for some reason.