Stop Overlapping Text & Legibility Issues on macOS Tahoe with “Reduce Transparency”
The Liquid Glass interface of macOS Tahoe 26 can provide some accessibility and legibility challenges for some Mac users, and one of the recurring complaints is the heavy usage of transparency and translucency can lead to text overlapping other text throughout the operating system. Whether it’s a sidebar, menu, messages, or window, having text atop text is never a great user experience and is always difficult to read, and since it happens with regularity on the Mac now thanks to the new Liquid Glass appearance, it’s a good thing to address specifically.
If you have already read our guide on reducing Liquid Glass on macOS Tahoe then you likely won’t be experiencing the overlapping text problems as you’ve already made an appropriate settings change, so this article isn’t for you. This is for the Mac users who have updated to Tahoe and now find legibility to be challenging due to text being overlaid atop other text throughout the operating system. And, once again, a buried Accessibility setting called “Reduce Transparency” will come to the rescue here to make the user interface more usable on the Mac by preventing text from overlapping.
How to Prevent Overlapping Text on macOS Tahoe by Using Reduce Transparency
- From the APPLE menu go to “System Settings” and then go to “Accessibility”
- Go to “Display” and toggle the switch for “Reduce Transparency” to the ON position
- This removes most translucency/transparency from the Liquid Glass interface and should prevent text being visible under other text
There are some other perks to using “Reduce Transparency” as well extending beyond increased legibility and usability of Liquid Glass, including potential performance improvements, but it does come at the sacrifice of Apple’s intended vision of Liquid Glass on the Mac, which is heavy usage of transparency and translucency just about everywhere that it can be applied.
It’s possible that overlapping text like what is shown in the screenshots is not intentional, maybe it’s a bug, maybe it was overlooked, or maybe the Liquid Glass interface was not quite finished to the level of refinement many Mac users would expect, who knows, but I would imagine that even people at Apple who use Macs can’t see that sort of thing and be thrilled with it, it looks and feels too sloppy.
Was the Liquid Glass interface change on the Mac even necessary? Is it an improvement over what it replaced in Sequoia? Opinions are mixed on this dramatically, some users don’t seem to notice or care, others love the Liquid Glass look, and some hate it. One former Apple engineer describes the interface changes in Tahoe as “mostly not awful, but everything they changed is worse”, which is an assessment in line with my own views on the Liquid Glass look (which I think looks much better on iPhone than it does on the Mac, for what it’s worth).
It’s quite likely that these sort of accessibility and legibility issues will be resolved in future macOS Tahoe updates, perhaps has MacOS 26.1, 26.2, 26.3, so be sure to update your Mac as system updates become available. Quirks like this are also why some Mac users hold off on upgrading to Tahoe initially at least until later point release bug fix updates become available, which is what I’m doing on my primary Mac work setup, but I did jump into Tahoe on a secondary Mac so that I could gain more direct experience. I was hoping for an experience like I had with iOS 26 on iPhone, where Liquid Glass quickly grew on me after a strong initial negative reaction, but so far that hasn’t been the case – yet.
Great tip for macOS Tahoe users! Overlapping text and low-contrast menus can make even simple tasks feel unnecessarily frustrating, especially when you’re trying to focus. Turning on “Reduce Transparency” seems like a small accessibility tweak, but it can make windows, labels, and backgrounds much easier to read. It also reminds me of how visual clarity affects tension but unreadable details would just feel annoying. Have you noticed a significant improvement in legibility after enabling this setting?
This has been driving me nuts on Tahoe and I never connected it to the transparency setting — I just assumed my external monitor’s HDR mode was acting up. Going to flip “Reduce Transparency” on tonight and see if it cleans up the menu bar ghosting I’ve been seeing. The performance note is also good to know; my older MacBook has been feeling sluggish lately and I’ve been wondering if Liquid Glass is partly to blame. Thanks for connecting the dots between all the random little UI issues I’d been noticing.
The timing of this guide is perfect, because the Liquid Glass look in macOS Tahoe has been the source of a lot of confusion for people who just updated and suddenly noticed menus and sidebars becoming hard to read. It is good to see the fix broken down so clearly, since buried accessibility settings are easy to miss when you do not know what to look for. The note about performance improvements is a useful bonus, because it turns a legibility fix into something that can also help older machines. I would probably still enable the setting even with the aesthetic trade-off, since a usable interface matters more than a pretty one.
Transparency effects look polished, but for daily work they can genuinely hurt readability, so it is good to see practical fixes being shared. I have had similar problems with translucent sidebars making text harder to scan quickly, and reducing transparency usually helps a lot. It is the small accessibility settings like this that often make the biggest difference over months of use. Nice to have a straightforward walkthrough instead of having to dig through system settings on my own. Thanks for putting this together!
Thanks for this — the overlapping text issue has been driving me a little crazy since updating to Tahoe, especially in sidebars and messages where everything starts to blur together. I had no idea the Reduce Transparency setting was tucked away under Accessibility, so this guide is exactly what I needed. The note about it also bringing some performance benefits is a nice bonus, even if it means giving up part of the intended Liquid Glass look. It’s a good reminder that visual polish only works when it doesn’t get in the way of readability. Clear, practical write-ups like this are why I keep visiting
My activation of ‘reduce transparency’ dates back to when Apple started introducing transparent windows, menu bars and the dock. I found seeing what’s behind what I want to see clearly to be incredibly annoying
I absolutely hate this, it is so frustrating
The “Reduce Transparency” option is a simple but effective fix that improves readability and makes macOS Tahoe’s Liquid Glass interface much easier to use.
This kind of design is a disaster for the eyes; looking at it for too long will make you dizzy, let alone work. You should take a break, close your computer for a while, find some relaxing games to unwind, and then come back to work efficiently.
I totally relate to the overlapping text issue in macOS Tahoe! I was struggling with legibility myself until I finally tried “Reduce Transparency.”
My activation of ‘reduce transparency’ dates back to when Apple started introducing transparent windows, menu bars and the dock. I found seeing what’s behind what I want to see clearly to be incredibly annoying.
Consequently, activating ‘reduce transparency’ is always one of my first tasks when updating to new OS versions for Mac, iPad or iPhone.