Liquid Glass hard to read? Make menus and sidebars clearer

Why it happens

Liquid Glass, the look that came with macOS 26, lets the wallpaper and windows behind a menu or sidebar show through. Text over a busy background loses contrast, so it can look faint or blurry. Reduce transparency gives those areas a solid backing, and Increase contrast adds darker outlines.

How to fix it

1. Open the Apple menu, choose System Settings, click Accessibility in the sidebar and then click Display.

2. Turn on Reduce transparency. Menus, sidebars and the Dock get a solid background straight away.

   Accessibility›Display›Reduce transparency

3. Turn on Increase contrast on the same page. Buttons, boxes and window edges get darker outlines, so they stand out from what's behind them.

   Accessibility›Display›Increase contrast

4. Prefer to keep some of the glass look? Open Appearance in the sidebar and change Liquid Glass instead. On macOS 26.1 or later choose Tinted. On macOS 27 drag the slider to the right.

   Appearance›Liquid Glass

Reduce transparency and Increase contrast are in the same place on macOS 26 and 27. The Liquid Glass choice in Appearance arrived in macOS 26.1 as Clear or Tinted, and on macOS 27 it's a slider.

Still not fixed?

1. Make the text itself bigger. Text size on the same Display page changes the size in many apps at once.

   Accessibility›Display›Text size

2. Try the other appearance. Some people find Dark much easier to read with the glass look, others Light.

   Appearance

3. Pick a plainer wallpaper. A busy photo behind your windows is what makes see-through areas hardest to read.

4. If text still looks fuzzy with transparency off, check your screen is at its normal resolution in Displays. Contact Apple Support if it stays hard to read, as they have advisers who help with accessibility settings.