For a company as adept at design as Apple is, the company’s decision to completely revamp the Finder icon in macOS Tahoe 26 was bewildering. Whereas the icon historically featured a dark shade of blue on the left and a lighter shade on the right, Apple, for reasons that defy explanation, opted to reverse the color scheme with macOS Tahoe. In one fell swoop, Apple undid decades of tradition and left many Mac enthusiasts scratching their heads. Everything Apple does is purposeful, but this design decision seemed completely arbitrary and ill-conceived.
Thankfully, Apple heard the cries of the Mac faithful. The company earlier this week rolled out macOS Tahoe beta 2 and reverted the color scheme of the Finder icon back to its original state.
As a point of reference, here’s what the original incarnation of the Finder icon in macOS Tahoe looked like:
And here’s what the Finder icon has looked like for years:
And with the latest macOS beta, the Finder icon looks like this:
Justice has been served.
Well, sort of.
There’s still something a bit off about the design. The problem, in my opinion, is that the light blue face on the right doesn’t stretch to fill the outer bounds of the icon itself. Whereas the original Finder icon gives equal weight to both hues, the new Finder icon prioritizes the dark blue face on the left, with the light blue face on the right almost seeming like an afterthought.
To this end, John Gruber recently opined:
The Tahoe beta 2 Finder icon is slightly better, but seeing it this way makes it obvious that the problem with the Tahoe Finder icon isn’t whether it’s dark/light or light/dark from left to right. It’s that with this Tahoe design it’s not 50/50. It’s the appliqué — the right side (the face in profile) looks like something stuck on top of a blue face tile. That’s not the Finder logo.
Again, it’s dumbfounding why Apple would make such a change. It’s simply different for the sake of being different, with no direction or purpose.
How Apple can improve the Finder icon design
So, what’s the solution?
Well, a few designers online have mocked up ways for Apple to restore the logo to its proper glory while keeping the Liquid Glass framework intact. The best one we’ve seen yet, and which we highlighted last week, remains Michael Flarup’s design:
The good news is that Apple, especially in the early days of new macOS and iOS releases, is very receptive to feedback. The company is open to making changes, and hopefully, we’ll see a vastly improved Finder icon by the time macOS Tahoe officially ships.
