7 macOS Tahoe features you might have missed (but need to try)

The macOS Tahoe update was one of the biggest changes to Apple’s Mac operating system in years. Not only did we get an entirely new look and feel in the form of Liquid Glass, but there were improvements to Apple Intelligence, a souped-up overhaul of Spotlight, iPhone features like Live Activities and Call Screening, and a whole lot more.

But with all the attention focused on the headline features, you might not have noticed that macOS Tahoe is overflowing with little adjustments that add up to make a big difference. There are overlooked additions pretty much everywhere you look–pay attention to them and you might find your Mac experience is taken up a notch. Here, we’ve put together seven of our favorite little-known updates found in macOS Tahoe.

Spotlight superpowers

If you’ve been using macOS Tahoe, you’ve probably seen the new design and power user features that have been brought to Spotlight. But underneath the new app list and Quick Keys functionality, there are other tools that are well worth exploring.

For example, one of Spotlight’s core functions is as a search engine on your Mac. In Tahoe, it’s been given extra powers, so you can search within your open windows and tabs to find that pesky website you were browsing earlier in the day. Or by typing out a website name (like Amazon), pressing Tab, then entering your query, you can search directly within a website right from Spotlight.

There are other additions, too, like the ability to browse through your clipboard history and past Spotlight searches. These changes add up to transform Spotlight into the power user tool it was always meant to be.

Mac control

As the name suggests, the macOS Control Center is used to house controls and toggles for various apps and widgets. You can start playing music there, for example, or manage AirDrop. But because you access it from a button in your menu bar, it’s easy to forget it exists.

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In macOS Tahoe, that doesn’t need to be the case anymore, as you can drag controls out of the Control Center and house them in your menu bar, ensuring they’re always visible and accessible. Third-party apps can now add their own controls, so you’re not just limited to Apple’s options, and there’s an intuitive controls gallery that makes finding and enabling items in the Control Center a lot easier. With these improvements, the Control Center no longer needs to be macOS’s forgotten tool.

Gaming goodness

There’s no doubt about it: macOS gaming is big news these days. A combination of powerful chips and AAA titles migrating to the Mac means Apple’s computers are bona fide gaming machines in their own right. And in macOS Tahoe, there are two little-known features that can make your gaming sessions even more enthralling.

The first is MetalFX Frame Interpolation, which is Apple’s take on frame generation. This creates an extra frame for every two frames generated by your game, with the end result being a far smoother gaming experience than Apple’s hardware might otherwise be able to produce. The second feature is MetalFX Denoising, and this enables real-time path tracing in compatible games, which results in much more realistic lighting effects wherever it’s applied.

Both MetalFX Frame Interpolation and Denoising need to be utilized by game developers–they’re not features you enable yourself. That means they’re easy to overlook, but the impact on your gaming experience could be profound.

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Shortcuts automations

Shortcuts has long been one of my favorite Mac apps, and it’s the perfect way to hand over repetitive tasks to your Mac or run complex scripts that would be tedious to perform yourself. With macOS Tahoe, Shortcuts can now perform automations, which makes things even more streamlined.

In practice, that means that your favorite shortcuts can run automatically, such as at a defined time of day or when you take a specific action. So, you might save a file to your desktop, which then triggers a shortcut that moves images to your Pictures folder and everything else to your Documents folder. Automations can also be kicked off when you hook up an external display to your Mac, so you can start a work-related Focus mode or enable Dark Mode as soon as your monitor is connected, all without needing to perform a single click.

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Privacy protections

Apple has long taken user privacy seriously, and that tradition has been strengthened in macOS Tahoe thanks to the expansion of Safari’s privacy defenses.

In particular, Advanced Fingerprinting Protection can now run in every Safari session and browser window, instead of just while you’re using Private Browsing. This protection ensures that websites and advertisers cannot collect certain markers–like your operating system details or web browser choice–and use them to build an identifiable profile of you. That keeps you safe from invasive adverts and nefarious tracking practices that you might not even have been aware of. Apple didn’t make a huge fuss about this new feature, but it’ll be very welcome if you care about your privacy.

Filter unknown callers

In summer 2025, Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) highlighted a set of new features designed to filter out unknown numbers and screen callers before they are able to reach you. But these new tools don’t have to be limited to your iPhone; some of them can also protect your FaceTime experience in macOS Tahoe.

If you opt in to the Unknown Callers filter in FaceTime, any screened calls from unknown numbers are automatically sequestered into a separate area of your call list, ensuring they don’t clog up your home page. If you later mark a number as known, that person will be able to call or text you in the FaceTime, Phone and Messages apps as normal. It’s a small tweak, but one that could clean up your apps and keep unwelcome callers away from your Mac.

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Journal on your Mac

Apple’s Journal app has always felt a little lackluster, and more to the point, it’s long been limited to iOS. With macOS Tahoe, though, it’s finally made its debut on the Mac. Not only that, but it’s now equipped with a host of new features that make it a more complete way to jot down your thoughts throughout the day.

You can now create multiple journals within the app, letting you keep different aspects of your life separate and organized. The layout of each entry can be augmented with photos, videos and other attachments, and there’s also a map view that lets you revisit the places mentioned in each entry. With the ability to add to your journal on your Mac, longer entries should now be a lot more comfortable to write than attempting to do so on your iPhone, as you previously had to. That should make the Journal app a lot more viable for Mac users who want a place to log their thoughts on a regular basis.

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