How to minimize the Liquid Glass effect on Apple devices

Learn how to tone down the new Liquid Glass transparency effects across the user interfaces on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV running the latest version of their respective software.

Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language simulates a translucent glass-like material that “reflects and refracts what’s beneath in real-time.” It’s applied pretty much everywhere, from Control Center to the Lock Screen notifications to your Home Screen, apps, and beyond.

Liquid Glass is available across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26.

This new design is the visual foundation of Apple’s operating systems moving forward, and thus, there isn’t a switch in the settings that you can flip to turn off this effect entirely.

However, if Liquid Glass gets in the way of visibility and accessibility for you, you can mitigate this see-through effect to a great extent using the provided Tinted look or with the familiar Reduce Transparency accessibility feature. Doing so should replace the hazy transparency effect with a solid background in several places across the user interface.

Some Control Center toggles will still reflect light around borders, but that’s not a biggie; at the very least, a non-glassy user interface will make on-screen items more visible, while also improving readability and accessibility.

Select the tinted Liquid Glass look

The latest version of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe 26 give you two Liquid Glass styles to choose from:

• Clear: Which is super glassy.
• Tinted: Which adds translucence to some backgrounds like notifications, making the text easier to read.

Try both and see which one you like (I prefer the tinted style).

1. Open Settings or System Settings, then tap Display & Brightness on iOS or click Appearance on macOS.
2. Select Clear or Tinted for Liquid Glass.

Use Reduce Transparency

If the Tinted style is not enough, try reducing the transparency in accessibility settings.

iPhone or iPad

1. Go to iOS 26 Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size.
2. Turn on the Reduce Transparency option to minimize the Liquid Glass effects. Alternatively, you can enable the Increase Contrast option and see how this sits with you.

To quickly toggle Reduce Transparency, add it to Control Center or assign it to your Accessibility Shortcut, which can be invoked by triple-pressing the power button.

Apple Watch

1. Open the Watch app on your paired iPhone and choose Accessibility from the My Watch tab.
2. Turn on Reduce Transparency.

Or, go to Settings > Accessibility on the watch itself and turn Reduce Transparency on.

If you’d like to toggle the Reduce Transparency feature from Control Center on your Apple Watch, just add its button to your Accessibility Shortcut.

Control Center and other user interface elements on your Apple Watch will have a solid background and reduced transparency. Don’t expect miracles; as evidenced by the screenshots below, the difference doesn’t seem that noticeable.

Mac

1. Open System Settings and select Accessibility.
2. Click Display.
3. Turn on the Reduce Transparency switch to minimize the Liquid Glass effect throughout the Mac’s user interface.

macOS 26 brings Control Center customization by letting you add new controls and adjust their layout. Feel free to add a Reduce Transparency button to Control Center so you can quickly toggle the feature.

This is how the Mac’s Control Center and the menu bar look without and with Reduce Transparency.

Apple TV

Open the Settings app and navigate to Accessibility > Display, then turn on Reduce Transparency.

You’ll no longer see the Liquid Glass effects in Control Center and other places.

How has your experience been so far with these new operating systems?