Tahoe’s Terrible Icons: The B-Sides

2025-11-12

This post is a continuation of Paul Kafasis’ post “Tahoe’s Terrible Icons” where he contrasts the visual differences across a number of Apple’s updated icons in macOS Tahoe (a.k.a. the Liquid Glass update).

While Paul’s post mostly covers icons for the apps you’ll find in the primary /Applications folder, there’s also a subset of possibly lesser-known icons in the /System/Library/CoreServices folder which have suffered a similar fate.

When I first got a Mac back in college, one of the things I remember being completely intrigued by — and then later falling in love with — was how you could plumb obscure areas of the operating system and find gems, like the icons for little OS-level apps. You’d stumble on something like the “Add Printer” app and see the most beautiful printer icon you’d ever seen. Who cares what the app did, you could just stare at that icon. Admire it. Take it in. And you’d come away with a sense that the people who made it really cared.

Anyhow, enough reminiscing. Let’s get to the icons. I’m saving these pre-Tahoe icons for posterity’s sake because they’re beautiful. On the left is the pre-Tahoe icon, on the right is Tahoe.

(Psst: I’ve got a long-running collection of icons for iOS and macOS if you want some eye candy.)

/System/Library/CoreServices/AddPrinter