Accent menu unreadable with ABC Extended

In Mac OS 26, the accent menu that appears when using the ABC Extended keyboard by holding down a letter is impossible to read (white text on a light grey background), with apparently no way to change it. Here's an example holding down the "a" key.



Ugh.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Nov 13, 2025 10:06 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 14, 2025 3:59 AM

This was a visual bug in macOS 26 and 26.0.1, occurring in Dark theme on a light background (but not on a dark background).



It was fixed in macOS 26.1, so the solution to your problem is to update your Mac.


Update macOS on Mac - Apple Support


4 replies

Nov 13, 2025 10:30 PM in response to XboxFan

Furthermore, the number code to select these apparently changed in Mac OS 14 (forum report) and is inconsistent. For example, if I'm trying to enter Chinese diacritic marks, then pressing and holding a vowel followed by a number works as follows:


  • falling, grave: 1 for all vowels (à)
  • rising, acute: 2 for all vowels (á)
  • dipping, caron: 5 for all vowels (ǎ)
  • high, macron: 7 for some vowels (ē, ī, ū), 9 for other vowels (ā, ō)

Accent menu unreadable with ABC Extended

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