How to revert to solid black menu bar in macOS 26

undici77 wrote:

Hi everyone,

I loved how macOS 15 handled Light Appearance: the menu bar would turn solid black, perfectly matching the notch and basically disappearing — clean, distraction-free, and easy on the eyes.

In macOS 26, the new Liquid Glass effect makes the menu bar a dull gray-blue when transparency is reduced. It looks inconsistent and breaks the clean look that was perfect in macOS 15.

Is there any way to get the old solid black menu bar back in Light Appearance, or to fully disable the Liquid Glass effect like before?

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Reduce transparency

put your apps in full screen mode

compare your results...

In macOS 15, the Menu Bar is a slightly darker version of the wallpaper. macOS 26 adds the option to turn that darkening off so the menu bar is seamless with the wallpaper.

You can get a black menu bar in Dark theme by showing the menu bar background in System Settings > Menu Bar with System Settings > Accessibility > Display set to Reduce Transparency.

Even then, it's not full black as it appears slightly lighter in color than when the wallpaper is set to pure black.

undici77 wrote:

How can Apple redesign the UI and make such an obvious mistake?

Perhaps they don't consider it a mistake.