How to disable liquid glass in iOS 26?

There's no off switch but however what I did is I went to settings-accessability-display & text size and reduced transparency and if that still isn't okay for you I would recommend scrolling down (same settings) and reducing white points atleast by 50% or however you like. It makes the icons less "shiny" in a way

You can ask all you want but it won't happen. Downgrading the operating system is not supported.

And there is no such version as 24 or 25. It made the jump from iOS 18 to 26.

There is no way to completely disable the Liquid Glass effect in iOS 26, but you can reduce its impact by going to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and turning on Reduce Transparency. This will make the interface less transparent, but it won't remove the effect entirely.

There is no way to do so. Turning on 'reduce transparency' ( settings -accessiblity - display and text size - reduce transparency ) will fill the notification/now playing background with a dark overlay. You cannot change that color whatsoever, so you are basically stuck on dark mode while on your lock screen. I HATE this feature and would love to have the option to COMPLETELY turn off the liquid glass effect.

azwinnieQ wrote:

I want a way to turn off Liquid Glass. I cannot “see” the display as easily as before. I updated my iPhone 16 as well as my iPad Pro, to IOS 26 and am very disappointed. Please fix this with an update to give us a choice.

You can reduce the transparency if that helps you at Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Reduce Transparency. Every year there are users who do not like any changes, that is not unusual. The UI is a central part of any OS, and not something that you can just turn on/off with a switch to revert back to the previous UI. Others like it too:

• https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/09/ios-26-review-a-practical-yet-playful-update/
• https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/ios-26-review-a-new-look-ill-be-happy-with-for-the-next-12-years/
• https://mashable.com/article/ipados-26-review

Zedairder wrote:

The best you’ve got is reduced motion, which I assume you already have enabled.

Also Settings>Accessibility>Display & Text Size>Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast.

But yeah, definitely not optional!

You can go to Settings>Accessibility>Display & Text Size and turn on Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast and that will do some, but you cannot "turn off" Liquid Glass.

Dmitry Sazonov wrote:

The “reduce transparency” is actually a weak workaround. You can check it by recording screen and playback it in slow motion. You can see that the “glass” effect doesn’t go anywhere, there is just a black shade added at some animation step.

To be fair…”reduce” doesn’t mean it would take the glass effect away at all so there’s no surprise that it wouldn’t literally take away the effect but simply “reduce” it.

As mentioned numerous times in this thread and pretty much any thread where there is something built into iOS that the user can’t change or disable the only real option is to contact Apple directly to submit feedback. And of course if the issue is something the user just can’t deal with or wait to see if any changes may occur in future updates they could make a more extreme decision to switch to a different brand phone. I personally opted to not update to iOS 26 on my current devices (although I did do it on my MacBook Pro and don’t have issues with it) simply because I wanted to wait to see it on my iPhone 17 Pro Max first in case there were any bugs or issues. Of course that doesn’t help anyone that maybe wasn’t upgrading or if they were getting the new devices and didn’t have a choice in not updating to iOS 26. But for those with older devices I always recommend waiting before updating so you can monitor any issues others may bring up and hold off if they seem to be big ones or things you know you wouldn’t like. Not to diminish those who truly are having what sounds like visual or sensory issues with iOS 26 but there are always hundreds of threads every year when a major update happens complaints (with many being more opinions and issues with not liking change…hence when people declare it’s “ugly” when that isn’t something that has anything to do with functionality…and is completely subjective). So every year you can almost predict what will be said…until there is a true and major functional issue…like when wireless charging issues were happening to most users (just one example).

Missdlb wrote:

I too am experiencing visual issues with the Liquid Glass. Everything is a bit blurry as is I’m looking through glass at fish in a fish tank. I did workaround, it doesn’t help. Nothing is clear and crisp. My phone is essentially unusable at this point. I don’t know what to do. My company requires our devices to always be updated.

There is nothing anyone here can do about it. Submit your feedback to Apple:

Product Feedback - Apple

I didn't like how it looked when I enabled Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Reduce Transparency. However, I found there is another setting you can enable to improve this. Accessibility > Motion > Reduce Motion. This disables both the bouncing effect of apps when you unlock the phone and open the home screen, and also eliminates the ripple effect on app groups which was a big annoyance for me. Now those look more like simple frosted glass, which is a big improvement.

doDadTJL wrote:

Why pin paid advertisements to this post? This doesn't answer the question. You're justifying your stance by providing release articles from paid sources. If it can not be changed state that along with relative information to the problem. I personally hate it, and don't think 3 articles stating otherwise is useful.

It's not possible for anyone to pin anything in this thread. The only thing that gets pinned is the "Top ranking reply." The articles that Mac Jim ID linked to are within the Terms of Use.

As far as the question goes, it has been repeatedly answered. Pretending it has been because you don't like that answer will not change anything.

You cannot disable Liquid Glass. You can, however, let Apple know what you think of that. It's surely a better use of everyone's time than criticizing the way other volunteers answer.

Product Feedback - Apple

Go to settings, accessibility, display and text size, then hit “reduce transparency”

if you turn on your reduce transparency and increase contrast settings it pretty much eliminates the Liquid Glass look

The “reduce transparency” is actually a weak workaround. You can check it by recording screen and playback it in slow motion. You can see that the “glass” effect doesn’t go anywhere, there is just a black shade added at some animation step.

mrdattu1969 wrote:

why can't they just clearly allow you to only choose security updates or at least give you a clear and easy way to go back to at least the most recent screen display before the update. it's so frustrating and irritating when they do this. all the apps now have weird layouts and non-intuitive ways of doing things. i'm seriously rethinking the apple ecosystem.

[Edited by Moderator]

Well.....they did let you choose a security update. You could have only updated to iOS 18.7 as opposed to iOS 26. Liquid Glass has been perhaps the most widely discussed Apple update in years. There were like a zillion YouTube videos about it. Countless articles about it, too.

Personally, I LOVE Liquid Glass. And you can minimize its effects as has been mentioned on just about every page of this thread. But get rid of it, you can't. It's an integral part of iOS. So either get used to it or don't.

As to leaving the Apple Ecosystem, do as you please. It certainly makes no difference to anyone here on this user to user only forum. You should absolutely buy what suits you best.