Are Mac developers actually adopting the menu item icons in macOS 26? I’m torn… I think this design change was unnecessary and adds clutter. But also, it feels incomplete if I don’t add my own icons.

@manton It’s particularly frustrating when some items have their own icons, others share the same icon, and some don’t have any at all. I prefer to scan in a straight line down, and this is making that unnecessarily complicated.

@manton Totally. I’m convinced the icons should add affordance to the label.

I saw an Apple made menu with four cogs underneath each other and thought, What’s the use of that? 🤷

It feels an exercise in matching existing icons with menu labels.

> “We spend money on these icons! Better use them!”

@manton please, consider adding them as part of your adoption strategy.

@numericcitizen 👍

@manton I decided against adding menu item icons for now. I added one to an Edit menu item, just because every other item in that menu had a system-defined icon.

If it proves to be the wrong decision, I can add them in the future. I would rather that than add them now and then remove them in the future.

@johnbrayton That makes sense too. I might add a few and then wait and see how other apps adopt them.

@manton What about adding empty icons that would keep the menu aligned, while avoiding unnecessary overuse of unrelated icons?

@d2s That is a really interesting idea. Worth trying, and makes me wonder if Apple initially lined things up and decided against it.

@johnbrayton @manton that’s a good plan. i’m borrowing it!

i’ve decided a similar approach to a few things. but it’s honestly just knee jerk vibes to something i’m not fond of.

i like the thoughtful reasoning that’s its always easier to add someday than to ever remove. that is a fundamental truth of app design.

vibes are fine, but not the best for lasting decisions. reason-backed-vibes seem far better.

@manton I went ahead and did the menu icons, mostly because there were enough system built-in ones (which it doesn't look like you can hide, at least not easily) that it looked weird not to have icons for the rest.

I'm not a fan, but at the same time I got used to their presence pretty quickly. I don't even really notice them after using Tahoe full time for a couple weeks.

@manton I'm not a fan, but you don't really have a choice if you want your app to feel at home. I went though them all using claude and ChatGPT. The AI can help with coming up with SF Symbols.

@bwebster Cool, that makes me feel better about adding them. It’s not like Apple is going to backtrack on this design change.

@bwebster @manton I’m not a fan, either, but I went all-in with menu item icons because I think it looks terrible to have some with and some without (since the system adds some by default) and so you end up with different alignments.

Apple, apparently, did not feel this way. The system apps, and especially Safari, are missing tons of icons.

@mjtsai @bwebster I was surprised by that too, especially Safari. There doesn’t appear to be an Apple app that actually takes full advantage of menu icons.

@manton - Safari is a great example of poor implementation. The Edit and Window menus are jam packed with menu icons - and look great for it. The other menus, not so much.

@manton @mjtsai @bwebster I thought the HIG said to use icons sparingly?

@manton @mjtsai @bwebster Here it is.

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/menus

@fahrni @manton @bwebster I don’t think Apple is following their own guidelines.