Dark mode, accent colour and tinted icons

System Settings → Appearance is more than the light/dark switch, and it is the quickest way to stop a new Mac looking like every other new Mac.

Appearance is Light, Dark or Auto. Auto follows your Night Shift schedule and, if you have not set one, sunrise and sunset.

Liquid Glass is a slider: at one end the translucent material of the interface stays clear, at the other it is fully tinted, and anywhere in between is fair game.

Colour sets the accent used by buttons, pop-up menus and other controls, and Text highlight colour the one behind selected text.

Icon & widget style has four options: Default leaves icons as their designers drew them, Dark darkens them to match the rest of the system, Clear makes them translucent, and Tinted gives the whole set a single colour — the same idea as an iPhone home screen.

Folder colour means folders in the Finder no longer have to be blue, and a folder in a different shade is one you find without reading its name. With Tinted it merges into a single colour setting for icons, widgets and folders.

None of this touches a single file, so try a combination for a day and change it again if it wears thin.

On macOS Tahoe, Liquid Glass is a plain choice between clear and tinted.