How to minimize Liquid Glass effects on your Apple devices

Learn how to minimize the new Liquid Glass transparency effects across the user interfaces on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV.

Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language simulates a translucent glass-like material which “reflects and refracts what’s beneath in real-time,” in Apple’s own words. It’s applied pretty much everywhere, from the Control Center, to the Lock Screen notifications, to your Home Screen, apps, and beyond. Liquid Glass will launch for everyone in the fall—it’s currently available in the developer betas of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26 and tvOS 26.

Liquid Glass in its current form gets in the way of visibility and accessibility. I’m certain Apple will address the biggest complaints and polish the design before the updates are released publicly this fall. Meanwhile, people on X, Reddit, and other online forums are having a field day with Liquid Glass.

The most egregious examples of form over function is the Control Center, where the background is completely visible. The good news is, you can subdue this see-through effect to a great extent with the good ol’ Reduce Transparency accessibility feature. Doing so will replace the hazy transparency effect with a solid background.

Some Control Center toggles will still refract light around borders, but that’s not a biggie; at the very least, a non-glassy user interface will make onscreen items more visible, while readability and accessibility.

iPhone or iPad

Venture into Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size on your iPhone or iPad and turn on the Reduce Transparency option to minimize the Liquid Glass effects.

To quickly toggle Reduce Transparency, add it to the Control Center or assign it to your Accessibility Shortcut invoked by triple-pressing the power button.

Apple Watch

Open the companion Watch app on your paired iPhone and select the My Watch tab then choose Accessibility and turn on Reduce Transparency.

Or, go to Settings > Accessibility on the watch and turn Reduce Transparency on.

If you’d like to toggle the Reduce Transparency feature from the Control Center on your Apple Watch, just add is buttont to your Accessibility Shortcut.

Now the Control Center and other user interface elements on your Apple Watch will have a solid background and reduced transparency. Don’t expect miracles; as evidenced by the screenshots below, the difference doesn’t seem that noticeable.

Mac

Click the Apple menu and choose System Settings, then select Accessibility in the sidebar and click Display on the right. Here, turn on the Reduce Transparency switch to minimize the Liquid Glass effect throughout the Mac’s user interface.

macOS 26 brings Control Center customization by letting you add new controls and adjust their layout. Fee; free to add a Reduce Transparency toggle to the Control Center so you can quickly toggle the feature.

This is how the Mac’s Control Center and the menu bar look without and with Reduce Transparency.

Apple TV

Open the Settings app and navigate to Accessibility > Display, then turn on Reduce Transparency.

You’ll no longer see the Liquid Glass effects in the Control Center and other places.

How to install the iOS 26 bets and other “26” betas

If you live on the bleeding edge of technology and would like to take iOS 26 and Apple’s other “26” operating systems for a spin right now, we have a step-by-step tutorial explaining how to install the developer betas of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 on your devices. We also have detailed tutorials explaining how to install the watchOS 26 beta, the macOS Tahoe 26 beta, and the tvOS 26 beta.

Also, check out: How to downgrade your iPhone or iPad from iOS 26 beta to iOS 18

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/06/13/disable-liquid-glass-apple-devices/