New features and changes
macOS Sonoma brings all‑new capabilities that elevate your
productivity and creativity. Discover even more ways to
personalize your Mac with stunning screensavers and widgets
that you can add to your desktop. Elevate your presence on
video calls with a new way to present your work that keeps
you a part of the presentation. Safari profiles and web apps
help you organize your browsing in all-new ways. Game Mode
boosts your gaming performance. Sonoma also brings big
updates to Messages, Keyboard, and Accessibility. And when
you upgrade, you get the latest security and privacy
protections available for Mac.
Screen Savers
Stunning screen savers of locations from around the world seamlessly
become your desktop wallpaper when you log in
Shuffle settings for rotating through screensavers by theme, including
Landscape, Cityscape, Underwater, and Earth
Widgets
Widgets can be placed anywhere on the desktop and adapt to the color of
your wallpaper while working in apps
iPhone widgets can be added to your Mac when your iPhone is nearby or on
the same Wi-Fi network
Interactive widgets let you take actions directly from the widget, such
as running a shortcut, pausing media, and more
Video Conferencing
Presenter Overlay keeps you front and center while sharing your screen
in FaceTime or third-party video conferencing apps (Mac with Apple
silicon)
Reactions layer 3D effects like hearts, balloons, confetti, and more
around you in video calls and can be triggered with gestures (Mac with
Apple silicon, Continuity Camera with iPhone 12 and later)
Safari and Passwords
Profiles keep your browsing separate for topics like work and personal,
separating your history, cookies, extensions, Tab Groups, and favorites
Web apps let you use any website like an app, complete with an icon in
the Dock for faster access and a simplified toolbar for easier browsing
Enhanced Private Browsing locks your private browsing windows when
you’re not using them, blocks known trackers from loading, and removes
tracking that identifies you from URLs
Password and passkey sharing allows you to easily share accounts with
trusted contacts
Messages
Live
Stickers sync from iOS and iPadOS to macOS, giving you access to the
Live Stickers you create on your iPhone and iPad
Search filters for people, keywords, and content types like photos or
links help you more easily find what you are looking for
Swipe to reply inline on any iMessage bubble
Gaming
Game
Mode gives games the highest priority on the CPU and GPU, delivering
more consistent frame rates and lower latency to wireless controllers
and AirPods (Mac with Apple silicon)
Keyboard
Improved autocorrect accuracy makes typing even easier by leveraging a
more powerful transformer-based language model
Inline predictive text shows single- and multi-word predictions that you
can add by pressing the Space bar
Improved Dictation experience supports using your voice and keyboard
together to enter and edit text
AirPods
Adaptive Audio delivers a new listening mode that dynamically blends
Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency to tailor the noise control
experience based on the conditions of your environment (AirPods Pro (2nd
generation) with the latest firmware)
Personalized Volume adjusts the volume of your media in response to your
environment and listening preferences over time (AirPods Pro (2nd
generation) with the latest firmware)
Conversation Awareness lowers your media volume and enhances the voices
of the people in front of the user, all while reducing background noise
(AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with the latest firmware)
Press to mute and unmute your microphone by pressing the AirPods stem or
the Digital Crown on AirPods Max when on a call (AirPods (3rd
generation), AirPods Pro (1st and 2nd generation), or AirPods Max with
the latest firmware)
Improved AirPods automatic switching now detects Mac up to 2X faster
(AirPods (2nd and 3rd generation), AirPods Pro (1st and 2nd generation),
AirPods Max with the latest firmware)
Privacy
Sensitive Content Warnings can be enabled to help prevent users from
unexpectedly viewing sensitive images in Messages
Expanded Communication Safety protections for children now detect videos
containing nudity in addition to photos shared through Messages and the
system Photos picker
Improved sharing permissions let you choose which photos to share and
add calendar events without providing access to your entire photo
library or calendar
Accessibility
Live
Speech lets you type what you want to say and reads it aloud in FaceTime
calls or in-person conversations
Personal Voice helps users at risk of speech loss to create a voice that
sounds like them in a private and secure way using on-device machine
learning
Made for iPhone compatible hearing devices can be paired and used with
Mac (MacBook Pro (2021), Mac Studio (2022), and Mac computers with M2
chip)
This release also includes other features and improvements:
One-time verification code AutoFill from Mail helps you quickly sign
into sites in Safari, without leaving the browser
Inline PDFs and document scans in Notes are presented full-width, making
them easy to view
Grocery Lists in Reminders automatically group related items into
sections as you add them
Visual Look Up for recipes helps you find similar dishes from a photo
Visual Look Up in video helps you learn about objects that appear in
paused video frames
Pets in the People album in Photos surfaces individual pets just like
friends or family members
Option to say “Siri” in addition to “Hey Siri” for a more natural way to
activate Siri (Mac with Apple silicon, AirPods Pro (2nd generation))
High performance mode in Screen Sharing supports color workflows and
improves responsiveness while remotely accessing a Mac (Mac with Apple
silicon)
Item sharing in Find My allows you to share an AirTag with up to five
other people
Activity History in Home displays a recent history of events for door
locks, garage doors, security systems, and contact sensors
Battery health management updated on 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 chip to
better optimize long term battery health
