We’ve noticed that Mac clutter tends to fall into a few categories.

The Desktop archivist: Everything stays on the Desktop because if it gets moved into a folder, it may never be seen again.

The Downloads optimist: The Desktop is spotless, but Downloads contains old .dmg files, repeated downloads, screenshots, ZIP archives, and documents called things like final-document-3.pdf.

The folder strategist: Everything has its place, apart from one folder called “Sort later” that has quietly grown to 40 GB.

The project hoarder: Every draft, export, dataset, and intermediate version stays because there’s always a chance it might be needed again. There usually isn’t, but deleting it still feels risky.

Honestly, none of these is necessarily a problem. A messy Mac often just means that someone is in the middle of doing actual work. It becomes a problem when you can’t find what you need, or when files from projects you finished two years ago are still taking up a large part of your storage.

If that sounds familiar, the easiest place to start is usually Downloads. Sort it by size, look for old installers, archives, repeated downloads, and large files you no longer recognize. After that, check completed project folders. Keep the final version, source materials, and anything you’d realistically need to edit the project later. The temporary exports and six almost-identical drafts are probably worth reviewing.

You can also check System Settings → General → Storage for a basic overview. If the numbers still don’t make sense, Space Lens in CleanMyMac gives you a visual map of your storage. It’s useful for finding the one forgotten folder buried five levels deep that somehow takes up 30 GB.

Just don’t delete a file because it’s large or unfamiliar. Check what it is and where it’s located first, especially if it’s inside a System or Library folder.

So, which type are you? And what’s the one folder on your Mac you’ve been avoiding?

We’ll keep sharing useful Mac storage and maintenance advice here in r/CleanMyMac.

Most storage problems don’t appear overnight. They build up quietly. One installer, unfinished project, and “I might need this later” file at a time.

A few of the most common examples:

• old installers and .dmg files in Downloads
• exported videos or project versions you no longer need
• duplicate downloads with (1) and (2) added to the filename
• apps you installed for one specific task
• old iPhone or iPad backups
• unfinished projects and intermediate files kept “just in case”
• cache and log files that have grown over time

The difficult part isn’t deleting files, it’s understanding what’s actually taking up space.

A good place to start is System Settings → General → Storage. It gives you a basic breakdown of your storage categories. From there, check Downloads, Applications, Documents, and any folders connected to completed projects.

If you want a more visual overview, CleanMyMac’s Space Lens creates a map of your storage so you can see which folders are taking up the most room. Especially useful when the problem is buried several folders deep.

One important rule: don’t delete something just because it’s large. Check where it’s located and make sure you recognize it first, especially if it’s inside a system or Library folder.

When did you last properly audit your Mac’s storage? What was the most unnecessary thing you found?

We share practical Mac cleanup, storage, and maintenance advice here in r/CleanMyMac. If that’s useful to you, stick around.

Been building Mac software for 18 years and the pattern holds: the messiest machines belong to people with the most going on upstairs. The digital habits are now less controlled than the physical ones Call it a test if you wish:

47 open tabs: someone who starts following a thought and refuses to lose it before it's done. 

Six folders named some variation of "final": a person who cares enough to iterate, which is more than most. 

Downloads full of PDFs from a rabbit hole at 1am: a researcher, even when nobody asked. 

Desktop covered in half-named files: a mind that moves faster than its filing system. 

"We rarely see a cluttered Mac and a lazy owner in the same place," says Daria, product analyst at MacPaw. "What we do see is a lot of system junk underneath, that has nothing to do with how someone thinks. That part we can clear, and the rest is yours to keep."

Curious what your Mac says about you? Go check and ask us in the comments!

Running a creative business means wearing every hat. Designer, accountant, marketer, IT person, and sometimes even the intern. Sound familiar?

We talked to two small-business owners, a floral designer and an illustrator, about what their digital workdays actually look like, and how they keep their Macs running smoothly when the files pile up and wedding season hits.

Spoiler: Space Lens and Cloud Cleanup have become non-negotiables for both of them.

Every time Apple announces a new macOS, the keynote tells you what changed. What it doesn't tell you is what that actually means for the Mac sitting on your desk. Here's what actually matters before you hit the update button.

The install size (spoiler: smaller than Tahoe)

The full macOS Golden Gate installer comes in at around 17GB, down from roughly 19GB for macOS Tahoe. That's a meaningful reduction, and it makes sense given that Apple stripped out all the Intel compatibility layers and x86 code paths that have been bundled into macOS since the transition began in 2020.

Golden Gate is the first version of macOS designed exclusively for Apple Silicon and the last version expected to include full Rosetta 2 functionality. As Apple continues removing Intel-era components from macOS, the installer has become noticeably lighter.

That said, the IPSW file used for clean installs and restores is much larger, currently sitting at around 23GB in beta.

A fresh installation takes approximately 30-35GB of disk space before apps and personal files. Realistically, you'll want 50GB+ of available storage before updating.

If you're already running low on space, the installer may simply refuse to proceed.

Performance improvements

Much like macOS X Snow Leopard, Golden Gate appears to focus less on headline features and more on improving the operating system's foundations. Apple highlighted faster AirDrop transfers, cloud file transfers, network file browsing, and Spotlight responsiveness, but the more significant changes seem to be happening underneath the interface.

They reworked parts of the scheduling and search infrastructure that power multitasking, Spotlight, Finder search, Mail, and Photos. These aren't the kind of improvements that make for flashy keynote demos, but they're the kind users feel every day: faster app switching, quicker search results, smoother multitasking, and a more responsive system overall.

Rather than introducing entirely new workflows, Golden Gate appears to be heavily focused on performance refinement rather than major feature additions. For users, that should translate into faster app switching, smoother multitasking, quicker Spotlight results, less background activity during indexing, and better battery life during routine tasks.

What we're actually seeing in the beta

We've spent the last few days testing Golden Gate across several Apple Silicon Macs, and the biggest takeaway isn't a dramatic new feature, but how much more refined the operating system feels overall.

In many ways, Golden Gate reminds us of a classic Snow Leopard-style release: less focused on headline features and more on improving the platform's foundations. Much of Apple's work appears to be happening under the hood, including changes to the search and indexing infrastructure that powers Spotlight, Mail, Photos, Finder, and other search-heavy areas of macOS.

Apple also appears to have responded to a significant amount of user feedback following last year's redesign. Much of the Liquid Glass interface has been refined, dialing back some of the visual excesses that users criticized in earlier builds. The new controls for adjusting the glass effect give users more flexibility while making the overall design feel more practical and less distracting.

Golden Gate may ultimately be remembered less for any single feature and more for being one of those rare releases that simply makes the Mac a better place to work.

Before you update

A Mac carrying years of accumulated caches, leftover application files, unnecessary login items, and background processes is less likely to benefit from system-wide optimizations than a clean machine.

1. Check storage

Go to: System Settings → General → Storage

If your Mac is showing significant System Data accumulation, that's worth addressing before the update. Major macOS upgrades require sufficient disk space for installation and post-update optimization.

2. Clear unnecessary caches

macOS rebuilds many caches after major updates anyway. Starting with a bloated cache directory just means longer indexing times and more temporary storage usage during the upgrade process.

3. Review Login Items

Go to: System Settings → General → Login Items

Disable anything you no longer need launching at startup. Fewer background processes mean fewer resources competing for CPU and memory after the update.

4. Check for Intel-only apps

Golden Gate is expected to be the final macOS release with full Rosetta 2 support.

To check:

1. Open Applications
2. Right-click an app
3. Select Get Info
4. Look for Kind

If you're still relying on Intel-only software, now is a good time to identify replacements or updates.

Beta is available today, full release expected this fall.

Have you already installed the beta? What are you actually noticing and is the performance difference real?

iOS 27 was announced at WWDC 2026. Let's look at what actually landed in Monday's keynote.

The first thing that stands out is compatibility. Every iPhone that runs iOS 26 will also support iOS 27, including the entire iPhone 11 lineup. In a year packed with AI features, that's a notable decision. It means users can access most of the new experience without being forced onto the latest hardware. That's the widest compatibility window Apple has offered in years.

Apple claims apps launch up to 30% faster, Photos libraries load up to 70% quicker, AirDrop transfers are up to 80% faster, and external storage transfers can be up to 5x faster. The company attributes much of this to a rebuilt CPU scheduler designed to improve multitasking and responsiveness across the system. We'll be curious to see how much of that translates into day-to-day use once more people install the beta.

The Siri overhaul was the headline. The new Siri is far more conversational, context-aware, and capable of maintaining natural back-and-forth conversations. It can understand what's on your screen, remember previous requests within a conversation, and access information across Messages, Photos, Mail, Notes, and other apps.

Apple also introduced a dedicated Siri AI experience with tools for generating text, summarizing documents, analyzing files, searching the web, and performing actions across apps.

In practice, that means Siri can find a specific photo from a weekend trip, locate a message someone sent weeks ago, surface a particular email, or perform actions without requiring you to manually navigate through apps.

That said, Siri AI will launch through a waitlist system and won't initially be available in Europe or China due to regulatory requirements, with no confirmed timeline for expansion.

Photos is also receiving what may be its most ambitious AI update yet.

Spatial Reframing uses AI to simulate a different camera position and generate content that wasn't originally captured, creating the impression that the shot was taken from another angle.

The new Extend tool can generate additional image content beyond the original frame, effectively expanding a photo after it's been taken.

Cleanup has also been upgraded, with improved object removal, better reconstruction of complex backgrounds, and new quality options that let users choose between speed and accuracy.

The demos looked impressive, but as always, real-world results will depend heavily on the complexity of the image and how much content the AI needs to generate.

A few smaller updates deserve attention too:

Notifications and alarms finally have separate volume controls. This sounds minor until you remember that Apple has forced them to share the same volume slider for years and people have been asking for this since roughly 2014.

The Camera app gets widget-based controls for exposure, flash, depth of field, and resolution, with each shooting mode getting its own customizable layout.

Pull-to-refresh is now native across iOS apps. Swipe down in Mail, Safari, News, Podcasts, and Calendar to refresh. It's a mobile convention that iOS has never officially supported at the system level, and the absence of it has been quietly annoying for years.

The readability complaints from iOS 26 have been heard. So Liquid Glass gets the same slider it's getting on macOS, a system-wide transparency control that lets you go from ultra-clear to fully tinted.

Developer beta is available now. Public beta follows in July. Full release expected in September, likely alongside iPhone 18.

iOS 27 supports every iPhone that runs iOS 26, all models back to the iPhone 11 series.

What's the feature you're most looking forward to actually using?

After months of Big Bear and Tiburon speculation across every Apple leaker account on the internet, Apple walked out and named the new macOS after the San Francisco strait.

The developer beta dropped the same day and is available right now to anyone with an Apple Developer account, and the full release is expected in October.

Golden Gate runs exclusively on Apple Silicon. MacBook Air and Pro with M1 or later, Mac mini with M1 or later, iMac from 2021, Mac Studio from 2022, Mac Pro from 2023. Every Intel Mac gets its last major OS update with macOS Tahoe. Golden Gate is also the last macOS with full Rosetta 2 support.

Siri finally lives on your Mac properly

For the first time, Siri has a dedicated app on macOS. They pulled an actual app with a chatbot-style interface, conversation history synced via iCloud, and the ability to pick up conversations you started on your iPhone or iPad.

You can now type or speak a prompt directly into Spotlight, and it recognizes it as a Siri request. A chat window expands inline, you can move it around the screen, resize it, and ask follow-up questions without leaving whatever you were doing. The integration is quiet and actually makes sense for how Mac users work.

Siri AI can now find photos from a specific weekend, surface a podcast a friend sent you in Messages three weeks ago, locate a specific email thread, and take actions across apps without you having to open them. It understands context between requests and remembers what you asked.

Siri AI is launching with a waitlist. And it won't be available in Europe or China at launch due to regulatory restrictions. If you're in the EU, you get Siri AI on macOS but not on iOS or iPadOS initially.

Liquid Glass

Apple addressed every complaint about macOS Tahoe without ever admitting they existed. More uniform refraction and better contrast across window shapes, toolbars, and the menu bar. App icons are sharper with an additional Liquid Glass layer. Window corner radii are now consistent across all apps, even ones that haven't been updated for Golden Gate. Sidebars now expand edge-to-edge, and the toolbars become unified.

And the major UI change: a new system slider that lets you adjust how Liquid Glass looks, from ultra-clear to fully tinted. You now have direct control over the level of transparency you're working with. The people who found Liquid Glass genuinely hard to read now have a dial.

Performance

Animations are tighter, scrolling is smoother, and app launches are faster. The search foundation underlying Spotlight, Photos, and Mail has been rebuilt to yield better results and suggestions. Users will notice faster AirDrop transfer speeds, snappier local network file browsing, and faster Safari start page load times. Apple described it as a Snow Leopard moment (the 2009 release that skipped features entirely to fix what was already there).

A few other things that are genuinely useful and didn't get much airtime:

Pull-to-refresh is native across macOS now = swipe down in Safari, Mail, News, Podcasts, and Calendar. It sounds trivial until you realize how often you're clicking a reload button out of muscle memory.

iPhone Mirroring gets better with resizable app windows. Ultrawide display support is improved.

Safari organizes your tabs into topic groups automatically via Apple Intelligence.

And the parental controls overhaul = Time Allowance, Ask to Browse through Messages is more comprehensive than anything Apple has shipped in that category before.

What's the piece of this you're most excited about? And are you installing the developer beta or waiting for public?

The keynote is over. Tim Cook walked off the Apple Park stage for the last time as CEO. It was an emotional moment since he had been running the company for fifteen years.

But let's talk about what actually happened.

Software-only, AI-heavy, performance-focused. No hardware surprises, no one-more-thing moment, no foldable iPhone tease. Apple delivered almost exactly what the leaks described.

Siri AI

Siri is finally getting the overhaul it has needed for years. The new version, called Siri AI, is more conversational, context-aware, and capable of handling multi-step requests without handing off to a third-party provider like ChatGPT. It comes with a dedicated standalone app, persistent conversation history so it remembers past interactions, and on-screen awareness on Mac, meaning it can see and act on what's in front of you.

The new features are launching with a waitlist. You may need to sign up before you can access the full Siri AI experience. And if you're in the EU, Siri AI won't be available on iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 at launch due to the Digital Markets Act, though it will be available on macOS 27 and visionOS 27.

The demo was the most credible Siri showing Apple has ever put on stage. Apple is publicly acknowledging its own models aren't sufficient for the most demanding tasks and choosing to partner with Gemini. Whether the daily version lives up to the keynote version remains to be seen until fall. What did the demo look like to you?

macOS 27 Golden Gate

Apple revealed the upcoming macOS will be named Golden Gate, upholding the company's tradition of naming its operating system after California landmarks. Craig Federighi said Apple focused this year's software work on three areas: making platforms more responsive and easier to use, expanding trust and safety features, and delivering a big leap forward for Apple Intelligence with a new architecture that powers a revamped Siri across all Apple devices.

Not Big Bear, not Tiburon, nobody had that one. The name aside, what matters is the direction: performance, stability, and AI integration as the three pillars, rather than a feature avalanche. Apple Silicon Macs have been getting faster with each chip generation, but macOS itself has felt progressively heavier since Big Sur. If the promises of being more responsive and easier to use translate into actual, measurable gains rather than remaining marketing language, this is the macOS update long-term Mac users have been waiting for. The developer betas will tell us everything.

iOS 27

Apple modified the CPU scheduler to help devices feel faster. Since iOS 27 will work on all models that support iOS 26, those with an iPhone 11 or later should feel the benefit after they update. Apple also revamped search across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, rebuilding the foundation that powers Spotlight, Mail, and Photos to make it more stable and efficient, with infrastructure that starts indexing new files and data immediately.

The CPU scheduler change quietly feels like one of the most significant announcements of the whole keynote. A modified scheduler means every app on every supported iPhone potentially feels snappier, no new hardware required. That's a big deal for anyone not on the latest device.

Liquid Glass

Exactly as predicted and exactly as delivered. Developer betas, including iPadOS 27, show visual changes, including a refined Liquid Glass interface. Apple addressed the readability and shadow issues without ever acknowledging they existed. They called it a refinement. Worth watching closely in the developer betas over the coming weeks.

Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence will power new features in Safari, Messages, and Passwords, and is rolling into the Shortcuts and Home apps as well. In Safari, Apple Intelligence will smartly organize tabs into topics. Apple also unveiled major upgrades, including realistic image generation in Image Playground and new Photos editing and cleanup tools.

The tab grouping in Safari is the sleeper feature of this keynote. It sounds small, but for anyone with 47 open tabs across three research threads, automatic topic-based grouping is a genuinely useful daily feature. The new photo tools put Apple in direct competition with dedicated editing apps that have long dominated this space. Excited to see how the quality holds up in real-world use compared to the polished keynote demos.

Parental controls

Apple introduced a major overhaul to child safety controls called Time Allowance, allowing parents to set highly customized app category restrictions and schedules. A new "Ask to Browse" feature lets kids request website approvals directly through Messages. Apple is also opening up its developer APIs to bring these guardrails to third-party apps.

This got more keynote time than expected, and it signals Apple taking regulatory pressure on child safety seriously before governments force their hand. The "Ask to Browse" implementation is clever, routing approvals through Messages means no new app, no new workflow. Opening the APIs to third parties is the part developers should watch most closely.

Tim Cook's final keynote

Cook steps down as CEO on August 31, 2026. John Ternus takes over on September 1, with Cook moving to executive chairman. The absence of Ternus was the most discussed moment among people watching the transition angle.

A lot landed well, and a few things are still wait-and-see.

What was your reaction watching live? What landed, what underwhelmed, and what are you most looking forward to running on your devices in the fall?

June 8 is almost here, and the rumour mill is running warm: it’s all buzzing about new chips, touchscreens, and a Siri that might actually surprise you. We've been watching the leaks, so you don't have to 👇🏼

M5 Ultra is probably happening

The current Mac Studio situation is kind of embarrassing in hindsight. It shipped with M4 Max and M3 Ultra options side by side because Apple skipped the M4 Ultra entirely. WWDC is now the most likely window to fix that, though some sources say RAM supply issues could push it to October. Either way, the chip lineup needs sorting.

Touchscreen MacBook Pro or "MacBook Ultra"?

Mark Gurman has been pointing at a major redesign for higher-end MacBook Pro models, with touch support as part of the picture. There's also talk of an entirely new "MacBook Ultra" name. It's the kind of thing that sounds wild until Apple actually does it, so we're watching this one carefully.

Siri is getting a full rebuild, and Google Gemini is apparently involved

This is probably the biggest story of the keynote. Apple's original Siri architecture was never built for what people actually want from an assistant now, so by spring 2026 they reportedly made the call to go fully LLM-based. The new version is expected to handle multiple commands from a single input, work across apps natively, support third-party AI agents, and get a proper standalone app with a chat-style interface. The example being floated: "Find the photo from last Tuesday's presentation, crop it, send it to the team Slack." If that actually works at launch, it's a genuine shift. The more surprising part though: Google Gemini is reportedly helping power some of these Apple Intelligence features behind the scenes.

You'll be able to pick your own AI model

This one has been making the rounds and people have strong feelings about it. iOS 27 is rumored to let users choose between Apple's on-device model, Claude, or ChatGPT for AI features inside Mail, Notes, and other apps. Whether that's actually empowering or just Apple admitting it needs help depends on who you ask. Either way, it's a significant policy shift for a company that's been pretty locked down about this stuff.

iPhone Fold groundwork, quietly

Apple isn't expected to announce the foldable iPhone at WWDC, but the software groundwork reportedly needs to happen now. iOS 27 is said to be laying the foundations for split-screen and flexible display layouts, which would be the clearest signal yet that the iPhone Fold is real and closer than we think.

macOS 27: the "Snow Leopard" moment

Rather than stacking on features, macOS 27 is reportedly focused on cleaning up what's already there. Better readability, smoother performance, a refined Liquid Glass design that addresses the complaints from Tahoe. Spotlight is expected to get folded into Siri as the main search interface. And yes, Intel support is being dropped. macOS 27 will be Apple Silicon only for the full Apple Intelligence feature set, so it's worth knowing where your machine stands before the update hits. If your Mac has been feeling sluggish lately, a heavier AI-focused OS update probably won't help. Worth running a scan in CleanMyMac before everything changes, so you're starting from a clean baseline.

What prediction are you most hyped about? Biggest Siri glow-up in history, or another year of 'coming soon'?

We get a lot of questions about what Apple notarization really means for Mac apps, so here we go:

With so many new Mac utilities out there, from big companies to indie devs, what does notarization actually mean?

What notarization actually is 

A notarized app means the developer sent it to Apple, where automated tools scan for known malware. If it passes, Apple signs off and macOS Gatekeeper lets you open it.

The developer also needs a real Apple Developer ID, so Apple knows who’s behind the app. If there’s a problem, Apple can revoke the approval and block the app anywhere.

For apps outside the App Store, notarization is Apple’s basic trust signal. If you see a warning like “Apple cannot verify this app,” it’s not notarized.

What notarization is NOT

It’s just an automated scan, not a human review. Apple only checks for known malware at the time. Nobody reviews what the app actually does or how it handles your data.

Recent audits found 90% of AI-coded apps had security flaws, and thousands of public apps leaked sensitive data! You know, notarization wouldn’t catch most of these issues, as it just checks for known malware.

Bottom line: notarized apps pass a basic security check. If it’s not notarized, it hasn’t passed anything, and you should be worried: it is the bare minimum, however, not the golden standard!

Why does this matter even more for system tools?

A buggy to-do app is annoying, while a misbehaving system utility could touch your processes, Library folder, and files, including credentials and browser data. That’s a bigger risk.

Most new indie Mac tools have good intentions. Research shows that AI tools focus on general features rather than handling edge cases safely. So whenever it asks for Full Disk Access, you’re at a much bigger risk.

A dev on r/macapps put it best: “With vibe coding, people forget you actually need code reviews and security. When something breaks, you can’t just vibe your way out.”

Practical questions worth asking before installing any system-level Mac utility

• Is it notarised? (spctl -a -v /Applications/AppName.app in Terminal, or right-click → Get Info)
• Does the developer have a published privacy policy?
• When was it last updated, and is the developer still active?
• What permissions does it request, and do they match what it claims to do?
• If something breaks after an macOS update, is there somewhere to report it?
• Is the developer a verified identity or an anonymous GitHub handle?

Worth checking before anyone gets access to your Library folder.

The vibecoding movement surfaced something real about how people want Mac software to work.

We've been paying close attention to the vibecoded Mac utility space, like Mole, Quitty, Filenest, Stats, and Desktop Declutter. Now we want to say something we actually mean: the people building these tools identified something real.

Two things specifically.

Users want less: less friction, less surface area, less asking permission for everything. The tools that have gotten traction are all stripped back by design. One job, done quietly, no onboarding sequence. That's a genuine signal of what people want from Mac software, and we take it seriously.

Second: a solo developer with a sharp idea and a weekend can ship a real solution faster than a product team. Filenest's proactive routing logic is a clean concept. Desktop Declutter's swipe UX for batch-deleting desktop files is genuinely clever. These got built fast because someone had a specific itch and scratched it, and it’s beautiful, actually. 

The community said it well in a recent r/macapps thread: "Vibe coding isn't the problem. The part I don't fully get is charging recurring fees for every little helper app on top of the LLM subscription many of us already pay for." Fair enough tbh.

The part we're still thinking about is whether modularity and safety can coexist at the system level, and not just in theory. When something goes wrong in a modular stack, you're not debugging one thing; you're trying to figure out which of six repos disagrees with your OS update.

Causes + safe fixes (no data loss)

Opening a Mac to an empty desktop is alarming but in most cases, your files aren’t gone. They’re just hidden, moved, or not being displayed correctly.

Important thing to know

The macOS desktop is just a folder:
/Users/yourname/Desktop

If icons disappear, it usually means:

• Finder isn’t showing them
• They were grouped or hidden
• iCloud moved them

Start here (quick fixes)

1. Relaunch Finder Option + Command + Escape → Finder → Relaunch
2. Restart the Mac Clears Finder glitches and stuck processes.
3. Check Desktop visibility System Settings → Desktop & Dock Make sure desktop items are shown (especially if using Stage Manager).

Common causes

• Stacks enabled (files are grouped into piles)
• Finder display settings turned off
• iCloud Desktop & Documents sync moving files to iCloud
• Finder preference corruption
• macOS bugs (especially after updates)

What usually fixes it

• Disable Stacks
• Check Finder → Settings → General
• Look in iCloud Drive → Desktop
• Reset Finder preferences (advanced, but reversible)

Are files actually gone?

Almost never. If icons vanished, don’t panic and don’t delete things. The files are usually still there, macOS just needs a nudge to show them again.

Utility software is the most underexplored frontier in UX and we think it's overdue for a rethink.

Our Lead Product Designer Kyrylo Levashov breaks down why system tools still feel like a chore, the design assumptions holding the category back, and how we approached it with CleanMyMac.

Published on Smashing Magazine.

We've all heard it. Drop into any gaming thread mentioning a Mac and within minutes someone shows up with: "just get a PC." 

Here's something most people in this argument don't know: Halo was originally a Mac exclusive. Bungie walked onto the Macworld 1999 stage and revealed it there first, with Steve Jobs watching from the front row. The game that would go on to define console shooters and sell millions of Xboxes was built for Mac. 

Then Microsoft bought Bungie in 2000, Jobs reportedly went ballistic, and that was the end of it. Eventually, one acquisition rewrote Mac gaming history before it had a chance to happen.

That set a pattern that stuck for years Mac always got close, but didn't. Marathon in the 90s, Halo before it wasn't, Boot Camp letting you run Windows games if you were willing to reboot your whole machine just to play. The criticism always had some basis.

The real low point was 2018, when Apple deprecated OpenGL at WWDC. OpenGL was the standard that made porting games between Windows and Mac manageable. Replacing it with Metal (Apple's own graphics API) meant studios had to rewrite rendering pipelines from scratch. Many of them looked at the cost and decided Mac wasn't worth it. That decision probably did more damage to the Mac gaming library than anything else Apple ever did.

What Apple got in exchange was a genuinely good graphics API that everything since has been built on. MetalFX upscaling, the Game Porting Toolkit, hardware ray tracing on M3 and M4. The 2018 pain was real, but it set the ground for everything that followed.

Apple Silicon is the actual turning point. M-series chips deliver performance-per-watt that nothing from Intel or AMD touches, and in gaming that means one specific thing: a MacBook Pro can run something demanding for 3-4 hours and finish the session performing exactly the same as when it started. That doesn't happen on Windows laptops. Thermal throttling is quiet and constant. Clocks pull back, frames drop, and most people just assume the game got harder. Unified memory means the GPU and CPU share the same pool instead of talking across a bus, so texture streaming is faster and asset loading is cleaner. Metal 4 in 2025 brought upscaling that belongs in the same conversation as DLSS and FSR. macOS has had a native Game Mode since Apple Silicon, it reallocates CPU and GPU headroom to your game automatically. Most people repeating the "Mac can't game" line have never heard of it.

Cyberpunk 2077 runs natively on Mac with ray tracing on M3 and M4. Baldur's Gate 3 on Mac matches Windows frame rates on equivalent hardware. Capcom has released native versions of Resident Evil Village, RE2 and RE3 Remake. Assassin's Creed Shadows launched on Mac in March 2025 with ray tracing. Over 1,700 titles run on Apple Silicon now.

None of that means Mac has caught up with PCs. Elden Ring isn't here. Most big releases still launch Windows-first or not at all. The 16GB unified memory ceiling is a live debate. Some modern titles fill the framebuffer on M4 machines at low settings, and no software fix changes that. The library gap is real.

But a lot of Mac gaming inconsistency isn't a hardware problem, but a system state problem. On a Windows machine with 32GB of RAM, a few background apps are just noise. On a Mac where GPU and CPU share the same memory pool, those apps compete directly with your game. Discord idling at 450MB, Creative Cloud's background daemon, Notion you minimized two days ago. Before you've launched anything, you've already handed over 3 or 4GB of a 16GB machine. You're not gaming on 16GB, you're gaming on whatever's left.

This is why the same game on the same Mac can feel totally different from one session to the next. Clear your Login Items, kill background apps before launch, pause cloud sync and the machine performs like it should. It's just how unified memory actually works.

So yes, Mac can't play every game. It can't compete on raw price-to-frames with a mid-range Windows build. It won't always have what just launched on Steam last week.

But it runs Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, and Resident Evil Village on hardware that stays cooler, quieter, and lasts longer than comparable Windows laptops, with ray tracing, upscaling, and a library that grew more in two years than in the decade before.

Mac isn’t trying to replace a gaming PC. But it’s also not the same platform people are arguing about anymore.

Actually played on my Mac for 6 months straight.

I've been running CrossOver on my M4 Air for six months now for games like It Takes Two, Ready or Not, a bit of Helldivers 2, and my verdict is that it’s totally playable.

So from my personal perspective, there are several nuances worth mentioning:

1. Thermal throttling is real, but it's not the whole story! Yep, the MacBook Air has no fan (ironically isn’t it). After 20-30 minutes under load, it will throttle inevitably. However, I've had solid 45–60 minute sessions on medium settings before things got choppy.

2. CrossOver compatibility is genuinely good right now. Ready or Not runs fine on DX11 (set it in Steam launch options, not from the CrossOver menu, and that defaults to DX12 and eats resources). Helldivers 2 is the messiest!! Occasionally freezes every few minutes, seems CPU-bound, and even M4 Max owners are reporting the same weirdness.

3. Background apps are the real boss fight. This is where I see most people lose frames and blame the hardware. Discord, browser with 15 tabs, iCloud syncing mid-session, background updaters, they take their cut of RAM and CPU before the game even loads…

So, I started running CleanMyMac's Performance module before longer sessions. Fortunately, it kills background processes and login items I didn't even know were running. The difference on a fanless Mac is noticeable. I get fewer stutters, more stable temps, and win time before throttle kicks in.

Mac gaming won't replace Windows, cause it’s too much effort for my after-work time killers, but I’ve navigated the way to make it work, and work even better.