macOS Sequoia introduces several new features to the Mac, and in this guide, we’ll give you an overview of the most significant ones to enhance your desktop experience.
Many of these new features are also available on iPhone or iPad running iOS 18 or iPadOS 18, and we’ve listed them in a separate guide: Top 75+ new iOS 18 features for your iPhone.
Also see: How to install macOS Sequoia on a different partition of your Mac
iPhone Mirroring
iPhone Mirroring is one of the most mind-blowing features of macOS Sequoia. It lets you open and use all your iPhone apps (except some bank and payment apps) in a phone-like window on your Mac.
You can use Universal Control during iPhone Mirroring to copy links and photos between your phone and Mac. Additionally, drag-and-drop file sharing between both devices is expected to come later with an update.
Furthermore, iPhone Mirroring enables you to receive and respond to iOS app notifications from the comfort of your Mac’s keyboard.
Window snapping
macOS Sequoia adds new and easy ways to arrange and resize windows on your Mac for streamlined window management. Simply hold the pointer over the green button in the top left corner of the app window and select an option. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard, trackpad, or the Window option in the top menu bar to arrange your apps.
Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence is available on Apple silicon Macs and adds new tricks, such as summarizing Safari articles, Writing Tools to check your writing for grammatical errors, rewriting text, and more.
A handful of other Apple Intelligence features, such as creating Genmoji and using ChatGPT with Siri, are expected to become available later this year.
Remove unwanted objects from photos
The new Apple Intelligence Clean Up feature is built into the stock Photos app. All you need to do is start editing a photo, go to the Clean Up tab, and highlight the object you want to remove from your image. Clean Up will eliminate that selected item as if it was never there.
Reduce interruptions and focus on work
Like iPhone and iPad, the Reduce Interruptions Focus is also available on Macs. It uses Apple Intelligence to silence unimportant notifications while letting important ones alert you.
Improvements to Safari
Safari has received some nifty new features, like the ability to summarize articles and add a table of contents in Reading Mode. Additionally, Safari can show relevant info from a web page, such as business hours, phone number, address, and more, in an easily accessible popup.
Hiding distracting items in Safari
When you’re on a web page with an ad piece, menu item, chat box, or other such element that’s distracting your experience, you can use the new Hide Distracting Items feature to get rid of these in true Thanos-style.
Schedule your messages
Like iPhone and iPad, you can use the Send Later feature in the Apple Messages app to schedule iMessages to be sent at a later date and time of your choosing. You can use this to compose and schedule messages up to 14 days in advance.
Format text in Messages
You are no longer stuck using just one font style and can now make your text bold, italic, strikethrough, or add exciting new animation styles.
React with any emoji
You are not limited to just a few Tapback reactions and can pick one from the vast emoji library.
Solve math in Notes and other apps
Notes, Messages, Mail, and a handful of other apps can crunch numbers and solve basic math. All you need to do is add the equal to sign (=) after an expression.
Use colored text in Notes
You’re no longer restricted to just black text in the Notes app and can add color by clicking Format > Font > Show Colors from the top menu bar.
Collapsible sections in a note
When you’re working on a long note, take the pointer to the beginning of the title and hit the arrow button to collapse it. Repeat this to expand the title and all the text under it. Remember that this works when you have at least two titles in that note.
Add audio to notes and transcribe it
You already had the option to add images, PDFs, tables, sketches, and more to the note body. macOS Sequoia now allows you to record audio right in Apple Notes and even transcribe it, making it great for students and journalists. Apple Intelligence can even summarize the transcription, so you don’t have to read the entire thing.
See reminders in the Calendar app
You can now view your existing reminders in the Calendar app and also mark them as completed or add new ones. The ability to see your to-dos and calendar events in one spot makes planning your day or week super easy and organized.
Improvements to video calling
Mac gets two small but handy new features that will improve your video calling experience across FaceTime and similar apps.
First, you get the ability to change your background when on a video call in FaceTime or other third-party apps. The second handy feature is called Presenter Preview, which lets you see beforehand whether you will be sharing your whole screen or just an app during the video call.
Topographic maps
The Apple Maps app now supports topographic maps with trails for all 63 US national parks. You can also create your own custom walking and hiking routes on your Mac and save them as well as send them from your computer to your iPhone before going on a hike.
Prevent iCloud Drive from removing offline files
Finder on Mac and Files app on iOS gets the much-needed “Keep Downloaded” option that instructs your device not to automatically remove the offline copy of important files and folders to make space!
Dedicated Passwords app
Saved iCloud Keychain passwords are no longer visible in System Settings or Safari Settings, as a dedicated new Apple Passwords app stores all your login credentials, Wi-Fi passwords, passkeys, and more in one convenient spot.
Also see: How to import passwords from other apps into Apple Passwords
Create a QR code for Wi-Fi password
The Passwords app has a handy built-in feature to create a QR code of your network and its password. You or your guests can simply scan this QR code to join your Wi-Fi.
AirPods head gestures
AirPods Pro 2nd generation supports head gestures with macOS Sequoia and iOS 18, letting you control your AirPods using head nods and shakes.
Which macOS Sequoia feature excites you the most?
Check out next: How to record a phone call on iPhone on iOS 18 and older