How do I increase Big Sur system font size?
How do I increase Big Sur system font size? I am finding the new menu bar font almost impossible to read.
How do I increase Big Sur system font size? I am finding the new menu bar font almost impossible to read.
I have the same Big Sur font problem and go into Display and all that is there are Display, Color, Night Shift, Resolution, etc.
There is no adjustment for font size at all. Where do I go from here. I have an 11" MacBook Air.
I have the same Big Sur font problem and go into Display and all that is there are Display, Color, Night Shift, Resolution, etc.
There is no adjustment for font size at all. Where do I go from here. I have an 11" MacBook Air.
A call to Apple support and a really simple configuration fix. Instead of focusing on preferences - accessibility - display ; go to preferences - displays - display and resolution. You can tick scaled and increase the resolution which really helps. You don't lose much at all in terms of sharpness - almost imperceptible, but you gain a lot in terms of system fonts. For those struggling with this... worth a try. Apparently I was not the only person whom she dealt with asking about the same issue. I am hoping Apple captures this systematically and we will soon see 11.01.00 release with more universally accessible system font sizes.
Same problem as Emily has, just an even smaller font (if that's possible?) with my 11" MacBook Air.
I also could not improve anything with Stan's suggestion.
We need an Update for the issue ASAP, please.
Feb 5th, I tried upgrading to Big Sur again after downgrading because of this issue on release day ( or when I could first upgrade the next day). The reason I upgraded again is that I thought it could have just been me, I was a bit tired by the time I was able to upgrade. Turns out, it really is the font, as well as some other elements, displayed in Big Sur is just too small. Now I could adjust the individual settings of EVERY app to make them all easier on my eyes except, why should I? I didn't have this problem in macOS Catalina, so I am downgrading again. I also plan on using https://apple.com/feedback as much as I can to get the point across.
I figure the reason most items are smaller has to do with how retina in Big Sur is setup, it looks fine when I put the screen as close to my face as the iPad Pro. But that's not how close I leave the Macbook Pro 16" to my face. The worst part of all of this is it's only off by a small percent, just small enough to start causing eye strain.
Stan in London wrote: "...Fingers crossed Apple monitors this..."
Let Apple know directly:
https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html
...and email the Accessibility team: accessibility@apple.com.
Source: How to contact Apple for accessibility support
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AlexZone wrote: "dear Apple..."
Alex ~ Although Apple administers this community, that doesn't include reading each of thousands of daily posts for possible feedback. However, Apple will "read all feedback carefully" here:
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Did you try the suggestions I made above? I also downgraded my screen resolution one notch
However, if you're on a laptop it may not be practical as you don't have much screen real estate to work with.
This is the menu bar I now have:
Much easier on my eyes. I also use the Dark Reader extension with Safari for white text on an black background. It's easy to turn off if a site doesn't work well that way.
Really puzzled are you sure you have made the adjustments in Systems Preferences that I used? I doubt even a work computer reverts to a default configuration when you reboot. I have had work-based Windows systems that push a standard configuration and I did not have the admin rights to permanently change this; but I am not sure that Mac OS works that way. It should save your user driven preferences. Let me copy and paste just to be sure that you have made the right adjustment - you should a very big difference in system font. System Preferences - Display - you will see screen resolution and increase that one size and it makes a difference. Good luck
I'm using a Mac Mini which has no built-in display. I'm using a fairly new Asus VZ27AQ with a 2560x1440 screen, which worked perfectly in every way under Catalina. The screen I'm seeing in System Preferences looks total different from yours. When I select "scaled" I am simply presented with a list of supported resolutions. 2048x1152 is much too big a change, and I don't want to cut my resolution, I want to increase the font and menu bar sizes to be appropriate to the display size. (In the past, the Mac designers built in appropriate sizes and this all "just worked.")
I have found that using Dark Mode with white text against black is easier for me to read. That and Reducing transparency and Increasing Contrast in the System/Accessibility/Display/Display preference pane does help me considerably. I also reduced the screen resolution one step in the System/Displays/Display preference pane. This is what I get in the Finder:
This is the first time in my life I've absolutely hated MacOS. MacOS has always been pretty intuitive, user-friendly, and consistent. Big Sur is anything but. The biggest issues I see are TINY fonts and gray fonts/icons that have little contrast and are hard to see. If I could go back to Catalina, I would, but a piece of software I use requires Big Sur. Grrrrr.
First of all, all this light gray text in Big Sur is difficult if you aren't a twenty-something with perfect eyesight. I've found "contrast" settings in the Accessibility section, but I don't have a disability, so this is not where I would l look to fix the overall issues with Big Sur. I don't want to affect the whole screen...just the text.
Perhaps Apple could have different "profile preferences" available that offer different styles to choose from without labeling them as "accessibility" options. Maybe label them "more contrast," "soothing grays," or whatever. We've always been able to choose colors of buttons and such, but we've never had to deal with the overall colors because there was never a problem. An example of this is the word Favorites below. These items in light gray on light gray background is a little hard for me to read.
Below is another example of a problem with gray...these gray icons. I can barely see the difference between the colors of gray here when it's actual size and tiny in my email app. I understand that some are grayed out because they're unavailable at the moment, but why does that even matter? Also, what the heck are these icons? I have to hover for a tool tip every time. They are not intuitive. It makes no sense to put the "Check Mail" and "New Message" icon over on the right. Put them back on the left since they are the most widely used icons.
I need my monitor to be set on the highest resolution because of a piece of software I use that has a lot of buttons and sliders crammed into the interface, and before Big Sur, I could read the menu just fine. Whatever they did to Big Sur to "update" the menu made it impossible to see for my fifty-something eyes.
And how can I increase the size of the text in Open dialog boxes? It doesn't matter where I change my fonts, these are tiny and unreadable. Why doesn't the system preference to increase font size carry over to these?
One last thing. If you're having problems reading that menu bar with no contrast and you prefer the old style of menu, after you change the Menu Bar Size in the Accessibility --> Displays section, turn on Reduce Transparency and that will make it white like it used to be.
Thanks, I was using that command set but the menu bar size did not increase the menu bar size at least to any extent that I can see. Contrast helps a bit, but still the font size on the menu, on safari are just too small. I am surprised as Apple prides itself on accessibility. I will try with tech support to revert back to Catalina and see where I go with my Macs.... it is that bad for me.
This still made very little adjustment to anything on the menu bar. Yes, you can zoom onto a page, but I had my Catalina set up so I could actually read my menu bar, and this is nearly impossible. They need to provide an update that allows the user to view extra extra large rather than their "large" which is like 8point font on the screen of a 13" MacBook Pro!
It did help my menu bar by increasing resolution so it is ow back to what it used to be but I have a 27 inch iMac. I have not yet updated my old MacBook Air. Fingers crossed Apple monitors this, accepts what we are saying and will address it with 11.01 update
I am in my 50's and also thought that Big Sur was harder on my eyes with font size then Catalina was. I can run Windows at native 100% on same monitor and its much easier on eyes and fonts seem bigger as well. Sort of the problem these days so many people developing are younger with perfect eye sight so they don't concern themselves with things like font sizes. I guess it's up to the user to make changes to settings to address these sort of issues.
How do I increase Big Sur system font size?