Related Article: What's new in the updates for macOS Sonoma

Menu bar stays light in dark mode

After upgrading to Sonoma, menu bar uses light appearance regardless of system theme settings. I prefer to use dark theme. Is this intentional? Previously, the menu bar was respecting the dark color theme.


MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.0

Posted on Sep 28, 2023 12:01 PM

Reply
Question marked as Best answer

The menu bar is translucent and shows through whatever the background image happens to be. It is not tied to light and dark mode.

Posted on Sep 28, 2023 12:09 PM

4 replies

Nov 20, 2023 8:09 PM in response to rozsival

IMO, having a bright white menu bar in dark mode as soon as you reboot your machine is simply a bad user experience, and bad engineering on Apple's part, regardless of the reason. If macOS is going to use a translucent menu bar like that, then it should have separate dark mode and light mode desktop wallpapers for each OS version so that it behaves sensibly on first install.


That said, at least it is easy to fix. I was seriously thinking about rolling back my whole OS install.


Menu bar stays light in dark mode

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.