How do I remove the liquid glass look from app icons on iOS 26?

Point – Counter Point, I personally think this is the best UI yet.

While I agree, it would be nice for some folks to roll back the changes, it’s not possible for many reasons. Sorry.

“until we get enough voices for any update of unhappiness they won’t do anything.”

You don’t need voices here, you need feedback here https://apple.com/feedback

Mr.Random12144 wrote:

It’s hard to see at times

Read this ALL the way through and make adjustments, which will likely help you --> Liquid Glass - Love It Or Hate It - It's … - Apple Community

I'm not liking the outline around the icons either. I especially find the thin outline around my mailboxes in the Mail app distracting and unnecessary. It looks like somebody's draft idea they forgot to clean up. I also find the large rounded tabs in Safari bloated, distracting and totally unnecessary. That said, they do help to identify which tab is active which was a problem with the previous iteration of the tabs but these new rounded tabs are an overdone solution. Apple are you listening?

It’s totally not, turning on the contrast makes a solid white line. With it off you still have the reflective glassy looking edges. Not to mention in some folders the icons overlap the edges now. I really want to turn off whatever nonsense this was.

[Edited by Moderator]

ridley_walker wrote:

This is one of the worst UI updates in memory. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to the previous style, liquid glass is awful.

I also think it's a giant step forward and adds a layer of visual interest which is terrific. You can choose to dislike it if you want. But remove it you can't, so maybe just get used to it and worry about something else which may have a greater meaning in the overall scheme of things.

Thanks for your tips! But, unfortunately, increasing contrast does nothing to remove the Liquid Glass blur on the icons, and reducing transparency just makes the Dock and system bars much darker, whether on iPhone, Mac, or iPad. It’s really frustrating. Apple should fix this, because we’re paying for Retina displays and incredible M-series screens, yet the icons end up looking blurry and uncomfortable to look at. The M5 has an amazing image and video resolution, but the icon blur completely breaks the visual experience.

I know this doesn’t help fix the issue that all of us are faced with. I just want to add my two cents that this was a horrible idea from Apple. To change the UI so much that you can’t go back to a normal looking icon and text. You change everything and put glass looking highlights around an app. They needed to put a disable or change theme instead of forcing you to view this hideous rollout. So much for being a stock holder.

Thank you for your help!

The only thing I don't like, because it really disturbs my eyes, is the fact that the icons are always blurry, no matter what I do.

I will write to the link you sent. Thanks!

It looks like no one has mentioned that you can just turn off the liquid glass effect from the home screen.

Hold down on the home screen for a couple of seconds to enter the edit mode. The app icons will start quivering with a minus sign and in the top right corner of the screen there will be an edit button. It beings up a screen that lets you select the glass look you want, or you can go back to default.

There are some other options that you might like to try instead of going back to default, like having slightly larger icons without any text underneath, or tinted glass, etc.

Juliet_tea wrote:

Is there a way to turn glass off? It feels almost like an optical illusion.. things look blurry. Apple was suppose to be intuitive. I’ve never wanted an android phone until now.

You can't turn it off comletely but you can make adjustments:

Liquid Glass - Love It Or Hate It - It's … - Apple Community

Zae37 wrote:

I couldn’t find what you did? I hate the new liquid display, as well. Far too busy and cluttered. What solution did you provide?

Go through this --> Liquid Glass - Love It Or Hate It - It's … - Apple Community

Teddy.C wrote:

This is the BEST information page I have found to help with Liquid Glass issues. Please read it - it helps!

I'm glad you like it. I certainly don't need to read it, since I wrote it, but I do hope others read it and it helps them.

This is one of the worst UI updates in memory. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to the previous style, liquid glass is awful.