Disabling glowing throbbing cursor in macOS 26.0.1

Smells like a 3rd party extension, please test in Safe Mode as CT suggests, since that will disable such extensions. If that ‘corrects’ the problem, you’ll need to identify the culprit. Please post back if needed.

Have you (or anyone else affected by this issue) tried creating a new user account on your Mac? If the issue does occur in that new account, that suggests it’s hardware. If the issue is not present, that suggests it’s a settings issue. I suspect the latter, but confirmation would be nice.

That would also enable someone to compare the default settings with their own settings and try to find the problematic combination.

Add a user or group on Mac - Apple Support

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

Sorry if this has been asked and answered, but I could not find it - does this happen ALSO in Safe Mode?

There was an earlier post indicating the issue persists in Safe Mode. However, I don't think anyone has tried creating a new user account to test, then possibly compare settings between the accounts. Seems there's lots of interest in showing the problem in a myriad of ways, but much less interest by those affected in trying to solve it.

Does this occur for a different user, e.g., Guest ? 

Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support

Does this occur after starting up in Safe Mode? 

Definitely distracting. The blinking can be turned off in System Settings > Accessibility > Motion:

Granted, that doesn't address the glow that I cannot recreate.

Install EtreCheck and post the report.

https://etrecheck.com/

Use the Additional Text icon to paste in the report.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

Maybe something will reveal itself.

I'm seeing this on an M1 mini with Tahoe onboard. This occurred while on Sequoia as well. The 'bloom' appears to occur both in iMessage (to the point of being frustratingly unusable) and to a lesser degree, Notes. There is mild bloom in Safari. I do not see this in the Chrome browser. So my gut here is this is relevant to macOS apps.

I have tried all of the above, night settings, restarts, safe mode, etc etc. All to no effect. One thing that did strike me however is that, if I changed the color theme (in this case to orange), while the text cursor and various button, section highlighting is orange in some macOS apps, the iMessage cursor color is still blue (the conversations however, on click, change to the theme color as specified). .

As some have mentioned, the amount of bloom varies, peculiarly with time.

Here's an example in Apple Notes (with theme 'Orange' - it really doesn't matter the color to be frank - this is workable though. I haven't seen any more pronounced bloom in Notes. ):

And here's the wonderful bloom in iMessage (and this is when it's behaving - otherwise the bloom is out of control - can't even see letters adjacent to the cursor at times):

Just a thought, if you have HDR enabled in System Settings > Displays, turn it off.

dialabrain wrote:

Right or control click on the opaque selection and choose one of the colors in the menu.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/0e847e2d-98ed-43d9-98d9-e5c9d1c467a6

This works, but it affects only the current selection. It has to be done over and over, at least here. No idea why.

Fortunately it does not bother much, because I never use it, but it seems stupid. Who would want a selection action to hide whatever is selected? And why on Books, only?

Sorry if this has been asked and answered, but I could not find it - does this happen ALSO in Safe Mode?

The name of that little line is the Insertion Point Marker. The color of it is set in System Settings > Appearance > Text highlight color. I can get it to be a bright green line, but have no explanation for the glow.

Still, maybe change that setting (to Automatic, or if it's there to something else) and see what happens.

I rarely chime in on Apple support but I have to because I absolutely 100% agree with you ctc123. It's some sort of suspected conflict with text highlight colors and the new GUI elements they introduced with 26.0.1. It is not a third party extension.

I'm simply frustrated that this was not seen or tested. I cannot see text insertion and it absolutely affects me using my computer; it's nonsense. I use CLI all day. I would never put a blur /shadow on insertion point / cursor in a million years.

I found these non-descript new suite of settings (the only thing that comes up) but nothing that would control the "glow" effect or simply turn it off for the insertion point.

antelop wrote:

This is not related to 3rd party extensions - I can reproduce in safe mode, but never had any GUI-modding software in any manner...

If it's a setting or combination of them, it seems only a very small number of people have stumbled upon it. The collective Mac experience of members posting here is decades long, and it seems none of us have ever seen the issue nor can we replicate it.

ctc123 wrote:

Mac Studio (2023)

Not sure what external display is being used here— no mention.

What happens if you turn the brightness down a bit...?

ref: "bloom

The Liquid Retina XDR display improves upon the trade-offs of typical local dimming systems, where the extreme brightness of LEDs might cause a slight blooming effect because the LED zones are larger than the LCD pixel size. This display is designed to deliver crisp front-of-screen performance with its incredibly small custom mini-LED design, industry leading mini-LED density, large number of individually controlled local dimming zones, and custom optical films that shape the light while maintaining image fidelity and extreme brightness and contrast.

About the Liquid Retina XDR display on iPad Pro - Apple Support

I can respect they are aware of what is happening, and why; even labeling it a bloom effect.

Just give me the ability to remove the effect - I despise ANY effect on the typing line at the insertion point. I am all for prompt indicators as I customize my bash and zsh prompts extensively and not once is there a "Bloom" effect.

Save it for video games, it's inappropriate for i/o at the text line.

I would also add irrespective the monitor, this "bloom" effect / setting is impactful - including the MacBook Pro (M2 Max) retina display, or the LG external... or others... this is not present in Sequoia on the same equipment.