Apple Releases macOS Tahoe 26.4 Release Candidates to Developers and Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the macOS Tahoe 26.4 Release Candidate (RC) to developers and public beta testers. The new RC comes one week after the launch of the fourth beta seed.

Release candidates are usually identical to the final version of the software that will be released to the public provided that no show stopping bugs be found. ‌

The macOS Tahoe 26.4 release candidate can be downloaded by developers and public beta testers from the settings app on their Mac.

macOS Tahoe 26.4 brings new emoji, which are part of the Unicode 17 update that the Unicode Consortium previewed in fall 2025:

• Trombone
• Treasure Chest
• Distorted Face
• Hairy Creature (aka Bigfoot or Sasquatch)
• Fight Cloud
• Orca
• Landslide

New skin tone modifiers are also now available, with people wrestling and dancers with bunny ears, as well as a gender neutral option for the ballet dancer emoji.

Also, the colorful new wallpapers that Apple introduced with the MacBook Neo are also available. They feature bubble-style lines and are available in Mac Purple, Mac Blue, Mac Pink, and Mac Yellow, and spell out the word “Mac.”

Other new features were discovered in the beta releases include:

• A Charge Limit feature for the Mac. A new slider bar allows Mac users to select a charge level from 80% to 100%. The setting is available in addition to Optimized Battery Charging, and it can prevent a Mac from ever charging to 100%.
• The macOS Tahoe 26.4 beta (as well as the iPadOS 26.4 beta) that Apple released today reintroduce a compact Safari Tab Bar option for those who prefer that view option.
• When users launch an app that uses Rosetta 2, a popup will appear letting them know that the app will no longer work when support for Rosetta 2 ends. The end of support for Intel-based Macs will arrive with the September 2026 launch of macOS 27.
• Apple begins testing secure messaging between Android and iOS devices with macOS Tahoe 26.4, alongside the betas of iOS 26.4, iPadOS 26.4, which were also released to developers today.

As usual, MacTrast and Apple both warn users to not install any betas on their daily driver Mac. Instead, only install betas on a device set aside for testing purposes.