Apple Mac · Golden Gate · desktop settings

macOS System Settings: the Mac's sidebar, pane by pane

Since Ventura the Mac has used an iPhone-style Settings window with a sidebar of panes rather than the old grid of preference icons. This page walks that sidebar as it stands in macOS 27 Golden Gate, explains what Sequoia, Tahoe and Golden Gate each added, and links every pane to a screen you can open.

Newest release here
macOS 27 Golden Gate
Versions you can open
5
Top-level sections
31
Rows in the tree
1,265
macOS 27 Golden Gate home screen in the simulator
Open macOS 27 Golden Gate in the simulator →

How macOS organises its Settings

System Settings opens on a sidebar that begins with your Apple Account, then the radios: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Network and VPN. Battery and the attention panes, Notifications, Sound, Focus and Screen Time, come next, then the block most people scroll to: General, Appearance, Accessibility, Control Center, Apple Intelligence & Siri, Spotlight and Privacy & Security. General holds About, Software Update, Storage, Login Items, Language & Region, Sharing, Time Machine and Startup Disk.

The lower half is about the screen and the input: Desktop & Dock, Displays, Wallpaper, Screen Saver, Lock Screen, Touch ID & Password, Users & Groups, then Keyboard, Trackpad and Mouse. Internet Accounts, Wallet, Game Center and Passwords sit between them, and Printers & Scanners closes the list. Each pane opens on the right as a form rather than a further list, which is the main way the Mac still differs from the iPhone.

What changes between versions

Five releases are here. Ventura 13 and Sonoma 14 have the original sidebar with a Siri & Spotlight pane. Sequoia 15 folded Siri into Apple Intelligence & Siri. Tahoe 26 gave Spotlight a pane of its own and put the Liquid Glass control in Appearance. Golden Gate 27 turns that control into a slider, adds Siri AI and the Siri app to the Siri pane, and brings the rebuilt Screen Time with Time Allowances and Ask to Browse. About and Startup Disk name the release you chose.

Three settings worth knowing the path to

  1. System Settings > Appearance

    Light, Dark or Auto, the accent colour, and since Tahoe the Liquid Glass control that sets how translucent windows, the menu bar and the Dock are. Golden Gate makes it a slider from ultra-clear to fully tinted.

  2. System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions

    The list of apps that start with the Mac and the background items allowed to run. It is the first place to look when a laptop wakes up slow, and it is buried one level below General.

  3. System Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access

    Terminal, backup tools and anything that reads your whole home folder must be added here by hand. Most permission prompts people cannot get past end at this pane.

Questions people ask about macOS settings

Where did System Preferences go?

Ventura replaced System Preferences with System Settings, a sidebar-and-pane window modelled on iOS. The simulator's Mac OS X entry still shows the classic icon grid.

Where is Spotlight in macOS Settings?

From Tahoe 26 onwards Spotlight has its own pane just below Apple Intelligence & Siri. In Sequoia and earlier it shares a pane with Siri, listed as Siri & Spotlight.

Is this the real macOS?

It is a simulation of System Settings only. The sidebar, pane names and wording follow each macOS release, but no apps run and the device values shown are samples.