How to disable liquid glass in iOS 26?

Is there a way to completely disable the liquid glass functionality on iOS 26? I'm not going to get into a lengthy diatribe over why it's awful, I just want it gone.

iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 16, 2025 8:14 AM

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Posted on Nov 25, 2025 8:48 AM

There is no way to completely disable the Liquid Glass effect in iOS 26, but you can reduce its impact by going to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and turning on Reduce Transparency. This will make the interface less transparent, but it won't remove the effect entirely.

461 replies

Sep 19, 2025 4:37 PM in response to tgwaste-

tgwaste- wrote:
I can not express enough how much I absolutely hate it. This will be the thing that drives me to Android. I can NOT look at this horrible UI every single day.


You are free to choose whatever platform you wish. It makes no difference to any of us here. The only thing that is consistent is your attitude towards Apple. It is hard to take this seriously.

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Sep 19, 2025 9:09 PM in response to GrBear

I am so happy to hear I’m not the only one who doesn’t like it. Apple goes on and on and on about how gorgeous it is. It’s like a middle school art project. And the color of the Apple apps (in particular games, music and find my) are just awful. And no I won’t get used to it. I’ve been using iPadOS 26 and MacOS Tahoe since the public beta came out. I kept thinking they would “fix” the not so gorgeousness of it before the final release. I just don’t get it.

Sep 20, 2025 5:58 AM in response to GrBear

Most everyone that I spoke with ( family, friends & coworkers) aren’t crazy about it. They can live with it but they’d like the option to be able to toggle it off as would I. I’ve made the adjustments in my settings but I’m still not completely satisfied. Apple really should’ve given us the right to choose for those who aren’t interested. The one feature that I’m glad that they did think ahead about was giving us the option to make the time solid.

Sep 20, 2025 6:20 AM in response to Totatora

It is 100% doable and quite simple to go back to iOS 18 if you have a Mac and cable capable of data transfer (not just a cheap charger cable). I know this because I did it.


You are talking about deleting a Beta version of iOS 26 and going back to iOS 18. Apple provides instructions on how to do this.


But.....if you have installed an official release version of iOS 26.....you cannot go back to iOS 18.


Big difference. If you are going to reply to try to help other users, at least provide them with all of the facts.


Sep 20, 2025 6:19 AM in response to Totatora

Totatora wrote:

It is 100% doable and quite simple to go back to iOS 18 if you have a Mac and cable capable of data transfer (not just a cheap charger cable). I know this because I did it.
.

It is only doable if you used that same computer to upgrade to your last iOS18 and the legal update file is still on the machine. You are in that situation? ? Good for you. Any other situation is illegal jailbreak.

Sep 20, 2025 7:02 AM in response to 3mack

3mack wrote:

This is a visual effect and not a request for a downgrade. Honestly, I’m surprised they’re reintroducing this Windows 2000 approach as it causes graphics to work harder, which was one of the issues MS had to address at that time. This has nothing to do with the operating system.

It has EVERYTHING to do with the operating system. It is hard coded and a fundamental part of the operating system.

Sep 20, 2025 10:49 AM in response to robman8

robman8 wrote:

It's usually just complainers that post, so I'll chime in on behalf of my 60 year old wife. She actually needs to take motion sickness pills when we take road trips,( i only say that bc some people mentioned it lol). She loves the new look, didn't want to reduce anything. Says it just seems clearer to her. So, it doesn't have to do with age, but more with people who have trouble adapting to change.

I'm only a little older than your wife (but don't suffer from motion sickness, thankfully!) and I agree with both her and you. I think there are people who always resist change and people who are more comfortable with it. It's not age, it's just a personality type.

Sep 20, 2025 6:25 PM in response to lobsterghost1

You know nothing about visualization I’m guessing. Transparency effects ALWAYS take multiple rendering passes and therefore eat more resources - and therefore battery. Even a simple painters algorithm would require back to front sorting for every pass and be power consumptive.


You bet your bippy LG is eating more power than their past UI’s.


And one other comment about somehow LG being ‘hardwired’ and therefore not changeable: if that’s the case it’s a bad design. A good design- abstracted properly - would make turning it off and on just a simple switch.


I won’t say whether the iOS APIs are good design or not - but I will say Apple is not a big believer in backward compatibility.


Sep 20, 2025 6:35 PM in response to bubba38n

bubba38n wrote:

You know nothing about visualization I’m guessing. Transparency effects ALWAYS take multiple rendering passes and therefore eat more resources - and therefore battery. Even a simple painters algorithm would require back to front sorting for every pass and be power consumptive.

You bet your bippy LG is eating more power than their past UI’s.

And one other comment about somehow LG being ‘hardwired’ and therefore not changeable: if that’s the case it’s a bad design. A good design- abstracted properly - would make turning it off and on just a simple switch.

I won’t say whether the iOS APIs are good design or not - but I will say Apple is not a big believer in backward compatibility.

I ran iOS 26 on my iPhone 16 Pro Max for 5 days, before getting my iPhone 17 Pro Max yesterday. And battery performance was completely unaffected by iOS 26 on both our iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. If, as you say it takes more power, it certainly didn't have an affect on our phones and it's not having any affect on our new iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. If your reason for wanting Liquid Glass removed is because of a fear of using more power, it is an unfounded fear at best.

How to disable liquid glass in iOS 26?

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