Our clear recommendation is: Do NOT upgrade to macOS 26. Really.
The changes made by Apple go so deeply into the core of the OS, that there are more than just a few serious problems that Apple was not able to fix, even though Apple had released more beta versions this year than ever before.
Health Warning!
Also, the bubbly wobbly "wet glas" inspired animations can trigger migraines in people suspectible to strange optical abberations. So if you have problems with migraines, think twice about using macOS or iOS 26.
Survival Tips for macOS 26
If there are reasons beyond your control that force you to use the new macOS 26, here are some tips that will make your life a little easier there.
1. Menu Bar
For unknown reasons, Apple has decided again to completely remove the background of the menu bar, just leaving some unrelated words and icons all alone on the top of your screen.
While they failed removing the menu bar already a couple of years ago, they seem to be serious this time, and think that this would help you in any way.
Well, it probably doesn't, but fortunately, there is a new option in the "System Settings" that will bring back an actual visible menu bar. It is called "Show menu bar background" and is probably the first thing you want to turn on.
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2. Reduce Transparency
Having semi transparent windows, dialogs, and buttons seems to be another important thing for Apple these days, but if you think that smudgy smeary colors seeping into your windows from other windows or your desktop background underneath them is distracting, and having white text on semi transparent background is, yes, hard to read, you can turn this off as well, but this option is hidden in the Accessibility section of the System Settings, in the Display group.
While you are there, you can also ask macOS to show Window title icons, and also let is draw small frames around the giant ugly new "toolbar" bubbles, although in macOS 26 RC, this doesn't make a noticable visual change yet.
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3. Reduce motion
The last option you want ot look at is called Reduce motion in the Motion area of the Accessibility System Settings part, and it can help with the weird optical effects that Apple is so fond of in macOS 26 now.
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Bonus Tip
If you disagree with Apples choice of doing away with the window toolbar, and putting its buttons in random groups that even change positions a lot, at least in the Finder you can use all windows without a toolbar at all, by using the Hide toolbar command in the View menu of the Finder.
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What about NeoFinder?
We will of course provide a new NeoFinder version that will work a smoothly as possible in the new macOS 26, and work around the new Apple bugs as we find them.
However, due to the massive number of deep changes Apple has made very late in the beta process this year, we are now downloading and installing the actual final release version of macOS 26, and run the full comprehensive test suite for NeoFinder yet again.
Only after that lengthy test process has successfully completed, will we release a NeoFinder version that is compatible and designed to work in macOS 26.
What's with iOS?
We have prepared a new version of NeoFinder for iOS already three weeks ago, but Apple has played again the moody "review game", and so far was unwilling and unable to allow our new software version into their store. Maybe they do that in the next days, who knows. We will keep checking.