After releasing the first developer beta for macOS 26.1, Apple is now rolling out the first public betas for the upcoming system. Here’s how you can install it.
First, a word of advice
If you’ve been happy with macOS 26, you might want to consider skipping this beta, as it doesn’t seem to bring many user-facing features. After the release of developer beta 1, we reported a few under-the-hood changes, such as Apple laying the groundwork for adopting Anthropic’s MCP protocol, and to introduce new third-party models to Image Playground, but beyond that, not much has changed.
In case you decide to install the public beta, strongly consider Apple’s advice to “install it on a secondary system or device, or on a secondary partition on your Mac”. Otherwise, make sure you back up your Mac before making the jump.
How to install macOS Tahoe 26.1 public beta 1
To install, the first thing you have to do is enroll in Apple’s public beta program at https://beta.apple.com/. Once you’re done, here’s the step-by-step:
Open System Settings
Go to General ⇾ Software Update
Click the ‘i’ icon next to Beta Updates
From the dropdown menu in the top-right, select the macOS Tahoe 26 Public Beta
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