# Designing for macOS

Source: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/designing-for-macos
Skill: hig-platforms
Snapshot: 2025-02-02

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> **Source**: Apple Inc. Canonical content at https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/designing-for-macos.
> This file is a structured index of that content, snapshot 2025-02-02.
> Apple HIG text and imagery are © Apple Inc.; this repository provides organization and cross-referencing for AI agent consumption only.

# Designing for macOS

**Display.**

**Ergonomics.**

**Inputs.**

**App interactions.**

**System features.**

  * [The menu bar](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/the-menu-bar)

  * [File management](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/file-management)

  * [Going full screen](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/going-full-screen)

  * [Dock menus](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/dock-menus)

## Best practices

  * Leverage large displays to present more content in fewer nested levels and with less need for modality, while maintaining a comfortable information density that doesn’t make people strain to view the content they want.

  * Let people resize, hide, show, and move your windows to fit their work style and device configuration, and support full-screen mode to offer a distraction-free context.

  * Use the menu bar to give people easy access to all the commands they need to do things in your app.

  * Help people take advantage of high-precision input modes to perform pixel-perfect selections and edits.

  * Handle keyboard shortcuts to help people accelerate actions and use keyboard-only work styles.

  * Support personalization, letting people customize toolbars, configure windows to display the views they use most, and choose the colors and fonts they want to see in the interface.

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For the complete guidance, including worked examples and illustrations, see the canonical page: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/designing-for-macos