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Guide

How to customize widgets on a MacBook or any Mac

To customize a widget on a Mac, Control-click it: you can change its size, edit what it shows or remove it, and drag it anywhere on the desktop. How all your widgets look, from full color to monochrome or tinted, is set in System Settings.

By at Neon FrenchieUpdated Checked on macOS 27.0.1 on

Add a widget to the desktop

  1. Control-click the wallpaper and choose Edit Widgets….
  2. Search the widget gallery or click a category.
  3. Click a widget to place it automatically, or drag it to where you want it.
  4. Click Done.

Desktop widgets came to the Mac with macOS Sonoma 14. Before that, widgets lived only in Notification Center, which still has its own set: click the date and time in the menu bar, then Edit Widgets at the bottom.

Change a widget’s size and content

Control-click a widget on the desktop. The menu has three kinds of choice:

  • Size. Small, Medium, Large or Extra Large. Each widget offers only the sizes its app supports.
  • Edit. Edit “Widget name”… opens the widget’s own options, such as which list a Reminders widget shows. Click Done on the widget when you’ve finished. If there’s no Edit item, the widget has nothing to change.
  • Remove. Remove Widget takes it off the desktop.

To move a widget, drag it. Widgets in Notification Center can only be dragged up or down to reorder them.

Change how widgets look

Two settings decide the look of every widget at once. Neither changes a single widget on its own.

Full color or monochrome

In System Settings, then Desktop & Dock, under Widgets, choose an option for Dim widgets on desktop:

  • Automatically switches between monochrome and full color. Widgets fade to monochrome while you’re working in an app, so they don’t compete with your windows.
  • Always keeps them monochrome.
  • Never keeps them in full color.

On macOS Sonoma 14 and Sequoia 15, the same setting is called Widget style, with Automatic, Monochrome and Full-color. Apple renamed it in macOS Tahoe 26.

Dark, clear or tinted

Since macOS Tahoe 26, System Settings, then Appearance has Icon & widget style, which styles app icons and widgets together:

  • Default: the standard look.
  • Dark: a darker look. Choose Always, or Auto to switch with Light and Dark mode.
  • Clear: a see-through look, in Light, Dark or Auto.
  • Tinted: icons and text in one color. With Tinted selected, Icon, widget, & folder color sets that color for icons, widgets and Finder folders alike.

Clear works well over a busy photo, and Tinted in a color picked from the wallpaper is the closest macOS gets to widgets that match it. The color doesn’t follow the wallpaper when it changes, though, so you’ll need to pick it again.

Show or hide widgets

In System Settings, then Desktop & Dock, Show Widgets has two checkboxes: On Desktop and In Stage Manager. Turn both off to hide widgets without removing them. If clicking the wallpaper keeps sweeping your windows aside to show the widgets, set Click wallpaper to show desktop (Apple’s guide calls it Show Desktop) to Only in Stage Manager.

Widgets that match your wallpaper, with MacScapes

macOS can tint widgets one color, but it doesn’t know what’s in your wallpaper. MacScapes, our live wallpaper app, has 14 desktop widgets of its own that take their colors from the scene behind them, and change when the scene does. Clock, Date and Day are free; the other 11, such as Weather, Calendar, Countdown and World Clock, need Pro.

  1. Click Edit in the MacScapes menu bar panel, or Control-click a vibe in Vibes and choose Edit….
  2. Under Widgets, click Add Widget… and pick one.
  3. Under Widget Style, choose a Material (Glass, Tinted, Solid or Bare), a Typeface (Grotesk, Rounded, Serif or Mono), and an Opacity from 30 to 100%. Leave Match palette colors on to take the scene’s colors.
  4. Click Arrange on Desktop…, drag the widgets into place, and right-click one to change its size (Small, Medium or Large) or shape (Rounded, Circle, Pill or No Background). Click Done, then Save.

The style is saved with the vibe, so a morning vibe can have a serif clock on glass and an evening one a bare mono clock, and a schedule switches them for you. MacScapes widgets sit above the wallpaper and below your desktop icons, and they’re for looking at rather than clicking. On a photo or video background they use neutral colors instead. More on the desktop widgets page, or compare them with other widget apps in the best widget apps for Mac.