Window title bar in macOS 26 is drawn even if titlebarAppearsTransparent = true

macOS 26 sometimes draws the title bar background even when setting NSWindow.titlebarAppearsTransparent = true and I don't understand the logic behind it, or how I can turn this off.

I'm trying to do something similar to Xcode's "Welcome to Xcode" window which has a left view and a right table view.

In my simplified example, the window contains a label and a text view. This used to work in macOS 15, but in macOS 26 the text view is partially covered by the title bar:

As soon as I remove the line scrollView.hasVerticalScroller = true, the title bar isn't drawn anymore:

The title bar also isn't drawn when removing the view on the left of the text view:

I created FB20341654.

This may be related to this other issue: NSWindow.titlebarAppearsTransparent only works after collapsing and expanding sidebar

@main
class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate {

    func applicationDidFinishLaunching(_ aNotification: Notification) {
        let window = NSWindow(contentViewController: ViewController())
        window.titlebarAppearsTransparent = true
        window.titleVisibility = .hidden
        window.styleMask = [.titled, .closable, .fullSizeContentView]
        window.makeKeyAndOrderFront(nil)
    }

}

class ViewController: NSViewController {

    override func loadView() {
        view = NSView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 400, height: 200))
        
        let scrollView = NSScrollView()
        scrollView.hasVerticalScroller = true // commenting this line out solves the issue
        scrollView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
        scrollView.automaticallyAdjustsContentInsets = false
        
        let documentView = NSTextView()
        documentView.string = (0..<10).map({ "\($0)" }).joined(separator: "\n")
        scrollView.documentView = documentView
        
        let stack = NSStackView(views: [
            NSTextField(labelWithString: "asdfasdfasdfasdf"), // commenting this line out also solves the issue
            scrollView
        ])
        stack.orientation = .horizontal
        view.addSubview(stack)
        NSLayoutConstraint.activate([stack.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.topAnchor), stack.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.leadingAnchor), stack.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.trailingAnchor), stack.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.bottomAnchor)])
    }

}
Answered by Frameworks Engineer in 859504022

Hi Nickkk,

This looks like an issue that should be resolved in macOS 26.1 Beta 1. If you have the opportunity, could you please try this out on the latest beta and verify that it's working for you?

Hi Nickkk,

This looks like an issue that should be resolved in macOS 26.1 Beta 1. If you have the opportunity, could you please try this out on the latest beta and verify that it's working for you?

Window title bar in macOS 26 is drawn even if titlebarAppearsTransparent = true
 
 
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