Posted By Paul Kafasis on February 24th, 2026

A recent blog post from Marcin Wichary briefly discussed a proposed application interaction Mario Guzmán posted on Mastodon. The aim was to help locate a window on screen:

As you can see in the demo above, clicking on the app’s Dock icon causes its main window to do a horizontal shake. While this is effective in drawing attention, as Wichary notes, this left-right shake already has a well-established meaning. Throughout MacOS, such a shake is used to indicate a password has not been accepted.

We actually tackled this exact problem several years back in SoundSource. The app’s main window can be pinned to remain open on screen. When it is, we wanted a click of the menu bar icon to draw attention to that already-open main window. We began with a left-right shake, much like what you see above.

Eventually, though, we realized it just didn’t feel right. The connection to both bad passwords and saying “No” was too strong. So I opened a case in our issue tracker titled “Consider modifying the ‘Here I Am’ shake”, and suggested that perhaps an up-down “yes” shake might work instead.

Nathan, our lead developer on SoundSource, experimented a bit. He eventually got us to the fantastic “pop” animation you can see here:

We released this change back at the end of 2021¹, and it can still be seen in SoundSource today. I recently noticed that Apple’s apps do a similar animation when opening an already-open file.² I remain delighted with this simple but effective pop animation. It feels like something other apps might adopt it as well.

Footnotes:

1. The release note for this read: “…now does a more logical ‘Here I am!’ pop to indicate its location.”↩︎

2. To see this, open an already-open file in almost any Apple app, including Pages, QuickTime Player, or TextEdit. The window for the file will quickly pop once. Though it’s not bad, I feel our double-pop is superior.↩︎

Posted By Neale Van Fleet on February 17th, 2026

During a recent update to our site’s footer, we fell backwards into a fun little easter egg. It’s easy to miss, so I thought I’d draw a little attention to it here.

When I finished mocking up the site’s new footer, the rightmost column just happened to be shorter than the others, leaving an empty space and making the design look a little off balance. To fill the space, I added an existing drawing of our mascot Ammo. This was intended as a placeholder, but it turned out that everyone liked Ammo there. He made it through the design process to go live on the site.

That wasn’t the end of the story, however, as we were soon led on a fun little diversion by an offhand comment: “He should be dressed up for holidays”. Almost as soon as the words were spoken, a bit of PHP code was implemented to automate swapping images, and I found myself drawing a couple dozen variations of Ammo for a wide variety of calendar events.

One of my favorites is the Saint Patrick’s Day Ammo. My first draft had our mascot dressed as a leprechaun. I was quite satisfied with the drawing, which was relatively detailed for something so small. But after finishing it, I was struck by some inspiration. Just like the Chicago river being dyed green, I realized that as an amoeba, the mostly-water based Ammo could also go green. I threw out my more detailed drawing in favour of a quick colour shift, making an emerald Ammo for St. Patty’s day.

I’ve included a few of the special Ammos in this post, but there are many more for you to spot on various holidays and cultural events. As I post this, the gold medal-winning Olympics Ammo is visible in the footer. Watch our footer over the course of time to see more.

Posted By Paul Kafasis on January 15th, 2026

It’s time for new calendars, and that means it’s also time for another annual status report. Today, I’m going to take a look back at what Rogue Amoeba accomplished in 2025, then preview a few of the things we’re looking forward to in 2026. Let’s jump right in!

Software Updates

We’re a software company, so our biggest news ought to be updates made to our software. It was!

SoundSource 6

Our single biggest update in 2025 was SoundSource 6. Hopefully, you already know about SoundSource, which provides instant access to audio settings right from your Mac’s menu bar, giving you powerful per-app control and the ability to apply effects to any app’s audio.

In version 6, we added dozens of helpful new features, alongside countless improvements. When an upgrade is this big, it can be difficult tough to convey all that it contains, so we focused our marketing on four key features: Quick Configs, AirPlay support, grouped output devices, and the powerful new Audio Devices window. You can learn about those, and so much more, on the What’s New page.

Whether you’re new to SoundSource, or just haven’t checked out version 6, download the free trial to check it out on MacOS 15 and higher. And if you previously purchased SoundSource 5 (or even SoundSource 4), you’re eligible for a discounted upgrade to version 6.

Free Updates, Big and Small

In addition to one paid upgrade, we also shipped a whopping 49 free updates across our product lineup in 2025, including three big releases.

With Audio Hijack 4.5, we removed the “Beta” label from the relatively new Transcribe block. That means Audio Hijack’s powerful speech-to-text abilities are now fully supported. This update also made transcription much faster and less CPU intensive.

Fission 2.9 included some notable interface improvements, like a better top navigation bar. However, user feedback convinced us that our choice of new colors was a misstep. We rectified things in subsequent updates, while also improving VoiceOver support.

We optimized SoundSource 5.8 to reduce CPU usage and correct an assortment of rare but irksome issues. The new SoundSource 6 is the current version of the app, but version 5 remains supported for existing users. In fact, it received another bug fix just a few days ago.

Rather than on-going subscriptions, all of our products are sold as one-time purchases. Nevertheless, the apps are always being refined, with a constant flow of free updates. In 2025, we shipped new features, performance enhancements, and hundreds of bug fixes to make all of our apps as reliable as possible. We also invested significant effort on full compatibility with MacOS 26 (Tahoe), ensuring everything was ready when it arrived.

Important MacOS Updates

Speaking of MacOS, we once again found ourselves eagerly awaiting point updates from Apple. While we have full control over our own apps, corrections to problems with the Mac’s underlying audio system can only come from Apple. Both MacOS 15 (Sequoia) and MacOS 26 (Tahoe) saw critical fixes arrive after their initial releases, with important improvements in Sequoia 15.4, as well Tahoe 26.1. We tested those OS updates in beta to validate Apple’s changes, and issued updates where needed.

Celebrating Our Team

We were delighted to have the chance to celebrate two employee milestones in 2025. Our ace designer, Neale Van Fleet, has now been with us for 10 years and counting. In that time, he’s done incredible work to make all that we do look good. Meanwhile, our support manager, Chris Barajas, crossed the 15-year mark. Chris has done more than anyone to make things better for customers. We know we’re lucky to have them both, and we hope our users do too.

One More Thing

One other project worth noting is our new Customer Dashboard. It provides automated access to full details on all your purchases from Rogue Amoeba. Retrieve lost licenses, download the latest version your license can unlock, view your purchase history, and update the email address under which your purchases are stored.

Click to check it out. You shouldn’t need it often, but when you do, the Customer Dashboard will be ready for you.

Updates Big and Small

We’re a software company, so our biggest plans ought to be updates for our software. They are!

First, I’m delighted to spill the beans on a major new feature coming to our audio router Loopback: audio effects! Currently, using effects to make microphone input sound better requires pairing Loopback and Audio Hijack. That’s not as streamlined as we’d like it to be. In the future, Loopback may be all you need to make your mic audio sound great.

We’re aiming to begin beta testing soon, so if you’re a Loopback user interested in testing the next iteration, we’d be glad to have you. Click here to apply, by sending your full name and your favorite food.

After unveiling SoundSource 6 last month, we found plenty to polish in subsequent minor updates. Now, we’re working hard on SoundSource 6.1, a sizable update we hope to ship before spring. It will contain some features that didn’t make it into 6.0, as well as backend enhancements which will reduce latency and CPU usage.

And of course, we’ll be keeping things shipshape in all the rest of our products. The steady procession of free updates to our entire product line will continue apace in 2026.

Still Faster Beta Support

When Apple provided MacOS 26 betas last year, most of our product line worked without needing updates. However, Loopback and SoundSource took a bit more time, because the ARK plugin they use for audio handling required an update for the new OS. Last fall, we decided it was time to change that.

While we’ll continue to counsel caution when running beta OS versions, you’ll no longer need to wait for updates from us just to run the apps. For the first time ever, when Apple provides a beta of the next version of MacOS, you’ll be able to use our entire product line on it from day one. We know our users will appreciate it.

Fascinating Blog Posts

I don’t think I’ve ever teased blog posts in a status report before, but there are two in the works from other Amoebas that I’m personally very excited about. Neale’s design evolution posts are always excellent, so I’m eager to read his forthcoming “Design of SoundSource 6”. Meanwhile, Chris recently spearheaded some customer outreach that’s worth hearing about, and he’ll be posting about it soon.

Staying Up-To-Date

This annual status report is a good chance to reiterate how you can keep up with our latest news. Of course, our apps themselves offer automated update checking, with comprehensive release notes. But beyond that, there’s our:

Mailing List

Want our biggest news? We send just a few emails a year, and your address is never shared. Click right here to subscribe.

Blog

On Under the Microscope, you’ll hear about big updates, smaller updates, and other stories too. Subscribe to the RSS feed in a reader like NetNewsWire, or even get an email for every post with a service like Feedrabbit.

Social Media

You can follow @RogueAmoeba on an assortment of social media sites. We post about nearly all of our updates, provide links to articles on our blog, and share other ephemera.

New Year, Same Rogue Amoeba

We’re well into our third decade of developing the best audio tools for the Mac, and we don’t have any plans to stop. Everyone at Rogue Amoeba is hard at work on multiple updates we’ll be unveiling in the months ahead. It’s time to get back to that, so please allow Ammo and me to close by wishing you a happy new year.

Posted By Paul Kafasis on January 10th, 2026

Recently, two widely discussed posts have decried the proliferation of icons in MacOS 26 (Tahoe) menus. First, Jim Nielsen wrote a post in December that referenced Apple’s old Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) advice against using confusing symbols in menus. Next, Nikita Prokopov provided example after infuriating example of just how poorly implemented these icons are on Tahoe.

A Bit of Nuance

It’s not that icons in menus are inherently bad. Indeed, they can be helpful in small doses. We use them to good effect in select places throughout our own apps:

The menu icons seen above help differentiate between available options.

Tahoe’s Menu Icons

By contrast, Tahoe’s menu icons are distracting. Their tiny size and monochrome nature make distinguishing between icons difficult even on Retina displays. Apple’s implementation of menu icons across the operating system is simply not good.

Attaching icons to only key items is an idea with some potential, and in the initial Tahoe release, only some menu items had icons. Nevertheless, the inconsistencies in indentation and usage that Nielsen and Prokopov pointed out led to ugly and confusing menus.

Tahoe updates have made things worse, by cramming in more and more icons. It now seems Apple intends for every menu item to have an icon, which just doesn’t scale. The result is unhelpful clutter that makes scanning far more difficult.

Apple’s Mess

We often take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to Apple’s design changes, and we have not added any menu icons of our own on Tahoe. However, Apple has forced dozens of icons into our applications’ menus. We don’t love the result:

The random icons Apple littered about haphazardly made our menus uglier and less usable. Illustrative examples can be found in Audio Hijack and Farrago, which each contain “Import” and “Export” menu items. In Audio Hijack, Apple placed an icon on the “Export” option, but not on the “Import” option. Meanwhile in Farrago, neither item got an icon at all.

In addition to being inconsistent, Apple’s approach feels uncharacteristically heavy-handed. In the past, the company might have led by example in their own apps, while encouraging developers to follow along. But rather than WWDC sessions to educate and assist, they employed an overzealous tactic of running a search and replace on third-party apps, which has produced poor results.

Cleaning Things Up

Since the release of Tahoe, we’ve been stuck with the unattractive menus Apple has imposed upon us. Recently, however, we found we could do better. Thanks to inspiration from our old pal Brent Simmons, we can remove the clutter that’s been foisted upon our apps.¹

Our next releases will remove the icons Apple previously forced into our menus. This will restore clean, consistent, icon-free menus to our products.²

As you can see, the clutter-free menus found on MacOS Sequoia and earlier are possible on Tahoe as well. When we next update our apps, we’ll be retaking control of our menus.

Personally, I hope other developers will follow this example. We can’t fix the entire OS, but we don’t have to perpetuate its problems within our own products.

Footnotes:

1. Brent has provided a more fleshed-out version of his code here. ↩︎

2. If there are folks who prefer to keep these icons on Tahoe, that will be possible. We’re also adding a new “Restore icons in menus” setting in our Debugging windows.

   

   I’ll be interested to see if that gets much use. ↩︎

Posted By Paul Kafasis on December 12th, 2025

Back in 2020, we were delighted to celebrate Neale’s fifth anniversary as Rogue Amoeba’s designer. It’s now 2025, and he’s still here doing stellar work. That means it’s now time to celebrate a full decade of Neale Van Fleet!

When you’re using one of our apps, perusing our website, or check in with us on social media, you’re undoubtedly looking at something Neale created. That’s even true of this laudatory blog post, which recycles his artwork from past posts.

Major App Updates and More

Since we last feted Neale, we’ve shipped three massive new app updates, and he led the design of all of them.

When compared against the revolutionary version 3, Audio Hijack 4 was more of an evolutionary update. With over 100 new features, however, it was still a massive design job. Neale rose to the challenge. I always enjoy his design evolution posts, but The Design of Audio Hijack 4 is a particular favorite.

After that came Farrago 2. Neale’s idea to allow the use of emoji on tile faces was a stroke of genius, making it possible for tiles to appear distinct while still maintaining an overall uniform look. He talked about that, and much more, in “The Design of Farrago 2”. That post delightfully details how he managed to make a soundboard app so visually appealing.

We’ve also had dozens of point updates to our apps, and improvements like the sleek new Permissions window certainly didn’t design themselves. A few years back, Neale even went from designer to sound designer when we made the confetti in our License window accessible.

If you’re curious what that means, click the banner to read all about it.

Whimsical Things

We try to have a good amount of fun here, and Neale’s no stranger to that either. You might recall our Historic Screenshot Archive, which displays hundreds of images from 23+ years of Rogue Amoeba software. In addition to helping set that up, Neale also created some fun images to display on social media.

Last year, Neale added a special exhibit dedicated to Ammo the Amoeba. That page features dozens of assorted images of our mascot, and it’s a delight.

Even more delightful was Neale’s series on “The Least Likely Ways to Install Rogue Amoeba’s Apps”, like the goofy floppy disk seen above. If you missed that, you’re really in for a retro treat.

So Much More

Neale’s work encompasses far too much to list it all. Day in and day out, his work is outstanding, and we’re lucky to have him. Our users are too!

A Beautiful Award for Beautiful Work

Long-time readers might remember just how Rogue Amoeba celebrates a 10th anniversary: With a bespoke silver token. Neale’s was once again handcrafted by Quentin in his home forge, and it’s as beautiful as ever.

Neale is a particularly worthy recipient of this award, because he designed the logo it represents. We hope it brings him a feeling of pride., because we’re tremendously proud of his great work.

Closing

It’s an honor to be able to celebrate so many employee milestones here. The team that makes the products you use every day is second to none, and it’s a privilege to be able to work with them for such long tenures. Neale is no exception to that.

So thank you for ten great years, Neale, and here’s to many more to come.