What is Liquid Glass?
'Liquid Glass' is a bold and unique new design in iOS 26. This effect has a transparent, glossy, glass-like appearance and appears on the Lock Screen, widgets, Control Center, and even wallpapers. It makes the iPhone look more modern and sleek.
However, not everyone loves this interface. Some find it distracting, or want to improve the performance and battery life of their device (Liquid Glass is said to drain the battery faster).
This article will guide you on how to turn off the Liquid Glass effect on your iPhone, returning to the flat, simple interface as before.
What happens when Liquid Glass is turned off?
- Wallpapers and system panels will no longer have the frosted glass effect.
- Widgets, the lock screen, and the Control Center will have solid, non-transparent backgrounds.
- Performance and battery life may improve slightly, especially on older iPhone models.
How to turn off Liquid Glass on iPhone
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll down and select Accessibility.
- Go to Display & Text Size.
- Scroll down and turn on Reduce Transparency. When this option is enabled, the translucent blur effect will disappear in most areas of iOS, returning the iPhone to a traditional, clear interface without the 'glassy' look.
In fact, iOS 26 doesn't have an option to completely disable Liquid Glass. You can't completely turn Liquid Glass off, but only reduce the frosted glass effect, remove the transparent background, and retain some animations.
How to turn Liquid Glass back on
- Open Settings.
- Go to Accessibility → Display & Text Size.
- Turn off Reduce Transparency.
How to restore the old Safari address bar
Besides Liquid Glass, there's another important app that looks noticeably different by default in iOS 26: Safari.
When you open Safari after installing iOS 26, you'll see that the URL bar is now just a small pill-shaped button at the bottom of the screen, next to a very small back button and an even smaller refresh button.
All your other familiar navigation features are now hidden in a three-dot menu, or behind various swipe and press-and-hold gestures.
If you want to revert to the old URL bar, here's how: Settings > Apps > Safari . In the Tabs section, you'll see three layout options:
- Compact : The new default mode with a smaller address bar at the bottom.
- Bottom : Bringing back the old interface, with full navigation buttons for back, forward, share, bookmarks, and tabs arranged right below the address bar.
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Top : A new option that moves the website address to the top of the screen while keeping the navigation bar at the bottom.
Things few people know about Liquid Glass.
Liquid Glass is not just a matte finish.
In fact, the transparency of Liquid Glass changes depending on the brightness of the background. When the background is dark, the reflective effect is stronger; when the background is light, the opacity increases to maintain readability.
Liquid Glass relies more on the GPU than the CPU.
This effect is handled by the GPU. Newer devices with newer chips (like the A17, A18, etc.) are almost unaffected; while older devices may experience slight frame drops when opening the Control Center. This explains why Apple doesn't allow a complete shutdown; they've optimized for newer hardware.
Prolonged use may cause eye strain.
Liquid Glass's glass effect and light reflections, along with background motion when swiping, can cause eye strain for those sensitive to motion effects. You can reduce transparency, decrease motion, and increase contrast.
Liquid Glass alters the perception of color.
Due to background blurring and reflections, widgets may appear different in color than before, vibrant backgrounds may appear muted, and app icons may look slightly paler when placed on a glass background.
Liquid Glass is a step towards a physical UI.
Apple is gradually shifting from Flat Design to Material Depth and then to Physical UI. Liquid Glass is the first step towards creating a sense of thickness, volume, and realistic light reflection. It could be the foundation for the development of Vision Pro UI and AR interfaces in the future.
Turning off Liquid Glass doesn't save as much battery as you might think.
The GPU only works hard when there is movement. When the screen is still, the effects consume very few resources. Therefore, disabling Liquid Glass might slightly improve battery life on older devices, but the amount of battery saved on newer iPhones is not significant.