Safari Technology Preview’s self-destructive macOS support policy

Safari Technology Preview’s self-destructive macOS support policy

June 9 2026

Safari has traditionally supported the latest three major macOS versions. For example, Safari 26 supports macOS 26 Tahoe, macOS 15 Sequoia, and macOS 14 Sonoma. Currently, the Safari 27 beta is available only for the macOS 27 Golden Gate developer beta, but the release notes indicate that the Safari 27 beta will also become available for Tahoe and Sequoia soon, perhaps along with the macOS 27 public beta: “Safari 27 beta is available for iOS 27 beta, iPadOS 27 beta, visionOS 27 beta, macOS 27 beta, macOS 26, and macOS Sequoia.”

In contrast, Safari Technology Preview has traditionally supported only the latest two major macOS versions, for some strange reason. The downloads page provides installers for macOS 27 and macOS 26, and the WebKit announcement of the Safari 27 beta said, “You can also install Safari Technology Preview for macOS 27 beta and macOS 26.”

That announcement wasn’t entirely accurate, however. On the same day, the WebKit announcement of Safari Technology Preview 245 said, “Safari Technology Preview Release 245 is now available for download for macOS Tahoe and macOS Sequoia. If you already have Safari Technology Preview installed, you can update it in System Settings under General → Software Update.” Indeed, I was able to update from Safari Technology Preview 244 to 245 using Software Update on Sequoia. And now I’m greeted with this alert on every launch of version 245.

The “Open App Store” button is mislabeled; it opens Software Update instead. Perhaps the alert is so old that it hearkens back to a time when Apple software updates were provided via the App Store app.

So, instead of simply stopping Safari Technology Preview updates with version 244 on macOS Sequoia, Apple decided to push one last update, version 245, that is itself extremely pushy. Thanks, Apple. Needless to say, I’m not going to update to macOS Tahoe in order to get more Safari Technology Preview updates. If I’m forced to choose either macOS Sequoia or Safari Technology Preview, I’ll stick with Sequoia and its nonliquid glassless user interface.

The Safari Technology Preview macOS support policy makes no sense, because Apple will continue to release Safari updates for macOS Sequoia, including Safari version 27, yet Apple is depriving itself of testers who discover bugs in Safari Technology Preview that could be fixed before those bugs become a part of public Safari releases. That’s the point of Safari Technology Preview! I’m not just talking about Safari bugs specific to Sequoia, though it has definitely happened in the past that Safari updates introduce bugs affecting only the oldest of the three supported macOS versions. A worse problem is that bugs affecting all three supported macOS versions will not be found in time, because the miserly Safari Technology Preview support policy turns current testers of Safari Technology Preview into former testers, jettisoned when support is dropped for the oldest of the three latest macOS versions.

Back in April, I actually filed a request to provide Safari Technology Preview for all macOS versions supported by Safari. I was told that my request would be passed along to the people who manage the Safari Technology Preview program. Apparently those people were unmoved.

Ironically, the latest Safari Technology Preview 245 fixed at least one of my bugs: Loading any Web Extension breaks Cloudflare bot challenges. Another of my bugs might also be fixed, but the release notes seem to be in conflict on this matter: “This release includes WebKit changes between: 312965@main…313358@main” but “Fixed cross-origin XMLHttpRequest incorrectly triggering additional Web Extension permission requests. (313506@main).” Commit number 313506 is not in the range of 312965 to 313358. Anyway, if my second bug wasn’t fixed in Safari Technology Preview 245, then it will be fixed in 246. As I mentioned in my blog post Safari web browser bugs: A year in review, I’m a relatively prolific filer of Safari bugs. It’s a mystery why Apple is willing to lose people like me as testers of Safari Technology Preview, especially when I’m providing Apple with quality assurance labor for free!

By the way, it’s also a mystery to me why Apple does not release Safari Technology Preview for iOS. I was hoping that Apple would add that at WWDC this year, but my hope has been dashed.