Thank you for that information.
macOS Tahoe 26.5.2 is a version from June 2026. If you were already considering updating your OS to a newer version, you might want to do so and see if it changes anything. (For macOS Tahoe, I see that 26.7 is the latest version available.) I don’t know if updating OS might help for this particular issue, but doing so would at least provide your computer with the latest security fixes.
The fact that you do not see the usual Anki app icon leads me to wonder whether Anki is actually installed on your system correctly/fully. Does the same placeholder icon appear when you install Anki 26.08.1?
I’m wondering if manually deleting the Anki app from the Applications folder and then installing Anki from the .dmg file might help.
You mentioned “homebrew”. Is installing software via homebrew something that you’ve done in the past?
Other Mac users trying Anki 26.09 have reported significant lag and delay when starting the Anki app. How long have you been waiting for the app to launch? Could it be that the hang is actually the app taking a long time to launch?
Edit: Added:
- Could you please provide a rough estimate of how many cards you have in your collection?
- If it turns out that the hang is just the Anki app taking a very long time to launch, could you please provide a rough estimate of how many seconds/minutes it took for the Anki app to launch?
Edit: Added:
And, please try using the newly-released Anki 26.09.2 version instead. I’m not sure if it will make a difference for this issue, but for consistency it would be good to have everyone running the same/latest Anki version.