Please Add “Liquid Glass” Visual Effect [macOS, iOS]

Anki Suggestions
1

Not really a problem — this is just a visual improvement idea.

I’d love to see Anki support Liquid Glass effects in the interface — dynamic, fluid, glass-like surfaces with refraction, light distortion, and soft motion.

It could be used on windows, panels, or dialogs, and ideally toggled on or off in the preferences.

Describe alternatives you’ve considered.

I’ve tried some CSS and theme tweaks to simulate transparency, but they can’t create the same fluid or refractive look as real Liquid Glass rendering.

Thanks for considering it — I think it would make Anki look beautiful and modern!

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2

Which OS/platform are you requesting this for?

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3

Liquid Glass is a new feature in iOS 26 so it’s available on both macOS and AnkiMobile, I think it’s in the process of being discussed in this GitHub issue. MacOS app icon not compatible with icon styles #4340

4

That’s why I asked for clarification. Apple is obviously considering iOS and macOS together with this new display-style – but the apps are really quite different.

A display-style change is going to be pretty low priority, but it should at least be tracked for the right app. This is likely something different and more involved than the icon change.

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5

What should we do if Apple decided to change their design next year to “Flaming Gas” or whatever?

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6

So far how to manually change the macOS icon has been posted on the Anki subreddit, so advanced users might be able to change the icon themselves.

7

As you say it seems very unlikely that Liquid Glass UI will be developed in Anki for desktop, Anki developers are working to make the UI more accessible for visually impaired users but Liquid Glass is notorious for its poor visibility. Also this feature is probably only available on Apple devices and is not cross-platform.

In add-ons for the UI there is no glass effect used yet. I previously tried to develop a frosted glass UI but there is still insufficient info. Anki’s Qt UI does not support Liquid Glass so it is not possible for now, but Qt developers have frequently requested this feature, so workarounds or alternatives may be developed in the future.

As far as I know this Apple UI change seems to be a long term one for now, their last major UI change like this was probably about 12 years ago. e.g. Skeuomorphism (2007, iOS 1) → Flat Design (2013, iOS 7) → Liquid Glass (2025, iOS 26)

If they change to Flaming Gas next year Apple users and iOS developers can do nothing about it, Apple is ignoring complaints and forcing the use of the new UI.

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8

My point is that an open source app made by volunteers cannot keep up with the trends of certain 3 trillion dollar companies which can change at any time.

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9

I too think Apple support is difficult as you say, and it has nothing to do with improving learning efficiency, however I guess someone among MacOS users might try developing something later, such UI designs are popular among a minority of Anki users.

Official Anki works with AnkiMmobile’s revenue, and all Anki server costs are maintained by this, so requests from iPhone users should be relatively high priority for them. Also since they can likely develop full time their development speed is the fastest and their quality is the highest.

Third party Anking has already developed several advanced UI add-ons, their customers are English-speaking medical students, many of whom are iPhone users, so if there’s a lot of demand from medical student iPhone users they might develop something.

Others are Anki users who are developers using MacOS. Generally MacOS is popular among UI designers, this liquid glass update likely displeases them because the old UI and icons now look outdated, so I think Anki users who are developers using MacOS might develop their own UI.

Personally I prefer developing this kind of UI, I think developing add-ons or templates for the frosted glass effect UI is probably possible, working cross platform is ideal. The liquid glass add-on looks a bit difficult, but if development resources and info about Liquid Glass increase in the future it may be possible to develop something similar, this feature is still new so there is insufficient info available.

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10

Though it’s not liquid glass, this popular new UI add-on released yesterday is similar to that concept.

11

While this is understandable, this mentality is the reason that Anki’s UI & UX are both considered to be dated. However, I understand that the best use of resources may not be to keep up with the latest UI/UX paradigms.

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12

It’s just not practical. Anki is supported on Windows, MacOS, and Linux (which has a lot of different styles due to DEs and WMs, non-uniform Style Guides, ect.). Anki cannot support all those themes and even supporting a fraction of them becomes quite a challenge.

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13

Could you add Dark and Tinted icon variants to AnkiMobile? iOS does Liquid Glass/Clear and icon tinting now, and the current icon gets auto-processed. It looks cleaner on Liquid Glass, keeps strong contrast on busy wallpapers, and avoids auto-tint artifacts. Would love to see it. Anki’s basically the last app on my Home Screen still looking kinda off in Liquid Glass mode.

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15

Completely agree. The AnkiMobile icon looks out of place, it makes me not even want to put it on my home screen. It’s time to design a new icon.

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