How to change the accent color on a Mac
The accent color tints buttons, checkboxes, dropdown menus, and sidebar highlights across macOS. Changing it takes about ten seconds and makes your setup feel more personal — here's exactly where to find it.
Change it in System Settings
The accent color setting lives in System Settings → Appearance. Scroll down past the Light/Dark/Auto options and you'll see a row of color swatches labeled Accent color. Click any swatch and the system updates immediately — no restart needed.
The available colors on macOS 13 Ventura through 15 Sequoia are:
- Multicolor — the default. macOS picks a color that complements your current wallpaper.
- Blue — the classic macOS accent.
- Purple
- Pink
- Red
- Orange
- Yellow
- Green
- Graphite — turns all accents gray, for a quieter look.
The change takes effect system-wide as soon as you click — buttons, checkboxes, and selected items update in real time. Switch back by clicking any other swatch.
What actually changes
The accent color touches more of the UI than most people expect. Once you change it, you'll see it in:
- Buttons (default/highlighted state)
- Checkboxes and radio buttons (the filled state)
- Progress bars and sliders
- Sidebar selection highlights (in Finder, Mail, Notes, etc.)
- Focus rings — the outline that appears around the focused control
- Some toggle controls in System Settings itself
Third-party apps that use native AppKit or SwiftUI controls will follow the system accent color. Apps that draw their own custom UI may not change.
Highlight color
Just below the Accent color row in System Settings → Appearance is a separate setting: Highlight color. This controls the color of selected text — the background that appears when you drag to select a word in TextEdit, Safari, or any other text field.
By default the highlight color matches the accent color, but you can set them independently. The dropdown for Highlight color includes all the standard colors plus a "Custom…" option that opens the system color picker — so you can choose any color you like for text selection without changing the rest of the UI.
No reliable Terminal command
Unlike many macOS settings, the accent color doesn't have a clean, documented defaults key you can reliably set from Terminal. Some undocumented keys like AppleAccentColor exist and work on some versions of macOS, but Apple doesn't guarantee them and they've broken across major releases.
If you want to script appearance changes, stick to what's documented — like AppleInterfaceStyle for Dark Mode — and use System Settings for the accent color. It's genuinely the most reliable path here.
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Graphite mode: the minimal monochrome look
If you prefer a quieter, less colorful interface, set both Accent color and Highlight color to Graphite. Everything that would normally show color — buttons, checkboxes, selected rows — goes gray instead. Combined with Dark Mode, it produces a very restrained, near-monochrome desktop that many developers and designers prefer for long work sessions.
To reverse it: click any other color swatch in System Settings → Appearance. The change is instant and there's nothing to clean up.