For those of you using a Mac, what is the current thinking about the latest OSX and Sketchup? Do they play nicely together?
My Mac is beginning to look a little long in the tooth (Intel, dontcha know), so that may have a bearing on things.
I have just updated to the latest version of Sequoia and don’t want to risk upsetting things if the wedding plans are still uncertain.
I’d wait Simon.
One commonly reported issue is related to text in SketchUp. Tahoe has evidently broken the font panel and removed the option to set the size.
Ta. I’m sure that’s good advice.
I’m working with Tahoe without any major problems, but if you don’t need to upgrade just yet I would wait. The new UI is a bit odd at times visually. And yes, there are a few oddities with SU.
Having said that SU flies on my M4.
Apple have moved where text options appear in the Text panel, preventing you from choosing sizes and styles. Given that there is other work going on with the Mac UI, I’m doubtful that there will be an update to add in a Tahoe compatible Text panel.
Other than that, SketchUp seems to work well enough.
For the most part, SketchUp 2026 has been working fine for me under macOS Tahoe 26.2 on my 2019 Intel-based MBP 16".
I noticed the issue about font sizing, but since it wasn’t essential to what I needed at the time, I just moved on.
The main issue I’ve had is with SketchUp going into spin while loading extensions. A significant fraction of the time, when I launch SketchUp it never completes loading extensions (I’ve given it hours with no luck). I’ve gotten much more practice than I’d have preferred at “force-quit, kill zombie, launch with no extensions, quit, relaunch”,which is what it takes to get it happy. Knowing how to get it going again in a less than a minute, I have been more motivated to get back to work than to dig deeper into the actual cause.
I haven’t had any issues with it, I haven’t had the need to use the text tool but I noticed that the fonts and size have disappeared.
I don’t know if the rumors are true but some trustworthy sources say that Tahoe is the last version that will work with Intel Macs, macOS 27 will only support apple silicon chips. If that’s true probably Rosetta 2 will also be removed, I think that all the softwares have already been ported to Apple silicon, Draftsight was the only one I use that required Rosetta 2 but version 2026 runs natively on Apple silicon as well.
The text issue is specific to SU, right? Not LO. So that means leader text and, possibly, 3D text, yes?
Interesting to hear from someone using Draftsight. I used to use it. Can’t remember why I gave up. It may have started to annoy me. I use QCad now. It’s a shame to have to use these 2D packages at all, but I find there is no other way to view an Autocad type drawing reliably as it was meant to appear. Trying to open one in LO doesn’t seem to work as you might hope. Text sizes differ, elements get out of place, all kinds of glitches.
As for Intel Macs and OSX, below is what the Oracle tells us. Sounds like time for an upgrade.
Yes, it is true that Apple is phasing out support for Intel-based Macs
. According to announcements made at WWDC 2025, macOS 26 (named “Tahoe,” released in late 2025) is the final major version of macOS that supports Intel-based Macs.
Here are the key details regarding the transition:
The Last Supported Intel Macs: Only a few late-model Intel Macs are supported by macOS 26 Tahoe, specifically the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro (4-port), 2020 27-inch iMac, and 2019 Mac Pro.
The Next OS (macOS 27): Expected in 2026, macOS 27 will be exclusive to Apple Silicon Macs and will not work on any Intel-based computers.
Security Updates: While Intel Macs will not get new features after Tahoe (macOS 26), Apple is expected to continue providing security updates for these supported Intel machines for approximately three more years (until roughly 2028).
Rosetta 2 Phaseout: Rosetta 2, which allows Intel apps to run on Apple Silicon, will remain in macOS 26 and 27, but most of its features will be removed in macOS 28 (2027).
If you have an older Intel Mac (pre-2019), it likely stopped receiving major macOS updates before 2025. The 2019–2020 models are the last to receive the final update.
I also have Qcad pro, but sometimes it takes a lot of time opening files exported from layout, it has been running natively on Apple silicon for years but still the not native Draftsight could open layout exported files a lot faster, also the UI is very similar to Autocad and the commands are exactly the same with very few exceptions, Qcad has its own commands that I haven’t learned. Most of my workflow depends on sketchup and layout, but I need a 2D cad software to present digitally construction documentation, I had to add layers for the sketchup tags but since version 2026 layout can export the tags as layers, now I just have to change the colors of the layers cause they’re all the same, anyways it saves hours of work.
I have still my old trusty and powerful M1 Max MacBook Pro, I thought that I had to upgrade just because apple performance increases on new M chips is seductive, but I realized that I can still do everything without any issues and fast with my machine, even rendering on vray, twinmotion and blender so I decided to keep my machine until it loses support, so probably a few more years, but it was totally worth it getting top specs for my machine.
I just installed Sketchup 2026 on my Mac (Apple M3 Chip) and all I get is a blank welcome screen. My user logo shows I’m logged in. I’m using Tahoe 26.2. Any words of advice?
As you are on Mac you could close that window, and choose New or Open from the File menu. See if those work.
When I close the window SketchUp shuts down.
While looking at the blank window, right-click on the SketchUp icon in the Dock, and see if you can choose a recent model file. After choosing it, then close the blank window.