Apple briefly sent out the macOS Tahoe public beta, now pulled

Some beta testers that immediately downloaded what they expected to be the macOS Sequoia 15.6 RC got the macOS Tahoe 26 public beta by mistake, but Apple has since fixed the issue.

Apple is expected to release the OS 26 public betas by July 25, and more evidence of that expected move cropped up Monday. Those paying attention to Apple’s beta distribution servers noticed an errant macOS Tahoe release that seemed to make it to some unsuspecting users.

At 1:03 p.m. Eastern, AppleInsider staff noted a macOS Tahoe 26 release with the build 25A5316i. It never appeared on developer tester Macs, but it did populate for at least one user.

According to a social media post discovered by MacRumors, one user expected to get the latest public beta of macOS Sequoia 15.6, but instead got a version of macOS Tahoe. It seems to only have been distributed to users without Rosetta 2 installed running public betas.

The user had already downgraded from macOS Tahoe previously, so it is no doubt a surprise to find their Mac running a completely different operating system due to a beta update. As we’ve often repeated, running beta operating systems always can be perilous.

The build number is slightly higher than the current developer beta 3, which is 25A5306g, which indicates it is likely the developer beta 4, public beta 1 build due later in the week.

Apple has since pulled the errant update. It seems the public beta for macOS Tahoe was sent out in place of the update package for the macOS Sequoia RC.

Undoubtedly, very few people were able to download this build of macOS Tahoe. However, if you were one of the few, note that you’ll either have to manually downgrade or stick with the public beta.