Apple Seeds Second Beta of macOS Catalina to Developers

Apple today seeded the second beta of macOS 10.15 Catalina for testing purposes, two weeks after the new Mac operating system update was first unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

The new macOS Catalina beta can be downloaded using the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences. As with all new betas, you're not going to want to install macOS Catalina on a primary machine as it is early release software and could have major bugs.

test macOS 10
macOS Catalina eliminates the iTunes app, splitting it into Music, Podcasts, and TV apps. The Apple Music and Apple Podcasts apps are available now, while the Apple TV app is coming later this year.

The new apps are similar in function to iTunes, but are split up by feature. iOS device management is still available on the Mac, but it's now done through Finder rather than iTunes.

With a new Sidecar feature, you can turn your iPad into a second display for your Mac with just the click of a button. The Apple Pencil works with ‌Sidecar‌, so you can turn your ‌iPad‌ into a drawing tablet in apps like Photoshop and Illustrator.

Your Apple Watch can be used to approve security prompts in macOS Catalina, and Macs with a T2 chip support Activation Lock. There's a new Find My that brings the ‌Find My‌ Mac app to the Mac for the first time and even lets you track your devices when they're offline.

Screen Time is now available on the Mac as well as iOS devices, and Project Catalyst, a new Apple initiative, will let developers easily port their ‌iPad‌ apps over to the Mac.

There's a new Photos interface that surfaces your best photos organized by day, month, or year, there's a new start page in Safari, Mail has new tools for muting email threads and blocking senders, and the Reminders app has been overhauled.

32-bit apps no longer work in macOS Catalina, which is something to be aware of before installing the beta. Right now, Catalina is limited to developers, but Apple plans to release a public beta in July ahead of a fall public launch.

For more details on macOS Catalina, make sure to check out our macOS Catalina roundup.

Related Forum: macOS Catalina

Popular Stories

Apple Watch Ultra 2 Complications

Apple Watch Ultra 3: What to Expect

Sunday July 13, 2025 10:30 am PDT by
The long wait for an Apple Watch Ultra 3 is nearly over, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device. Below, we recap what to expect from the Apple Watch Ultra 3:Satellite connectivity for sending and receiving text messages when Wi-Fi and cellular coverage is unavailable 5G support, up from LTE on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Likely a wide-angle OLED display that ...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

Here's When to Expect the iOS 26 Public Beta

Tuesday July 15, 2025 11:07 am PDT by
Apple previously announced that a public beta of iOS 26 would be available in July, and now a more specific timeframe has surfaced. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said that Apple's public betas should be released on or around Wednesday, July 23. In other words, expect the public betas of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and more to be available at some point next week. Apple will be releasing...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Coming Soon With These 16 New Features

Friday July 11, 2025 12:40 pm PDT by
Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are only two months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models. Latest Rumors These rumors surfaced in June and July:A redesigned Dynamic Island: It has been rumored that all iPhone 17 models will have a redesigned Dynamic Island interface — it might ...
iPhone 17 Colors

All 15 New iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Colors Revealed in Latest Leak

Wednesday July 16, 2025 6:50 am PDT by
We may finally have a definitive list of all color options for the iPhone 17 series, ahead of the devices launching in September. MacRumors concept In a report for Macworld today, Filipe Espósito said he obtained an "internal document" that allegedly reveals all of the color options for the upcoming iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max models. The report includes ...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Expected Later This Year With These New Features

Saturday July 12, 2025 3:09 pm PDT by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device. Below, we recap what to expect from the next Apple TV, according to rumors. Rumors Faster Wi-Fi Support The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports ...
Apple Hornsby

Apple Store Near Sydney Permanently Closing Later This Year

Monday July 14, 2025 6:14 pm PDT by
Apple today said its store at the Westfield Hornsby shopping mall, in Hornsby, Australia, will be permanently closing in October. Apple Hornsby In a statement shared with Australian tech news website EFTM (via Reddit), Apple said that it has decided not to renew its lease at Westfield Hornsby. Apple said all affected retail employees will be given the opportunity to work at Apple's nearby...
iphone 16 pro ghost hand

5 Reasons to Skip This Year's iPhone 17 Pro

Thursday July 10, 2025 4:54 am PDT by
Apple will launch its new iPhone 17 series in two months, and the iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to get a new design for the rear casing and the camera area. But more significant changes to the lineup are not expected until next year, when the iPhone 18 models arrive. If you're thinking of trading in your iPhone for this year's latest, consider the following features rumored to be coming...

Top Rated Comments

Cyberpower678 Avatar
79 months ago
Finder is a bit slow and finicky, unlike Beta 1. I found Home Sharing and enabled it but I cannot connect to my film and TV libraries through the Apple TV app on the phone (running iOS 13) or the Apple TV, running 12.3. I made sure I was logged into iCloud and that Home Sharing was enabled. On the phone I get "There was a problem playing this content" and on the TV, the library comes up but the error message is, "Cannot connect to shared libraries." My shared music library plays, however.

I know I can't get that excited about these issues running a Beta but if anyone else got this working, let me know. Thanks!
Turn your iCloud off and back on. That might fix your issues.
[doublepost=1560875145][/doublepost]
I will never understand why every new OS results in the wholesale breaking of things that were working just fine prior. How is this progress? Seems more like a study in user aggravation.
Spoken like a non-developer. ;). When major changes are made and core sub-routines updates to improve efficiency, it can introduce breakages in places that aren’t immediately expected to break in. MacOS is large and sometime a core routine needs to be altered to implement the new features being introduced. Otherwise macOS would be just one big patch job. We might as well be using Windows at that point.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Chris Grande Avatar
79 months ago
I'd like to see them bring back home sharing - at least by the final build.
It's in there, it's just been moved to System Preferences -> Sharing -> Media Sharing.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DesertNomad Avatar
79 months ago
I wish they'd fix NSPredicateEditor when it is displayed in a sheet. It has been broken since at least the initial release of 10.14. I guess they are more interested in designing new emojis rather than fixing core parts of the OS.

I've been developing software for the Apple/Mac platform since 1985 and it's sad to see the state of Apple today. Lots of broken parts of the OS will likely never be fixed.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cponto Avatar
79 months ago
I'd like to see them bring back home sharing - at least by the final build.
Home Sharing works well with Catalina Beta 1

Attachment Image
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zorinlynx Avatar
79 months ago
Time Machine supporting APFS disks?
I don't know why this isn't a thing yet. APFS supports snapshot streams and incremental snapshot streams. This would be absolutely ideal for Time Machine and probably hundreds of times faster than the current way which is basically an rsync with hard linked directories.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Chris The Bipolarbear Avatar
79 months ago
6.45 GB - about 3 hours remaining. Yeah, I figured Beta 2 would be popular...
it a complete new installer even has a pretty picture on it

Attachment Image
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)