Apple Seeds Seventh Beta of macOS Catalina to Developers [Update: Public Beta Available]

Apple today seeded the seventh beta of macOS 10.15 Catalina for testing purposes, a little over one week after seeding the sixth macOS Catalina beta and over two months 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 after installing the proper software from the Developer Center. As with all new betas, macOS Catalina should not be installed on a primary machine because it is early release software and has bugs.


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 three new apps offer similar functionality to iTunes, but are split up by feature. iOS device management is still available on the Mac, but it's now done through the 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 for passwords and other info in macOS Catalina, and Macs with a T2 chip now support Activation Lock, making them more secure. 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, or, in the case of notebooks, closed.

Screen Time is 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 to increase the number of Mac apps available.

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.

According to Apple's release notes for beta 7, there are several fixes available. The Cloud Files section in About This Mac > Storage > Manage now accurately represents the state of files on your Mac.

The CloudKit Share URL now launches a Mac Catalyst app present on the system or takes the user to the appropriate App Store page to download it.

Deleting Podcasts using About This Mac > Storage > Manage now updates what's shown in the Podcasts app, and Screen Time > Content & Privacy > Content > Web Content > Allowed Websites Only is now enforced in the beta.

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