Apple Seeds First Public Beta of macOS Sonoma 14.2 - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Apple Seeds First Public Beta of macOS Sonoma 14.2

Apple today seeded the first public beta of an upcoming macOS Sonoma 14.2 update, allowing non-developers to test out the software ahead of its release. The public beta comes a day after the first developer beta.

macos sonoma 4
Beta testers can opt-in through the Software Update section of the System Settings app. Under Beta updates, simply toggle on the Sonoma Public Beta. Note that you must sign up to participate on Apple's beta testing website.

macOS Sonoma 14.2 adds Messages sticker reactions, which make it quicker to add a sticker or an emoji to an iMessage. It also includes support for collaborative Apple Music playlists, allowing multiple people to add songs to a single playlist.

There's a new Favorites ‌Apple Music‌ playlist as well, better support for Messages in iCloud syncing, and iMessage Contact Key Verification for people who face extraordinary digital threats.

Related Forum: macOS Sonoma

Popular Stories

imac video apple feature

Apple Released Yet Another New Product Today

Friday March 20, 2026 2:39 pm PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
ios 26 4 pastel

iOS 26.4: Top 10 New Features Coming to Your iPhone

Friday March 20, 2026 2:44 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 isn't the major update with new Siri features that we hoped for, but there are some useful quality of life improvements, and a little bit of fun with an AI playlist generator and new emoji characters. Playlist Playground - Apple Music has a Playlist Playground option that lets you generate playlists from text-based descriptions. You can include moods, feelings, activities, or...

Top Rated Comments

Realityck Avatar
31 months ago
The install of 14.2 beta 1 on top of 14.1 RC was fairly quick. Not seeing anything really amiss with my two AS Macs.

What was released yesterday to devs/PB testers today

* iOS 17.2 beta (21C5029g)
* iPadOS 17.2 beta (21C5029g)
* macOS 14.2 beta (23C5030f)
* tvOS 17.2 beta (21K5330g)
* watchOS 10.2 beta (21S6331f)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Realityck Avatar
31 months ago

BTW, I still despise the new System Setting introduced in Ventura. Real, genuine hatred. I thought it would grow on me and I'd develop some muscle memory after more than a year, bit I still can't remember where anything is. I used to be able to get to 80% of what I needed with one click. Now it's at least two, sometimes three or four clicks.
Don't forget about the Alphabetical list view in Mac System Settings. While the below image is from Ventura, Sonoma is the same.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mudflap Avatar
31 months ago

What's the overall consensus with Sonoma? I'm curious as to how stable it's been.
Sonoma is solid for me.

This is the first macOS in quite some time that worked with all of my software out of the box. Adobe CC has a couple glitches here and there but it works, generally. And of course — although I'm going to sound like a borked record — the screensaver/wallpapers are absolutely stunning, especially in HDR on a 14" or 16" MacBook Pro. I do miss the third party Mail Receipt plugin for Mail.app; Apple got rid of plugins altogether and are moving to extensions. So maybe we'll have an alternative in the future but for now, nope.

Apple Remote Desktop is noticeably more responsive administering a couple Mac minis I have set up as audio and video servers. That was a very pleasant surprise!

I just installed it yesterday, waiting until I was finished with a big project to be safe. The only issues I've seen so far; sometimes an app's window is stuck behind or in front of another window. I might update to 14.2b to see if that fixes it, as long as it doesn't introduced other problems. And I swear everything really does feel a little zippier on my 14" M1 Pro.

BTW, I still despise the new System Setting introduced in Ventura. Real, genuine hatred. I thought it would grow on me and I'd develop some muscle memory after more than a year, bit I still can't remember where anything is. I used to be able to get to 80% of what I needed with one click. Now it's at least two, sometimes three or four clicks.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
achtung! Avatar
31 months ago
Finally, Apple Music has received more updates. I am looking forward to seeing what's in store for the future. There's plenty of room for improvement.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
31 months ago

Sonoma is solid for me.

This is the first macOS in quite some time that worked with all of my software out of the box. Adobe CC has a couple glitches here and there but it works, generally. And of course — although I'm going to sound like a borked record — the screensaver/wallpapers are absolutely stunning, especially in HDR on a 14" or 16" MacBook Pro. I do miss the third party Mail Receipt plugin for Mail.app; Apple got rid of plugins altogether and are moving to extensions. So maybe we'll have an alternative in the future but for now, nope.

Apple Remote Desktop is noticeably more responsive administering a couple Mac minis I have set up as audio and video servers. That was a very pleasant surprise!

I just installed it yesterday, waiting until I was finished with a big project to be safe. The only issues I've seen so far; sometimes an app's window is stuck behind or in front of another window. I might update to 14.2b to see if that fixes it, as long as it doesn't introduced other problems. And I swear everything really does feel a little zippier on my 14" M1 Pro.

BTW, I still despise the new System Setting introduced in Ventura. Real, genuine hatred. I thought it would grow on me and I'd develop some muscle memory after more than a year, bit I still can't remember where anything is. I used to be able to get to 80% of what I needed with one click. Now it's at least two, sometimes three or four clicks.
Solid as a rock for me.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr.Mozi Avatar
31 months ago
Journal app maybe?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)