MacOS Monterey and MacOS Big Sur introduced a redesigned appearance for MacOS alert dialog boxes, making them resemble iOS alerts more than traditional MacOS ones. In the newer design, all elements are centered with the app icon at the top and the alert message beneath it. Previously, classic MacOS alert dialogs displayed an icon on the far left and the alert text to its right.

If you'd prefer to use the older, traditional MacOS alert dialog style, you can achieve this using a defaults write command.

Switching to the Classic Alert Dialog Design

Begin by launching the Terminal application and entering the following command:

defaults write -g NSAlertMetricsGatheringEnabled -bool false

Press return.

To ensure that all apps, Finder, and the system adopt this change, restart your Mac (alternatively, you can log out and back in, but restarting is often a good idea, especially if you only reboot occasionally).

Afterward, the alert dialog windows will appear in the classic style instead of the new one.

Restoring the Default Modern Alert Dialog Style

Should you decide to switch back to the modern alert dialog look in macOS Monterey, Big Sur, or later versions, open Terminal again and input this command:

defaults delete -g NSAlertMetricsGatheringEnabled

Once again, restart your Mac or log out and back in to apply the default modern style.

Special thanks go to @LeoNatan on Twitter for discovering this useful defaults command, as well as for providing the screenshots from their tweet on this topic (embedded below).

Do you prefer the old style macOS alerts? There is a way to get them globally for AppKit in Big Sur and Monterey:

defaults write -g NSAlertMetricsGatheringEnabled -bool false pic.twitter.com/7QZzvhbcoU

— Léo Natan (@LeoNatan) December 3, 2021

What’s your opinion? Do you favor one MacOS alert dialog style over the other? Have you applied this change? This is just one example of many defaults commands available for Mac, allowing adjustments beyond what's easily accessible through system preferences and the GUI.

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