Image slip-up reveals possible name of macOS 27

With less than a week to go until the start of Apple’s annual WWDC get-together, an accidental leak appears to have revealed the name, or at least one of the possible names, of this year’s Mac software update.

The best thing about this leak is that you can very easily check it out for yourself. (At least for now. Apple may take it down in the future.) Find a tweet using the #WWDC26 hashflag, such as the post by Andreas Storm in which he reveals this discovery, right-click the tiny Apple logo next to the hashtag text, and select Copy Image Address. Then paste it into a document, and you should see the following label:

https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags/Project_Big_Bear_2026_Hashmoji_only/Project_Big_Bear_2026_Hashmoji_only.png

Notice anything unusual? That’s right: it refers to something called “Project Big Bear.” Perhaps this relates to soil sampling in Ontario, Canada, or a Bristol charity. But more likely this is a glimpse of the California landmark that will be used for this year’s macOS update.

Versions of macOS were once named after big cats, but in 2013, Apple, joking that it was starting to run out of suitable felines, switched to places in its home state of California. The current version, macOS 26, is named after Lake Tahoe. (We’ve got a comprehensive list of all macOS versions together with their codenames and features.) Craig Federighi traditionally spends several minutes at WWDC each year discussing the exploits of Apple’s “crack marketing team” as they travel around the state scouting out potential targets.

Based on the image filename it now seems likely that macOS 27 will be named after Big Bear Lake, a lake and adjacent city in San Bernardino County. The area was named after its population of grizzly bears, but these left or died out in the early 20th century.

BigBearCabins

macOS 27 will be revealed during the WWDC 2026 keynote on Monday. For all the latest information about macOS Big Bear, assuming that is its name, and this whole thing hasn’t been a Federighi prank, bookmark our macOS 27 superguide.