TFT on Mac after a macOS Tahoe update: the checklist

It always plays out the same way. You accept the macOS update one evening, the Mac reboots twice, and the next morning nothing behaves the way it did yesterday: a security window opens instead of the app, keyboard shortcuts do nothing, the sound comes out of the built-in speakers even though a headset is plugged in. The conclusion writes itself, and it is almost always wrong: "the update broke the game". A major macOS release hardly ever breaks an application. What it does is reset, or re-ask for, the permissions you granted once and forgot about, and that is what feels like a failure. So the post-update job is to hand those permissions back, in the order they show up. If the launcher is not installed yet, start with our install walkthrough instead.

What a major macOS update actually changes, and what it leaves alone

A major update replaces the operating system, not your apps. The Applications folder survives, your documents survive, and a signed app keeps running exactly as before. What does get re-evaluated is every permission you granted by hand: the right to be opened at all when the app came from the internet, the right to read your keystrokes, the right to capture the screen, the right to use the microphone. Those grants are stored separately and tied to a precise identity of the app, not to its name. A fresh system, or an app that was replaced by a newer build in the meantime, is enough for that link to stop being recognised. And the symptom is not an error message: it is a feature that quietly stops responding. That silence is exactly what makes people think something is broken.

One clarification that holds for every release to come: you will not find a list of what is new in a specific version of macOS here, nor any promise of a speed-up or a regression on one release rather than another. The name changes every year; the mechanism below does not. Check these points, in this order, whatever version you just installed.

First symptom: the security dialog that comes back on first launch

This is the loudest one and the most harmless. On the first launch after an update, macOS may refuse to open an app downloaded outside the App Store, and the window mostly offers to move it to the Trash. That is not a verdict on the app: it is how the system treats anything that came from the internet and has not been opened explicitly on this installation yet. The fix takes ten seconds and only has to be done once.

1. 1Check first that the app really sits in the Applications folder, rather than in Downloads or still running from its disk image.
2. 2Open it with a right-click, then Open in the menu: the same window comes back, but with an Open button that a plain double-click never offers.
3. 3If that button is missing, go to System Settings, Privacy and Security: the message is repeated there, with a button to open it anyway.
4. 4If the window returns on every single launch, the grant did not fail. The app is being opened from a temporary location, a disk image or the Downloads folder.

Accessibility: the permission your keyboard shortcuts depend on

This is the most important section in this article, because it is the one that most convincingly looks like a broken game. Keyboard shortcuts and the fill-the-screen button both go through the Accessibility permission, in System Settings, Privacy and Security, Accessibility. When it is missing, the app opens normally, the game launches normally, the match plays normally, and the keys do nothing at all. No message appears, because from the system point of view there is no error: an app without that right simply never receives the keystrokes.

There is a second, nastier subtlety. That grant is tied to the app signature, not to its name or its location. If the app was replaced by another build in the meantime, the system can keep the row ticked in the list while still refusing the right to what is actually installed. The box is checked and nothing works: that is the case that burns the most time, because you end up looking everywhere except there.

• The game runs, the picture is smooth, and no key does anything: look at Accessibility before anything else.
• The button that fills the screen stopped responding: same permission, same fix.
• The row is already ticked: untick it and tick it again, or better, remove the entry with the minus button and add the app back.
• Then quit the app completely and relaunch it. An app that was already open when you ticked the box does not pick up the right mid-session.

What each key actually does once the right is back is covered in our keyboard guide.

Screen Recording: the capture that comes out black

If you record your games or share them in voice chat, Screen Recording is the second permission to hand back. The symptom is unmistakable: the capture software works, the file is created, the duration is right, but the game window shows up black or frozen on a single frame. That is not a rendering problem, it is the system refusing to hand pixels to an app that does not hold that right on this release. The grant lives in the same place, System Settings, Privacy and Security, Screen Recording, and it belongs to the software doing the capturing, not to the game.

Audio output back on the built-in speakers

After the reboots an update goes through, audio output often falls back to the default device, which means the Mac speakers. A USB headset unplugged during the process, an external display grabbing the sound over HDMI, wireless earbuds that reconnected somewhere else: the result is the same, you start a match and the sound comes out of the wrong place, or not at all. The rule holds outside of updates too: pick your output before you launch, never during, because a device change while the Android device is already running is not always followed. The rest of the audio traps are in our sound article.

Sleep and Focus back at their default values

These are the two settings you forget precisely because you set them once, years ago. Display sleep returns to its standard delay, and a short delay makes itself known at the worst possible moment: a planning phase where you think without touching the keyboard is enough to drop the screen. Focus, meanwhile, may have lost the schedule that muted notifications during your sessions, and banners start landing on the board again. Neither is a fault, but both get blamed on the game the evening they come back. What they really cost in battery life is covered in our battery article.

The real rule: pick your moment to install a major release

Here is the advice that matters, and none of it is technical. A major macOS update goes in when you have time in front of you, not the evening a set ends and not halfway through a ranked climb. The reason is not that it would break something: it is that it costs you the install itself, plus the time to hand back each permission, plus the time to find your settings again. That hour always lands badly when a calendar deadline is close, and it gets paid for in games you did not play.

Add one thing most people only learn when they need it: on a Mac, going back to the previous system version is not a button. It is not an uninstall, it is a full reinstall with a backup to restore afterwards and an evening gone. Rolling back costs far more than waiting. The sensible habit is to let the first few weeks pass, so the tools you rely on, whatever they are, can ship their own compatibility updates.

• Avoid: the day before a set ends, when the ladder freezes and you still have games to play.
• Avoid: mid-climb, when you want to queue again without re-doing settings between matches.
• Avoid: right before a tournament or a session planned with other players.
• Good moment: the start of a set, a weekend with no target, or any day where losing an hour costs nothing.

A failure that appears on update day is almost never a game failure

This is the distinction to keep in mind when you go looking for help. On the day of a system update the coincidence is so strong that everything misbehaving gets blamed on the game. Yet the permissions above show up as exactly what a game bug looks like: dead keys, full screen refusing to engage, black captures, missing audio. So always start with the system, and only look at the game if the symptom survives the checklist. Naming the exact step where it stops saves a full round trip with support.

And there is one point that no longer depends on your macOS version at all. Patch 18.1, which opens Set 18 and moves Teamfight Tactics onto Unreal Engine, also removed macOS support: no support, no fixes. Riot describes that removal as temporary and says it is working to support the platform again in a future update, with no date announced. No account was reset in the process: progress, rank and purchases stay attached to the Riot account. The Android build remains fully supported, and that is what OSFT Launcher runs on an Apple Silicon Mac. Updating macOS, or refusing to, will not bring the macOS client back either way. The full story is in our article on the macOS removal.

The post-update checklist, in order

1. 1Open the app once and deal with the security dialog if it appears: right-click then Open, or System Settings, Privacy and Security.
2. 2Check Accessibility before you start a match: keyboard shortcuts and filling the screen both depend on it. If in doubt, remove the entry, add it back, then quit and relaunch the app.
3. 3Hand Screen Recording back to your capture software if you record or share your games.
4. 4Pin the audio output to the right device before you launch the game, not during.
5. 5Push display sleep back out and restore your Focus schedule.
6. 6Play one normal game without changing anything else. If a symptom survives those five points, that is when the troubleshooting guide is worth opening.