After updating, and in the Beta, I can no longer edit the toolbar with the Mac system toolbar editor
Hello Jake!
This is an intended change by design. Now the toolbar adapts to your selection, showing the compatible options for each element you’ve selected on Canvas.
Before this update, the toolbar already worked in this manner, as it greyed out options that couldn’t be used depending on your selection. The new toolbar aims to remove clutter.
About the customization of the toolbar, I’d like to suggest using the Command Bar instead, which is a quick way to invoke different tools and learns and memorizes the ones you use the most, so it becomes a faster way to access your go-to tools in Sketch.
Hope this helps!
Very disappointing. No longer the shining Mac-assed app it once was. Feels like a web app now.
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Thanks for taking the time to send your feedback, Jake. We’re always listening, and I’m ensuring that I pass it on to our Product team.
Why is the app deciding for me what I need to see? I want to adapt it to my own preferences with my hands—that’s how it will work best for me. As the designer, I’m the pro user, and I know what I need.
Hmm. It’s not the same manner in any way.
Before Copenhagen, all the tools had their own fixed spots in the UI, so I could easily memorize where everything was and when I could use it. Now, things show up and hide, jump around, and change positions all the time.
What I need is a stable environment I can memorize, so I can build muscle memory and work quickly without straining my eyes or brain—without constantly figuring out where to move my hand or what to click next. I need my eyes and brain working together to do real work on the Canvas.
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Thanks for your feedback, @Treword. I’m making sure to annotate it as well.
Also, I’m moving this thread to the Share an Idea section, given this is not actually a bug, but an intended behaviour.
Your feedback is always welcome, thanks!
Just updated tot he latest version of Version 2025.3.1 (220691).
Has the option to customise the top bar interface elements been removed totally?
If so why? it was far better and a faster workflow to be able to have the most personally used ones this area. Rather than just a preset set icons that may or may not have a drop down which they currently don’t show. Also is there a way to re-show the text description as well as the icon… I don’t think the icons alone are descriptive enough regardless of the hover state.
To be honest they are a duplication of what selections are in the main menu, so to be able to pull out what people use on a regular basis, and customise it personally seems more beneficial. And also its a bit of a waste of space to have a handful of icons tucked to the left, that then have drop downs, when there a wasted bar to the right.
Bring back our freedom!… or let me know what I’m missing to be able to customise it.
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I ditto this comment, theres a reason why Adobe apps like photoshop has had virtually the same interface for years and new features get added into main menus and/or have their own window, and the floating tool menu is customisable. And any new properties menus/panels are totally optional. It allows for customisation for the user to their advantage, and discard options that are irrelevant to them.
The interface needs consistency, not changes every few months, I don’t want to feel I have to keep re-learning Sketch everytime a change or new feature is added.
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I would like to agree with these comments. Sketch - what are you doing? Are you forgetting where you have come from and what made you great!? @JorgeF what is happening at Sketch? It’s really going down hill in terms of UI and usability - it’s creating headaches for designers when there was no need to. It’s really disapointing.
I loved the old toolbar, and the ability to customise it. The new one is hard to see, and confusing.
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Hi Jorge,
I like the new UI, but without a customizable toolbar, this is horrible. I use Sketch since day one, and I always loved so work with Sketch. I stayed true to Sketch when Adobe XD was introduced, I stick with Sketch against Figma, but now, without a customizable toolbar I will downgrade to 2025 2.4. If there will be no customizable toolbar in the near future I will definitely take a look into switching to Figma. Very disappointed!!!
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I just want to share my disappointment with the toolbar, but there are more areas of the app that just got plain worse and harder to use.
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This is very annoying. Users are now forced to do things exactly one/your way.
The “context sensitive action” idea in Sketch now is extremely overdone, mostly unnecessary and impeding. Additional click count has gone up massively.
I do need a quick way to insert a shape, round to pixel etc.
Now, when e.g. aiming to insert a shape quickly, I have to click outside the current object or even frame (when zoomed I have to even move the view) to have the toolbar icon visible I must click. And THEN have choose the shape from a list and click again.
This was 1 click away. Now it is 3 to 4.
And so on.
I am not interested in learning keybindings for all that.
The command bar way: typing S, typing r e c, press ENTER – versus 1 click away …
Please bring the customizable toolbar back or introduce a way to switch between old/new behaviour.
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@JorgeF do you have any reply to the feelings shared in this thread? Like many users on here, I’ve been with Sketch since day 1, and resisted the Figma lure, but that’s becoming harder and harder to ignore with the degrading of usability in the app, plus lack of visibility around improvements, or AI integration. Your thoughts are welcome.
our opinions here are of little importance to sketch. they are clearly moving the ui towards a cross platform system they can launch on web. the days of them caring about the Mac are over. it’s the natural progression of large software companies, same as 1Password.
I wish you were right. Sketch should be a multiplatform app.
BTW, moving to the web isn’t the only option. The Browser Company managed to port Arc to Windows while keeping Swift as their primary language. This approach shows that “Swift-first” doesn’t necessarily mean “Apple-only.” After seeing the results, I believe that this is the way for Sketch. Multiplatform native desktop app with one codebase.
Even if the Windows version wouldn’t have all the features available on macOS, it would still be a great tool for developers working on Windows or Linux (they can easily virtualize Windows on Linux, which isn’t possible with macOS).
I can’t really speak for designers—most of my friends prefer Macs anyway—but from what I’ve seen, many teams still end up choosing Fi9ma largely because of developer-related considerations.
@Andre777 Which buttons are you personally missing from the toolbar?
@ekifol Which buttons are you missing you’d like to have back?
We are very much not moving towards that, and we’re not a large software company.
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It’s not about the missing buttons. It’s about the new toolbar which became contextual to your selection. Perhaps it sounded like a a good idea, but in practice it’s detrimental to the UX, worsening the ergonomics and increasing the cognitive load while trying to use the tools.
I gave a new design a shot, but I just found myself spending way to much time looking for things. Looks pretty, but that’s about it. I reverted back to the old version 
Understood. I’m afraid the toolbar is here to stay, so I hope you give it another shot.
With the most common layer types selected — frame, text, shape, images — most of the toolbar remains exactly the same. Any extra buttons, if they exist at all — e.g. removing background on images, boolean operations on 2+ shapes — always go at the end, so the things you can always do remain in the same place.
The only real variance is in either:
- Dedicated edit modes, such as vector editing or image editing. We believe this makes sense as in these modes most standard toolbar actions (e.g. grouping, creating symbols, moving front/back) can’t be used, and new ones become available (e.g. scissors in vector editing, magic wand in image editing). It also reinforces you’re in a mode.
- Lack of selection. Same as above, you can’t do much without a selection but to insert layers, so we surface those actions. This is similar to the inspector, we don’t show disabled controls that are selection-dependent when you don’t have a selection.
Generally, we’re treating the toolbar not so differently from the inspector. Most of it stays the same across selections, but some things specific to a layer type or a mode may appear. The inspector does this to a greater extent, whereas the toolbar keeps it to a minimum.
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