[macOS] Default Xcode on macOS 26 Tahoe will be set to Xcode 26.6 on 2026.07.21 #14344

Breaking changes

Default Xcode will be changed from 26.5 to 26.6 on macOS 26 Tahoe.

Target date

The update will start on 2026.07.21 and take 2-4 days

The motivation for the changes

Xcode 26.6 is the latest stable release from Apple, and it is required to smoothly update MacOS images to latest version.

Possible impact

If you use the default Xcode version and your project is not compatible with Xcode 26.6 your build can be broken.

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 22.04 Arm64
• Ubuntu 24.04
• Ubuntu 24.04 Arm64
• Ubuntu 26.04
• Ubuntu 26.04 Arm64
• Ubuntu Slim
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• macOS 26
• macOS 26 Arm64
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025
• Windows Server 2025 with Visual Studio 2026
• Windows Desktop 11
• Windows Desktop 11 with Visual Studio 2026

Mitigation ways

Please consider switching Xcode in runtime to the version that you need to build an app.
The following snippet can be used to switch Xcode as well as maxim-lobanov/setup-xcode action:

sudo xcode-select -s "/Applications/Xcode_26.4.1.app"
The list of all available Xcode versions can be found in the image documentation, for example: macos-26.