"Google Sheets, for example, does this. Go to "File" or "Edit" or "View" and you'll see a menu with a list of options, every single one having an icon (same thing with the right-click context menu). It's extra noise to me. It's not that I think menu items should never have icons. I think they can be incredibly useful (more on that below)."
"This posture lends itself to a practice where designers have an attitude of "I need an icon to fill up this space" instead of an attitude of "Does the addition of a icon here, and the cognitive load of parsing and understanding it, help or hurt how someone would use this menu system?" The former doesn't require thinking. It's just templating - they all have icons, so we need to put something there."
"Hmm. Interesting. Ok so we've got an icon for like half the menu items. I wonder why some get icons and others don't? For example, the "Settings" menu item (third from the top) has an icon. But the other item in its grouping "Privacy Report" does not. I wonder why? Especially when Safari has an icon for Privacy report, like if you go to customize the toolbar you'll see it:"
Defaulting to icons in every menu item increases visual noise and cognitive load rather than improving usability. Icons can be highly useful, but an automatic templating approach pushes designers to fill space instead of evaluating benefit. Real-world examples include Google Sheets' uniform menu icons and macOS Tahoe adding icons broadly. Inconsistent application, such as some Safari menu items showing icons while closely related items do not, highlights the lack of clear criteria. Each icon addition should be considered for whether it helps users parse and understand options, not applied by default.
Read at Jim-nielsen
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