The impact of the 32-bit decision will be felt disproportionately. The Catalina installer will also warn you about 32-bit apps before you start the upgrade. Affected apps and components of otherwise 64-bit apps will appear organized by developer, or under a separate heading if they're from the Mac App Store. If you want to check to see which of your Mac's apps are still 32-bit, open the System Information app and scroll down to Legacy Software. These include anything related to the legacy QuickTime Player 7 app, the InkServer handwriting-recognition service (now replaced, more or less, by Sidecar and its Apple Pencil support), the old Apple-maintained Java 6 Runtime, and the long-deprecated Carbon API and any apps built using it.

And a few longstanding components of macOS haven't made the jump to 64-bit. At that point, no currently supported version of macOS will be able to run 32-bit software. 32-bit apps no longer run on the latest version of macOS.Īssuming nothing changes about Apple's typical macOS update practices, Mojave will stop getting security updated when macOS 10.17 is released in the fall of 2021. June 2019: Apple announces macOS Catalina, which makes good on Apple's promise to drop 32-bit software support.

32-bit software continues to run but with more frequent and aggressive nag messages than High Sierra.

September 2018: Apple releases Mojave.

Apple announces macOS Mojave, which will be the last version of the OS to run 32-bit code.

June 2018: All new apps and updates to existing apps submitted to the Mac App Store need to be 64-bit only.

April 2018: High Sierra's 10.13.4 update begins warning users about 'not optimized' (read: 32-bit) apps the first time they're launched.

January 2018: All new apps submitted to the Mac App Store need to be 64-bit only.

June 2017: Apple announces macOS 10.13 High Sierra and says it's the last release that will run 32-bit apps ' without compromise.'.

In the process, a few 64-bit systems with 32-bit graphics drivers and 32-bit EFIs are dropped from the support list.

July 2012: OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion boots into the 64-bit kernel by default on all systems that support it, including a few that previously defaulted to the 32-bit kernel.

Older Macs continue to default to the 32-bit kernel and 32-bit drivers, but new Macs introduced in this era typically default to the 64-bit kernel.

July 2011: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion drops support for 32-bit Intel CPUs (Snow Leopard had already ended all support for PowerPC systems).

Snow Leopard's 64-bit capabilities are a major component of Apple's marketing push, which infamously includes ' no new features.' However, most systems still default to loading the 32-bit kernel.

August 2009: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard still runs on 32-bit chips, but for the first time everything from the apps to the OS kernel supports 64-bit operation.

Unlike Windows, Apple never ships separate 32- and 64-bit versions of Mac OS X.

October 2007: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard launches with actual support for regular 64-bit apps Universal Binaries can run on 32-bit and 64-bit Intel and PowerPC machines, covering four architectures within a single app.

August 2006: Apple launches the Intel Mac Pro with a 64-bit Woodcrest CPU mainstream 64-bit Core 2 Duo Macs follow shortly afterward.

June 2005: Apple announces that it will begin using Intel processors, which are still primarily 32-bit.

April 2005: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger allows for 64-bit processes under the hood-they can be spun off from another process or run via the Terminal.

June 2003: The PowerPC G5 CPU is the first 64-bit-capable chip to show up in a Mac, and with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, it can theoretically address up to 8GB of RAM.

For (what I hope will be) the last time, let's review the Mac's entire 64-bit timeline from start to finish:

Mac hardware and macOS made the jump from 32 bits to 64 bits a long time ago, but Catalina will be the very first version of macOS that is totally unable to run 32-bit software. The end of 32-bit apps (and other removals)

Dolphin emulator mac os catalina